Certification? Needed? Is Anyone Qualified to Certify?

This was an interesting topic brought about by Marc Macalua in the SEO Philippines mailing list, where he pointed out an article by ~~Andy Beal~~ David Temple on Marketing Pilgrim on Certifications for SEO/SEM. And I have also shared my experiences in talking about SEO/SEM education. As some of the members in the email group has shared, education may be important but in the SEO business, there are just too many trade secrets that some people are not willing to divulge. Thus how can this certification take place and who certifies the certifier? Which was a good point raised by Jonathan Casuncad of SEM-Pros.com. And he did also mention that certifications may be done for PPC campaigns since this is pretty straight forward with no hidden tactics but simply plain strategy that can be certified by the Search Engine companies themselves. One of the popular certification bodies, SEMPO does not certify you for passing a certain level of skill or knowledge, but simply certifies you that you have undergone the training. Although mentioned by ~~Andy Beal~~ David Temple, for him the only certification out there is Bruce Clay’s SEOToolSetâ„¢ since it is his tools, thus he can certify people in the proficiency of using his tool. And if this is the case, then WebCEO is also a valid certification for using their software as well. But one thing’s for sure, this certification may not necessarily mean someone has more knowledge or skills in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, and someone without any official training does not also mean they are inferior, but I agree that certification of whatever kind can sometimes be good enough proof to a prospective client, or prospective job in order to get the deal.

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8 comments on “Certification? Needed? Is Anyone Qualified to Certify?”

David Temple

November 6, 2006 at 2:39 pm

I agree that certification can not replace real world experience. That being said I think there are good reasons to take certification training. Many SEO’s that are self taught may be missing out on some best practices they overlooked while learning the art of seo. One thing I pointed out in my article was that there should be a verifiable experience component in all of the certification programs. I can see how you thought this was an article by Andy Beal since it was on his website. Thanks for your input. I’m sure the discussion will continue as it should. Thanks!