Getting an SEO Education - Going to College
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In 2006 (judging from the copyright on the page), Internet marketing company Vertical Measures decided to track down the top college level courses for both search engine marketing and search engine optimization. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as we had hoped,” they noted wryly. They did multiple, appropriate searches for .edu sites on both Google and Yahoo using relevant keywords. Then they narrowed the list by finding out which organizations offered a quality SEO or SEM curriculum.
They came up with a list of 19 schools with quality SEO/SEM offerings. I can’t speak to whether these offerings all still exist, but I would be surprised if they did not, given the growth in this field. Each of the entries in the list links back to the educational organization’s web site, so you can check them out for yourself. It’s worth noting that not all of these institutions are accredited, if that matters to you.
Some of the institutions that earn praise for their curriculum come as no surprise. George Mason University’s Search Engine Marketing curriculum is said to provide “a high level of coverage including in depth courses in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Marketing and Web Site Copywriting.” For $1,895 you can expect to spend 250 hours (one year, really) on the class – not counting homework. It’s an online course; you’ll receive 32 downloadable PDF lessons totaling nearly 600 pages, 26 assignments, and truly extensive online resources.
Indiana University offers an introductory SEM course. It appears to be on-site, though the materials are all available on the web (and the links to material in the syllabus still appear to be active).
I was pleased to see that my old alma mater, Rutgers University, also offers an SEM course that Vertical Measures believed should be rated “one of the best.” It appears to be very similar to the one offered at George Mason University.
The University of Alabama at Huntsville offers two courses, one on SEO and one on SEM. These are distinct online courses, with the SEM class taking up more time and costing more than the SEO course. Both of them have the goal of getting their students in the position of being able to open their own business or apply for a job as an SEO or SEM.
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