At the early days of search was SEO and pay per click advertising something for geeks who learned the stuff by experimenting with it and learned from their successes and failures while simply doing it. How to rank in search engines and how to write a compelling Ad within three short lines and research keywords is not exactly the things that are taught at the universities. There were no bachelors or masters' degree in search marketing or something like that.
Hireling somebody with experience and proven knowledge about search to do your in-house search marketing was impossible. There was no way of telling if the person actually knew the business or not at all. You had to trust their word and then, down the road, check if they delivered on their promises or not.
Forming and molding new graduates from the college to search marketers in-house by letting them play around with the subject matter (for a low cost) for a while and eventually grow them to experts internally, was in most cases the best choice. The former graduates and newbie's became experienced marketers with the time and made it hard for companies to be able to keep them. They learned quickly what their work and experience was worth. Those People did often quit their job at the company where they learned the business to work for a specialized search-marketing firm or to start their own business.
Independent training and certification did not exist.
Changing Landscape
The landscape regarding education and certification changed dramatically since the middle of 2006. Before 2006 did virtually no or only a few training curriculums to internet marketing, especially to the fast growing subject of search engine marketing and optimization exist, at least none, which resulted in an industry wide accepted form of certification that could be used by the students who successfully completed the training to use with confidence for a job application.
Combined industry efforts and the shortage of skilled internet marketing professionals created a boom in new services, which offer new training courses and seminars including certification to various internet-marketing subjects. Not all certifications are accepted or acknowledged across the industry, but most of them offer at least a similar level of education, which makes 3rd party certifications almost in all cases just as good as an "official" one.
Broad Selection of Services
The offers vary in price, amount of transferred knowledge and distribution method. Self-learning courses in printed and electronic format online are as available as hands on training classes in real classrooms with real teachers and interaction with other students. In addition, the combination of virtual training online combined with interaction with real teachers and other students is in some cases an option.
Companies can now send their employees who might have a major in marketing and advertising or computer engineering to a paid training and know when they come back and passed the exam and got their certification that they do know at least the basics of the job they are supposed to do.
Graduates Are in High Demand
The demand for graduates from the new available colleges, training programs and online classes is high and successful alumni in subjects like SEM/PPC or SEO can often choose from more than one job offer available to them. Classes are usually very affordable ranging between a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
Finding Job Openings
If you are looking for a job in the search marketing industry, or if you are a personnel manager and looking for SEM professionals to hire, you might want to have a look at the niche job search site JobsInSearch.com, which specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing jobs and careers. There are also the large and generic career opportunities portals and sites where you can look for job openings in search engine optimization, pay-per-click and internet marketing in general.
Conclusion
Times are certainly changing and the realm of the one-geek shows is slowly ending. The industry matures at last.
If your website is not performing well in the search engines you may well need a website evaluation. It may be because it was built by a website designer who concentrates more on the design of the website as opposed to the way a search engine sees the website pages. Alternatively, your website may be performing quite well but the visual aspect of the design is not quite what you want. In the latter case this may have been built by a website developer.
If you want to improve the performance of your website then you will need to use the services of a website consultant who is both a developer and website designer. They will be able to take the two views of your website. The search engine view to ensure that all the relevant information is in the correct place and the user view to check that the design befits your target audience and is easy for the user to navigate through.
By taking the advice of an independent website consultant you will be able to assess how much it would cost to improve your website for the user and the search engines. The website consultant will provide you a report on how long it would take to fix areas that they see as a concern and give you the information to take to your web company and agree changes based on your criteria. With you in the driving seat as you know how much time it would take to make the changes.
A website evaluation will normally initially consist of a keyword analysis. After a discussion with your website evaluator about your business they will be able to identify the more popular keywords or keyword phrases that people type into the search engines to find your business and possibly become potential leads.
The next step will be onsite analysis, looking at both the design of the website and the way the website is built. The experienced website consultant will be able to identify areas that require improvement and list these in a clear way with expected timescales to correct each one. They will probably also provide you with a printout of how the search engine sees your website and summarise their findings. Content will be a key area they investigate and will look for such things as duplicate content and semantic structure. Also a legality check to ensure you comply with the regulations of your country.
The third part of a website evaluation would consist of off-site marketing. They will be able to analyse how the search engines see you site in popularity terms, checking to see if links are coming in from the correct places and if the incoming links are done in the correct way to maximise your search engine positioning. Advice would be provided on how to promote the website more effectively, again with associated costs of what you would expect to pay.
Both Carsten Cumbrowski & Anil Jolly are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.