SEO Certifications? What is good/recommended? Is it still relevant?
-
Hi All,
I'd really like to up my expert game in the SEO/PPC/Web Optimization game and I'd really like to get some strong credentials. So, I'm looking for some legit certifications. Of course, besides Google Analytics/Adwords Certs, is there anything else people here recommend? Is SEMPO still relevant? Check these out:
http://www.sempo.org/events/event_details.asp?id=298553
http://www.instantetraining.com/online-marketing-workshop/coached/seo-training
Let me know what you think! Thank you.
Cheers,
Pedram -
Good point yet again, EGOL. Thank you.
-
SEO is a competitive industry. You are going out there to fight the heavyweight champ. Do you want to send a guy who has kickass rankings or do you want to send the guy who sipped coffee and farted through a bunch of meetings?
I point to the Adwords professional exam. What is the passing score? Do you want a guy doing bidding who got a 70% on his exam? That means 30% of your money is being blown. Google should require 98% for a passing score.
-
All,
Thanks so much for your help. All great answers.
So, you all are saying that even for the sake of added leverage to be considered (eventually) at expert level, no extra "stamps on the resume" besides actual work is recommended?
-
Being able to point to a site in difficult SERPs that has white-hat kick-ass rankings and being able to say that you helped that site succeed should be fairly good proof.... but then there is the question of how much did that cost vs how much is the site earning.
Honestly... so many people go to training sessions to sit there, sip coffee and fart... they are putting in their time away from the office thinking that they are getting educated. Field performance paired with ROI is the only real metric that you can count on.
And.... an SEO who turns down jobs because he can't see good potential ROI in the project for the client is probably an honest person and a good SEO. How many SEOs turn down jobs for that reason?
-
As Chris stated, I think salesmanship and discussing your experience weighs heaviest. Typically, when I recruit (btw-not very much), I focus specifically on what the candidate has done in the real world. Specifically project examples & experiences and ask questions like this:
- What was the issue/problem that the site was facing?
- How did you come to that conclusion?
- What data did you looked at and what tools did you use?
- What did you use as a baseline for measurement and why?
- What strategies did you implement to overcome that issue?
Quickly you can access if the candidate knows what they are talking about. So IMHO, I think describing projects you worked on weighs much more heavily than a bunch of fragmented certs you can place on your resume.
-
In this ballgame, I don't think you can put "expertise" and "certification" in the same sentence and have them mean what you hope they will to peers, clients, and employers. I don't know of any certification that industry experts will agree is a must have in order to call yourself and expert. I don't know if many legitimate experts could actually pass so-called certification tests put out by many of the courses out there--on the first go, anyway. And, I think most employers are generally confused about the whole shebang--they can't look to any specific certification as an ideal employee requirement, they can't wrap their arms around the specific skill sets they require or whether a prospective employee has a good grasp on them or not.
As Vadim states, there is a lot of "who-you-know " in this industry. There's also a lot of get-your-foot-in-the-door through salesmanship involved. That said, it's possible Market Motive might be as close as you can get but to tell you the truth, I don't know of anyone who's taken the course or read any reviews on it.
-
Hi Pedram,
Generally not so relevant in this creativity, experience, and w_ho-you-know_ focused industry.
Here are more thoughts here at moz on the topic:
http://moz.com/community/q/is-seo-certification-org-worth-having
http://moz.com/community/q/certification-of-internal-seo-training
http://moz.com/community/q/seo-certification-seo-experience-ideal-seo-consultant
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to find a good PPC firm
Hi guys, I'm completely new to PPC. I want to hire a firm to help drive PPC traffic to credit card landing pages. Our starting budget is limited ($2,000/month for everything) but can grow to about $5,000 if we see results. My questions are: Where can I find a list of good PPC firms that fits my vertical (credit cards) and budget? What are the key questions I should ask a PPC firm before I hire them? Is there a "Beginner's Guide to PPC" type of whitepaper, ebook, article, or course I can take to educate myself? Thanks in advance!
Paid Search Marketing | | Brand_Psychic0 -
How do I print off Google Adwords Certification certificate through Google Partners?
Hey everyone, How do I print off Google Adwords Certification certificate through Google Partners?
Paid Search Marketing | | jhinchcliffe1 -
SIte wide links by google display / adsense
hey guys, I had a quick question about my back links that might be coming from adsense. I am trying to help my father our on his site and help him recover from penguin. unfortunately his company hired some shady SEOers to do "SEO". little did my dad know the BLs he were getting might be spammy, thats what I am checking now. When I ran a BL report on him ( i use two tools, SEO spyglass and OSE ) i found that there were many "sitewide" links, but i dont think there were placed there by the webmaster, i think they come from adsense. I know he has a PPC campaign where the daily spend is 3k/ day so I know its very possible that this might be the case. If my tool is picking up BLs from these sites ( which are niche related ) does google count these links for ranking purposes? and might this hurt my rankings if google just sees these as "sitewide links"
Paid Search Marketing | | david3050 -
Your thoughts on Pay-Per-Rank (Performance based) SEO firms
I am seeing several Pay-Per-Rank (performance based) SEO firms popping up lately. The model is interesting. They only take on the work that they know they can achieve good results. Most seem advertise white hat SEO. Overall thougts? Anyone have any experience with these firms? Any recommendations?
Paid Search Marketing | | paddlej0 -
Whats the most seo optimized websites?
Want to hear your opinions, let me know what do you like.
Paid Search Marketing | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0 -
What's a good CTR for text ads in GMail?
I'm running text ads in Google's Display/Content network, and these ads are targeted only to display in GMail. I'm getting a rather low CTR, but this is to be expected? Then again, how low is too low? What's a good CTR for GMail ads?
Paid Search Marketing | | monetize-2660060 -
Does anyone have a good resource for learning PPC?
Hi guys I'm looking for a good resource to brush up on PPC. Any help would be great. Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | flemingsteele0 -
Is there any correlation between the on-page factors being complete in moz and having a good quality score in Adwords?
I've been optimizing the website for a few keywords we're targeting and I'm looking to improve the quality score for my Adwords landing pages. My on-page scoring is great, but my scores in Adwords are low. Ideas?
Paid Search Marketing | | Bombbomb0