Should You Get SEO-Certified?
November 6th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under
In addition to my dull day job, I’m author/editor of at least five blogs. When I’m not blogging, I do part time SEO Consulting work for companies to sharpen my skills. The clients never stop coming but I sometimes wonder: should I get SEO Certification?
I toy with this thought because certification might consolidate reputation and bring additional income. Then again, not. So I spent the night jotting down the pros and cons of getting that certificate.
Thumbs Up:
- A piece of paper means a lot to some people. Lets face it- credentials come on a piece of paper. Someone is said to be a ‘celebrity doctor’ if big clients talk about his miraculous cures at parties and his clinic hangs heavy with degrees from Harvard. Without the latter, he may just be a very convincing quack. Or an urban leged . Certification is tangible testimony to excellence.
- You pick up knowledge. Many certification boards like EC-Council provide self-paced coursework that build up personal knowledge. Since certification follows study and fairly rigorous examinations - you feel that you really earned it.
- The sheen of credibility passes on. Certifying bodies maintain a roster of SEO professionals who can be scrutinized. Clients like the facility of doing credit investigation on folks who’ll be handling sensitive data- like their websites..
Thumbs down:
- Search engines mutate. What you know today may not hold tomorrow. Till today, no one really understands the google algorithm. Everything is educated speculation. So unless you keep learning beyond the courseware of certifying bodies, your skills rapidly reek of obsolencence.
- SEO isn’t the Excalibur of online business I know that Everton doesn’t even use SEO to his ConnectedInternet.co.uk, and still he pulls in 2000+ RSS subscribers.This proves that SEO and link building isn’t the only means to drive massive traffic to a website.
- The final authority on search engine expertise are the search engines themselves- but do you think Google would ever spill its guts and open an SEO school? That would be like giving the keys to rapists in the night!
At this point, I’m still unsure if I want to be certified, but for those who do, do consider the following bodies.
Fly high and dominate!
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Comment by Matt Ellsworth on 3 January 2008:
I’ve personally never put much thought into certifications for things like this. however, as a professional I can understand the benefits that it would portray to your clients.
Comment by Degree on 14 December 2007:
There’s no unified ‘nationally accredited’ body on SEO. So unless you have a portfolio of PR5+ sites … seo accreditation is bunk.
In fact, even getting degrees from trad schools can be worthless for consulting or promotions unless you have exemplary track record.
Comment by Varun on 28 November 2007:
Certification does not make any sense…
You must be able to show ur past work as a good example to prove your skills