50 replies to this topic

[viewfactory]

Hi all,

Is there a way to get accredited? Special training courses? I would be very interested to know what the general course of action is to becoming a SEO and offering it as a service.

Thanks in advance!

[OldWelshGuy]

Just my opinion, but i read that during the second World War, a soldier was promoted to the rank of General, this soldier was then told he was the youngest general ever to be appointed in the history of the army (British I think)

He was a bit put out by this and spoke to his wife who said <paraphrase> " If you dress like a General, speak like a general, lead like a general, and get the results of a general, then you ARE a general" this has stuck with me since reading it and it is something i try to live life by.

To answer your question, I am sure there are qualifications somewhere in SEO, but I dont know of any of the top SEO gurus who posess them. IMO the best qualification you can have in SEO is to get the results for your clients. We design as well as SEO so we have links back from clients sites, and this is a major source of new business as competitors 'checkout' their competition to find out that we have built a site on the first page.

The nearest i can think of to an SEO qualification (in the minds of a client) would be a marketing one.

I would spend my time learning the job however from places like this, then :-

" If you dress like a SEO, speak like a SEO, lead like a SEO, and get the results of a SEO, then you ARE a SEO"

Guess that makes me a private second class then

[GeordieSEO]

The only recognised courses I know of are the one run by Robin Nobles and John Alexander at http://www.onlinewebtraining.com/ In fact I don't know of any other courses.

[qwerty]

There's no official certification or accreditation because there are no official standards in the SEO field. However, there are a couple of organizations that require members to adhere to what they consider to be ethical practices, so being listed by them is seen by many as a strong indicator of professionalism.

Have a look at SEO Pros and SEO Consultants.

[Jill]

There's no official certification to become an SEO.

As long as you get high rankings without tricking the search engines, you can pretty much say you're an SEO if you want. (You can say you are even if you don't do those things, but you really wouldn't be one.)

Jill

[viewfactory]

Thanks for all of your input!

To sum it up, would you all agree that if I continue to study, learn, and apply the optimizations techniques in specialized forums such as this one, and sites like Search Engine Watch, and in using those techniques place a high ranking site, I can confidently claim to be an SEO?

[mcanerin]

At this point, yes.

At some point, the industry will either fade into the background or get merged with something else, or will become important enough for regulation, either self imposed or externally. Most likely self imposed.

SEO may "fade away" simply because the SE's become good enough at detecting SEO'd copy and therefore there will be no significant difference between the results of an SEO and the results of a good copywriter (for copy) or webmaster (for design issues). At this point it's not likely, but it's certainly possible, even probable. I notice that Google has stopped actively hiring mathematicians and started looking for linguistic analysts.

After all, once the "tricks" stop working and the SE's start showing "natural" sites with good content and design, then SEO at that point would simply be an aspect of copywriting and design. The definition of a good copywriter or good web designer would simply be one that including SEO as part of their toolkit, just like font choices, or optimising color palettes, or knowing that web copy is written differently than magazine copy.

Not that I expect to see an "SEO is dead" announcement anytime within the next two years. But assuming that any industry will continue on forever has significant flaws.

There is a second part to this but I'm trying to keep my posts shorter, so now that I've kicked the hornets nest I'll shut up for a bit

Ian

[viewfactory]

Your comments are greatly appreciated.

mcanerin: If you want to elaborate in another post, I would be very interested in reading more.

Kevin

[schecky]

There's no official certification to become an SEO.

As long as you get high rankings without tricking the search engines, you can pretty much say you're an SEO if you want. (You can say you are even if you don't do those things, but you really wouldn't be one.)

Jill

Or you could be one, and call yourself a web developer, that's my preference, then there's no doubt about what I'm going to do.

[SEO-Richard]

There is a second part to this but I'm trying to keep my posts shorter, so now that I've kicked the hornets nest I'll shut up for a bit

Please! Pretty pretty....

