Once you finish a Yoast Academy SEO training course, you get a shiny certificate of completion and a badge you can embed on your site or share on social media. In this way, you can let everyone know about your newly acquired SEO expertise. Awesome! But how useful is SEO certification, really? Does it make a real difference? The honest answer: it sure can, but it depends on your needs and what you’re expecting.
Why getting an SEO certification matters
An SEO certification can help in a number of ways. Obviously, the actual proof of certification matters most to those of you who actually work in the fields of SEO or web design. Or are trying to get there! In this case, you can use your SEO certification to build trust among your customers and help advance your business. However, you can also use it to improve your resume if you work in a different field.
But honestly, the most important reason to get SEO certified isn’t the piece of digital paper you get at the end. It’s the skills you build to get it. These skills are the real value you get from taking an online SEO course. That said, let’s go through the reasons why you may benefit from getting an SEO certification one by one.
#1 Build trust with your customers
If it’s important to you that others know about your SEO skills, you can use your SEO certification to prove this. You can embed your badge on your website and share your certificate on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media. Of course, where you follow a training course makes all the difference, here. Especially within the world of WordPress, Yoast is a well-known, and trusted brand, which stands for quality and world-class SEO knowledge. Embedding a certificate on your website means showing that you’ve learned from the best.
#2 Show that you do SEO the right way
By getting certified, you can show others how they can expect you to tackle SEO. At Yoast, we have very clear ideas about how you should practice SEO. We advocate a holistic and sustainable SEO strategy, built to last. And we’re known for this.
Of course, we think the world would be better off if everyone followed our lead. In our training courses, we preach what we practice. We don’t like tricks. We want sites to rank by being the best result. By taking a Yoast Academy training course, you make clear that you do SEO the right way, and have to tools to do it!
#3 SEO certification can boost your resume
SEO skills are very valuable! Lots of companies depend on good rankings for their revenue. A capable SEO can make a big difference. Employers know this, but how can they be sure you’re up to the task? Precisely because SEO is such a practical field, anyone can claim they’re an expert. I don’t even want to think about the number of people out there claiming to be SEO experts without having so much as a clue about what they’re talking about. With a certificate, you can back up your claims. You’ve put in the hours, you’ve completed a challenging training course. That’s valuable!
#4 You’ll learn a whole lot along the way
All of the previous arguments are aimed at impressing or persuading others. But the best reason to value an SEO certification is that taking a good training course helps you become a better SEO. Your certificate should not be a goal in and of itself, it should be a nice reward. There’s no better feeling than having worked hard to improve your skills, and seeing the confirmation that you’ve finished a training course successfully.
And when it doesn’t…
As I mentioned before, SEO is a very practical field. If you’re depending on our SEO certification to get you hired somewhere as an SEO expert without any previous experience in the field, don’t get your hopes up. Our training courses are the first step towards expertise. You’ll still have to apply the principles you’ve learned in the real world.
Fortunately, Yoast Academy excels at preparing you for this real-life context. Our training courses allow you to practice actual SEO skills. You can practice writing code and apply your knowledge to realistic example cases. Because of this, there’s only a very small bridge to gap between the theory and actual real-life SEO. You’ll be confident in your abilities, and deservedly so. And the results will bear that out!
Conclusion
There are a lot of good reasons to pursue an SEO certification. It helps build trust and, more importantly, you’ll learn a great deal along the way. On the other hand, don’t expect an SEO certification to magically open doors. The real world asks for real skills. Fortunately, our SEO training courses make sure you’re as well-prepared as possible.
Read more: Yoast Academy: Teach yourself SEO »