SEO Certification is nothing but a MYTH! Oh NO!! I am not cursing; I am just saying the fact!
It has been almost 2 to 3 complete years since I started learning and practicing the SEO Techniques. I can really not say that I am a pro in it, however I can make a site rank in the top 10 search list for any given keyword. I also know the tricks to improve a site’s Google Page Rank (I personally don’t care the Google PR for it solely does not guarantee the quality of a site). I also had a decent amount understanding on the concepts like Indexing, Ranking, Traffic, Keyword research, HTML Tags ( META , H1, B, etc), robot.txt files, building links and what not! I guess I have touched the base on almost all the topics on SEO. This is what made me think why not take a SEO certification. This will add credit to my freelancer resume and I can get more customers to gain more jobs.
A quick search on SEO Certification turned out these results
It then got me thinking, there a plenty out there. Which one to choose?
I ran through the programs they had. It was all like testing what I already knew and did not seem to give me anything new out of the training or the certification either. A little more search gave me Bruce Clay’s SEO Training which I found to be relatively useful.
I do not want to ramble on any further rather I will give you the conclusion:
- There is NO single accredited vendor for SEO Certification
- There however are few of the well recognized (recognized online) people conducting SEO Classes and certifications. These might help you learn something out of the session along with a certificate which I am not really sure worth it, if you can not demonstrate your capabilities.
- There is NO client/customer at any of the free lancing websites, asking you for a SEO Certification. All they want is the work to be done.
- SEO Certification is not like a RHCE or CISSP, upon completion of which you can be at least 80 percent assured of getting a job with regard to the other non-certified competitors.
- The person hiring SEO Consultants or SEO Specialists online via any freelancing website are themselves technically challenged. Such people will never demand a certificate but the outcome – getting their site(s) top the search engine list.
After through analysis, I consider SEO Certification is a myth. If you can perform well, keep track of your achievements viz. how many sites have you optimized, how many sites have you increased the PR for, etc. If possible get some written testimonials from your customers/clients. If you have done a great job, anyone would be more than happy to give you a note of appreciation J
For the beginners, please get yourself a copy of Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. That is how I got mine started off. I then have read a lot of random books through years starting from some white papers including Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP, Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, Landing Page Optimization, etc.
Many people ask me to write an article on How to make money out of a website. I sure will but SEO is what you need to know on the first hand. Once you have done the SEO Magic and started getting decent traffic, ask your self the same question. You would have started earning dollars before could find an answers for it J
Happy SEO-ing!
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