If you meet someone in search engine marketing (SEM) or search engine optimization (SEO) and ask them about their conditions, I’m willing to bet that they were self trained or that they “fell” into the industry. The realism is that there is very little chance for higher educational opportunities for young people to learn search engine marketing. Why?
We’ve put collectively a list of 3 reasons why SEO isn’t taught in school and why it shouldn’t be:
1. The Nature of The Beast
The beast in this folder is Google, and it is a very fickle beast. It’s predictable that Google changes their search engine ranking algorithms around once a day on average. This means that over 365 times per year, the industry rules are altered. Google’s big updates (Panda and Penguin) create industry wide earthquakes over hours of darkness! At this pace there is no way educational instructors could ever keep up a present standard for curricula.
2. A Creative Game
SEO is an difficult industry, in that it is a business built on data and metrics, but a large part of the actual work is creative. As the industry moves away from focusing on link capacity and moves towards link quality, it will be imperative that SEO’s are doing top notch creative work (like content writing, blog posting, and outreach, for example). There are very few standards to estimate how different agencies get good links, which would make teaching SEO “best methods” very difficult, if not not possible. Each SEO has their own style, secrets, and methods, which can’t always be reproduced.
3. A group Of Tools
SEO, as a new and varying industry, has a competitive marketplace for logical tools, programs, and software, where no picky company has emerged as the industry go-to. With so many unusual software options, it would be very difficult for professors to choose which platform to teach. Who is to say that one program is better than another? In many ways, it all boils down to personal liking or a history of using one platform.
So how then can you learn SEO in college without taking a single SEO course?
1. Study Marketing - SEO is normally a small part of a large marketing strategy, so it can help greatly to learn the rest of the puzzle by studying traditional marketing. A focus on learning marketing for small business would be ideal, as your first clients and experiences in the industry will likely be for small companies that are looking to stretch a limited financial plan.
2. Study Statistics – If you can learn how to work well with big data, analytics, and coverage tools, then you’ll be primed for a healthy profession in SEO. Basic statistics courses should teach you how to interact with large sets of data and how to read trends in the numbers. It is also vital that you learn to use Microsoft Excel (or something similar) as it seems to be the industry standard for compiling data sets.
3. Study Journalism – Matt Cutts will be happy to have journalism students coming into the SEO humanity. Fresh content is key, after all. Study up on grammar so that you really understand how to be effective (not “affective”) with your words. One thing that can directly kill your relationship with a client is typos and poorly written content. Another good skill to develop is artistic writing, because as an SEO, your end goal is to drive leads to your client. One of the best ways achieve this aim is with persuasive content. Learn how to use your words to explain, persuade, and shape the attitudes of potential customers.
4. Study Business - A large piece of people in the SEO industry work in small businesses, which means it can be very useful to understand the how small businesses work. In 2011, SEOmoz (now MOZ) released a study that shows that the overwhelming majority of SEO agencies employ 1-5 employees. If you can come into a small organization with a good understanding of business structure and growth, you can quickly become a very valuable asset to the company.
5. Study Design – Good SEO involves web design, branding, logo design, and publicity, so developing a keen eye for design can be hugely beneficial. Spend some serious time learning the Adobe Creative Suite and getting calm with making creative decisions. It is a huge bonus if you can graduate with a portfolio of design work that you can show to future
6. Read SEO Books – Teach yourself SEO like many of us have. Find and read every book achievable and be starving to learn — if you’re still interested in search engine marketing after a few thick books, then I’m sure you’ll fit in well with the rest of us geeks. As I’ve mentioned before, SEO is a quickly changing business. To succeed in the industry, you must be eager to keep up to date with the newest information that is published. There are plenty of great SEO books out there, so I won’t waste my breath, but a good place to start is here.
7. Follow Industry Leaders – Many of the best and brightest minds in the SEO industry have personal blogs and social media profiles full of extremely useful information. Some of my personal preferred bloggers include Matt Cutts (if you don’t know who he is, then Google him), Gary Vaynerchuck (a beast in social media), and the fellas at MOZ (particularly the White Board Friday segment). You can also follow industry sites like this one to get a wide range of opinions and ideas from various experts in the industry.
8. Attend Conferences – There are innumerable conference opportunities hosted by leading search companies (such as Distilled) that can be ideal opportunities for learning and networking. I can’t stress how important it is to get out of the office and hit the streets to network. After all, the handshake was the antecedent to the “friend request”.
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