If you have been from a marketing background, you must have realized how digital marketing has evolved over the years to become the most active marketing technique at present. According to a press release in the Digital Journal, over 30 percent of surveyed companies plan to invest around 75 percent of their advertising budgets on digital marketing. Every minute, an estimated 650,000 search queries are carried out on Google, 700+ videos are hosted on YouTube, and 65,000+ tweets are made across the world. This explains why digital marketing has become crucial for any business. One of the important aspects of digital marketing is SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing traffic to a website through organic search results. Organic traffic simply refers to the visitors who landed on your website without clicking on paid ads. While paid advertising is helpful in getting instant traffic to your website, a company cannot spend a huge amount of money regularly on it. It is crucial to ramp up organic traffic to stay competitive in the long run. SEO specialists, preferably those who possess an SEO certification, are now in demand whenever a company is switching to digital marketing for the products or services it offers.
How to Learn SEO?
Individuals who wish to start a career in digital marketing, particularly SEO, are often confused regarding the learning path. SEO is a dynamic field, and strategies that are effective today may not work tomorrow. So, when one thinks of a career in SEO, he should be skilled in adapting to changes and be interested in learning new things.
One of the best things about a career in SEO is you don’t need to have any specific educational background. Your interests and skills are what counts while learning SEO. Individuals have different learning approaches for SEO – while many people start by reading SEO blogs, others opt for formal training. Reading blogs is a great way to start knowing the basics of SEO. However, it is crucial to get knowledge from appropriate resources, as the internet is filled with delusive information.
Taking formal training is another option where an individual doesn’t have to take the pain of searching the study materials and going through them. Formal training generally involves an instructor who is a subject matter expert and guides the individual throughout the completion of the training. While opting for a training course, people should take care that the course not only offers theoretical knowledge but also includes practical training. The reason is SEO is about experimenting with new things, and the more hands-on experience one has, the better it is for launching effective marketing campaigns.
The next question we would deal with is, “After learning SEO, how can one demonstrate his skills?”
Should one Pursue an SEO Certification?
Professionals across the world believe that acquiring an industry-recognized certification is a great way to demonstrate their skills in any domain. Google, for example, offers certifications in different aspects of digital marketing, and achieving them would help an individual set a benchmark.
To help you get an overview of SEO certifications, here we describe the top five certifications, which you can definitely consider for becoming an SEO specialist.
SEO Essentials Certificate by MOZ
The SEO Essentials Certificate is a program designed by MOZ, one of the leading SEO platform whose services helps companies increase their search engine visibility. The SEO Essentials Certificate by MOZ validates your knowledge in fundamental SEO concepts, keyword research, page optimization, link building, and reporting on SEO. You will also learn how to implement them using the Moz Pro tool.
SEO That Works by Backlinko
Backlinko is an SEO blog operated by one of the world’s most sought-after SEO experts Brian Dean. SEO That Works is a training program that teaches you advanced link building and content promotion strategies. It will guide you through a step-by-step SEO system and also includes real-life case studies of people who were successful in achieving top ranks in Google. You can visit this link for more details.
Advanced SEO Certification Program by Simplilearn
Simplilearn is one of the renowned online training providers that offer certifications in various domains. The advanced SEO Certification program will help you master Google’s popular tools like Keywords Trends and Search Console, advanced web analytics, website management and optimization, and other SEO concepts. You can also gain practical knowledge by working on tools like MOZ, SemRush, SpyFu, and Majestic.
Certified Digital Marketing Professional by DigitalMarketingInstitiute
DigitalMarketingInstitute can be your go-to institute for gaining expertise in any of the aspects of digital marketing. You won’t find any specific course on SEO, but it will be included in the bundle course like Certified Digital Marketing Professional. The course trains you in content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and more. Its SEO module consists of crucial sections like keyword and SEO content plan, optimizing organic search ranking, measuring SEO performance, and aligning SEO and business objectives.
The SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy
SEO Buddy launched in 2021 one of the most interesting Do-It-Yourself SEO Course with the SEO Checklist, it’s not a course that will provide you with a certification, but it’s the cheapest course of this list packed with a 102-Point SEO Checklist and SOP Collection (Standard Operating Procedure) of more than 60 SOP, a 52-WEEK Content Planning Calendar Method, and their 50-Point Content Distribution Checklist. This checklist will give you a 360 vision of everything at stake to kickstart your SEO Journey and is probably the best SEO Course for beginners. It comes as a Web App but also a Google Sheets version that you can easily Make a Copy to your Google Drive to make it your own. Finally, they also recently launched the Link Chest, a database of hundreds of easy-to-get backlinks to help grow your domain authority.
Finally…
Here we have listed some of the best SEO training programs which you can pursue to get SEO certified. You can go through the curriculum of all these courses and decide which one is the best for you. That said, it is important to understand that taking a course will help you learn the concepts, after that it is your responsibility to work on work on tools, take some projects, outreach for acquiring backlinks, and perform different SEO techniques. The experience is what will count while sitting in front of the employers. So, start your journey to become an SEO specialist today.