How did you find out about Google hiring linguistics analystis????

So then SEO becomes: Usability; copywriting; design; focussed marketing; click-tracking... what else have I missed?


Here's another hornet's nest. Within the next five years China's going to be the second economic power in the world (Guardian, today). Personally, I'd put it at the next two or three years.


So then you get to outsourcing, as I've already posted before....global economy and all that.....ooh, it's going to be a rollercoaster ride soon. Diversify, diversify I say.

[schecky]

SEO may "fade away" simply because the SE's become good enough at detecting SEO'd copy and therefore there will be no significant difference between the results of an SEO and the results of a good copywriter (for copy) or webmaster (for design issues).

IMO, stemming makes it easier for SEO's to write compelling copy because you have less keyword restraint. No worries about plural singular, strcuring sentences to fit using the keywords etc. Or you just write long copy and let natural language take over. Stemming is not new, Infoseek used stemming, funny, I usually placed about the same there as I did anywhere else.

[mcanerin]

How did you find out about Google hiring linguistics analystis????

A couple of weeks ago I went to G's Job section and there were a bunch of openings for them. I just went there to show you the link and there is not one left. But they were there, honest...

I remember quite clearly, because it was totally out of character for the normal postings.

As for the future of SEO, there is no major revelation or special knowledge involved, just an observation on a cycle I keep seeing over and over, and I think it might apply to us, as well.

When I was in university in the 80's, I volunteered for the student newspaper. We did things the old fashioned way - on a linotronic that spit out rolls of paper that we then cut into columns and pasted onto big sheets of cardboard, which later became a newspaper template. It wasn't hard, but did require special knowledge.

Then this fruity little computer with a 6in black and white screen and a program called Pagemaker (and Quark) burst on the publishing scene, creating "desktop publishing" almost overnight.

Within a year *everyone* was a "desktop publisher" and everywhere you went there were ads and newsletters for all this stuff. Not too long after that, the programs had become easy enough for a novice to use, and other software began to fill in the gap. Today, most people do their "desktop publishing" in Word. When you want real publishing done, you go to the pros and get it done right. The "desktop publishers" all either went out of business or went into the high end game.

The same thing happened (and is happening) to website hosting. At first, it was complicated, expensive and difficult. But now almost anyone can be a "web host" and put up a linux box with off the shelf software that would make the original web hosting companies weep with jealousy. But for a while there, damn near everyone was a "web host". Now, many people do it themselves, and when they want professional results, they go find a host on a T3 with multiple redundancy everything. The middle guys have shrunk to a very small market. Most resell for the big companies. All the "web hosts" have either disappeared, blended the hosting with other stuff (like web design) or are working for the big guys - either web hosting companies or powerful internal servers for companies.

Web design. Once the realm of uber geeks and professional artists, now anyone with a copy of Front Page or Dreamweaver can put up a website. Half of them don't even know basic HTML. Most people either put up their own website (or have a friend or family member do it) or they hire a pro. And they are picky now. You can't just put anything up and have people pay you. This industry hasn't totally changed yet, but I won't be surprised to see it go the way of DTP. Very good designers will continue to make a living doing what they do, many people will do their own (personal and hobby) sites and the "web designers" in the middle will die out.

SEO. At first, hardly anyone even knew that you *could* optimise for search engines, except possibly some spammers. Then, almost overnight, everyone suddenly discovered SEO, and many people became overnight "SEO"s. Lots of software, How-to books/sites, and forums have come out. The result is that darn near *everyone* is an SEO now. Many website designers and web hosts have just "tacked it on" to their current offerings.

I think the trend will continue. Normal people, those who have their own websites, will learn the basics of SEO and will figure out how to avoid doing dumb things. Software will also start coming out that is SEO aware - ie database driven site software that has friendly URLS as standard, and keyword density checkers in addition to word count tools and spell checkers in WYSIWYG editers, and so forth. Basic SEO will be taught as a standard part of web design and copywriting courses.

