Getting an SEO Education (Page 1 of 4 )
Unlike western medicine, SEO is mostly “self-taught.” Students read books and articles, visit SEO forums and attend conferences, and then apply what they learn to their sites. They observe the results, tweak, and repeat the cycle. Is there a better way to learn the subject?
Before I give an answer, I’m going to give you two caveats. The first one is that search engine optimization as a practice is little more than a decade old; as a profession apart from being a webmaster, it is even younger. While there are currently a few certifications in the field, they are not universally recognized in the same way as a diploma from an accredited medical school.
The second one is that I’m hardly an SEO practitioner myself, aside from researching the field and writing appropriate content. I don’t actually do any significant work with HTML, I don’t study keywords, I’ve never tried to conduct a pay-per-click campaign, and most of what I’m going to talk about here is stuff I learned second hand.
But I have been watching the field closely for the past three years, and I’ve seen a certain “maturation” taking place. I hear a lot of real concern expressed about SEO scam artists, and I see a lot of people who are new to the field struggling to learn. Some have been calling for some kind of universally-recognized certification. At the end of 2005, Randfish lamented the lack of training opportunities available in the industry. The story has changed some since then, but you always have to wonder which ones to take seriously.
Let me illustrate this point. Google the phrase “SEO education” without quotes and you’ll get 1,180,000 hits. Try it with “SEO classes” and you’ll see 543,000 hits. Another likely combination, “SEO training,” yields 614,000 hits. And “SEO certification” gives you 238,000 hits, including a first-page placement for an SEO Chat article from 2005 wondering whether such certifications are a necessity, myth, or scam. Aside from the SEO Chat article, how do you know which entries to trust?
Until there are courses and/or certifications recognized by all the search engines, would-be SEOs will have to continue learning the field in a variety of ways, including, most importantly, in the school of experience. But there are more options out there now than there used to be. In this article I hope to bring a few to your attention that you might not have known about before.
Next: Factors to Consider >>
More Search Optimization Articles
More By Terri Wells
/ 8 