If this happens, then the SEO's that are just tweaking things and haven't really spent the time to truly develop the skills will soon disappear. Most people will do their own stuff (or have a friend do it) for hobby sites and low end things, and will hire pros to do it for the higher end or highly competitive stuff.

We are starting to see that right now - I expect many of the people on this forum are not "SEO"'s but rather normal people, with a website they want to perform well on search engines. I think G and company will do their best to arrange things so that these people will be able to show up well for most local phrases, and that anyone needing to show up for "pro-grade" or highly competitive phrases will end up hiring a professional SEO to do it.

Not due to some sort of evil master plan, but because that's what should naturally happen. Designing a system that will eventually only show results that were created by a professional SEO is NOT likely a goal for the major search engines, but allowing a local flower shop in Nowheresville, Ohio to dominate the SERPS and show up whenever someone in New Zealand types in flower shop isn't a good result, either. I expect a blend. I expect that blend will happen faster than many people think.

The middle guys will either become high end, resell high end services (like hosting, now) or disappear.

At that point, will we need certification? Maybe. Probably. People will want to make sure that they really are dealing with a pro, and companies will begin hiring people with SEO experience, but since HR types don't know anything about how to evaluate an SEO, they will begin to ask for some sort of certification. It's the same with almost any industry - experience is great, and that's what executives hire on, but certification makes the HR department comfortable - so most people starting out need some sort of paperwork, or get an exec to hire them instead of the HR guys.

As with any analogy, this could be completely flawed and totally wrong. But it fits what I see going on.

My opinion, as usual,

Ian

[Jill]

Good, interesting, insightful post, Ian!

Jill

[SEO-Richard]

Quality, quality. As in any business, quality survives - well, maybe not building

There's always been cowboys in plumbing, and people willing to pay for cowboys too. But there's also always been the one-man bands, and then the small companies, and the medium companies, and the super-uber companies.

Horses for courses. The cowboys recirculate, old ones leave, new ones come in. I suppose all the other companies do, too, but on a slower cycle. Pick your cycle speed (mine's number 9, warm wash)

You say the middle people die out? It doesn't happen in the building trade, why has it happened in DTP and Web Design?

Good tip about the Google jobs - very cunning!

[torka]

I probably could be considered a "middle" person in web design. I'm certainly no high-end corporate designer, but I'm not a "friend doing a favor" -- or some "3 pages for $85" low-end designer either. Perhaps its a short term trend, but if anything, with the improving economy my inquiries are up.

What I'm finding is that people may start out trying to do their own site using their hosting company's "web builder" or a program like FrontPage. If they get past the learning curve -- and, as easy to use as these things are, there is still a learning curve -- they find that getting a design they're happy with isn't as simple as they might have thought. They've got great pictures in their minds, but getting those things to show up on the screen (cross-browser) is harder than it looks.

Steve and Norm make fixing up a house look fairly simple on TV, too, but I'd be willing to bet there's a lot more hard work and cussin' involved than what we see on This Old House. Which is why, in the long run, most people (surely not all, but most) opt to hire a contractor when they want to add on a room, instead of trying to do it all by themselves.

And then there are the ones who simply don't have the time, desire and/or brain capacity to accomodate learning another computer application and keeping up with a website.

I could be an excellent carpenter. I have the basic skills and smarts. But what's the point? It isn't my core business, I'm not that interested in it anyway, and I can make much more efficient uses of my time. My clients look on website design in pretty much the same light.

Sure, the key -- at least for me -- has been to become something of a one-stop shop, not to concentrate on simply doing design. That's one reason I'm here -- I want to make sure that I'm doing right by my clients as far as the search engines are concerned. So I admit you could rightly accuse me of not being a "middle range" designer anymore, since that's only a part of what I offer. Guess you could consider me a website version of a general contractor.

Long live the "middle"!

--Torka