I’ll give you a guess as to the answer to the nominal question: Is it worth it to get an SEO certification?
This is every SEO professional’s favorite response.
That’s right: it depends! (If not, this will be a shorter article.)
SEO certification can be valuable if you’re new to the industry or expanding your skills to a different discipline.
But do you need a specific certification to be successful? maybe not.
Certifications and courses are great for developing your basic skills and familiarity with industry tools. But SEO evolves so quickly that experience and testing are often the best teachers.
Experienced SEO professionals who can attest to results do not need certification for the work they already do.
But you might still find something useful in the right training. Everyone needs to improve their skills.
Let’s take a look at which certifications might be the most valuable to your time or money.
Is there an SEO certification?
There isn’t one widely recognized SEO certification. There are no SEO degrees or generic courses – which can sound frustrating if you want to learn how to get started with SEO.
But it makes sense.
SEO is a vast discipline that requires many skills and includes many people.
Developers, designers, writers, marketers, data analysts, influencers, salespeople, managers, and other professionals can all add something to the SEO industry.
There are tons of ways to contribute and tons of entry points.
However, academics seem to be paying more attention recently. University-provided accreditation has begun to emerge.
Should you pay for SEO certification?
Many businesses offer their own courses and certifications. However, these can be expensive.
The short answer is: pay for what you learn, not for a certificate.
There are tons of free resources, from beginner’s guides to SEO to advanced SEO strategy guides, and I wouldn’t recommend spending a lot of money for a basic certification.
The certificate itself probably won’t help you.
The industry cares about what you can prove—in most cases, what a certificate proves is that you can Google answers to multiple-choice questions.
On the other hand, courses are very valuable in their own right when they go beyond the basics. If you want to take a course and you think you’ll gain useful skills from it, it’s definitely worth paying for.
So, evaluate certifications or courses based on the actual educational value you get from them.
I’ve also noticed that many paid certifications are companion products to specific advanced SEO tools. So if you commit to the tool, they might be worth it.
My advice is to check out the free content first. If you like its features and feel like you can get real business value from a course or certification, then go ahead!
Is Google SEO Certification Worth It?
Learning new skills and tools can advance your career and help you earn higher pay. Plus, a range of professional certifications can build an impressive LinkedIn profile and resume.
If you’re new to the industry, certification can help you demonstrate your knowledge to attract your first clients or jobs.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking to get official Google certification, it doesn’t offer anything that directly matches that description.
However, it does offer certification across all its tools. It also offers a variety of digital marketing, career development and data courses – although not all of them come with certificates.
If you browse the Digital Garage, you can also find courses from providers other than Google, such as Coursera and educational institutions.
Google resources are helpful in terms of granularity.
You should be able to quickly tell which ones are relevant and useful to you. Not all will, but you should at least consider taking tool-specific classes.
These courses are categorized by time, skill level, and whether you will eventually earn a digital certificate.
As of this writing, they’re all free — so there’s really no reason not to check out what interests you.
If you lack hands-on experience with these tools, a Google account with a lot of full certificates might help.
Additionally, Google Partner organizations often require Google Certification.
7 Best SEO Certifications
This list includes some of the most highly regarded certifications that provide a lot of value in the learning process. My first focus is on free certifications, but we’ll discuss paid courses that might be worthwhile later.
1. Google’s Digital Marketing Fundamentals Certification
This is not technically SEO certified, but has SEO modules, including modules on Search Advertising and Local Search.
- grade: Beginner
- Hour: 40
- Key Learning Outcomes: Analytics, business strategy, SEO, SEO, content marketing, and several other core aspects of digital marketing
- price: free
- Number of applicants: 300,000+
- Learn more here.
2. Google Analytics 4 Skillshop
If you’re going to use Google’s tools, there’s no better teacher than the people who made them.
Also, getting certified for all the tools you use regularly is a great and quick way to communicate your technical expertise.
This is especially relevant to everyone who has ever used Google Analytics.
GA4 brings changes and new features, so you should keep up with the times!
- grade: Beginner to Advanced User
- Hour: About one hour per course
- Key Learning Outcomes: Analyze your website and performance with GA4
- price: free
- Learn more here.
3. UC Davis SEO Major
UC Davis offers this SEO major.
This is a series of five courses culminating in a capstone project.
Of all the options, this is probably the most time consuming. This is also the most intriguing.
- grade: Beginner-Intermediate (more than two years of industry experience)
- Hour: about 120 – six hours per week for over five months
- Key Learning Outcomes: Keyword Research, Marketing, SEO, How Search Algorithms Work, Competitive Analysis, Creating SEO Reports
- price: free
- Number of applicants: about 120,000
- Learn more here.
4. HubSpot’s SEO Certification Course
HubSpot’s Academy is pretty cool. All free and online, unlike Google’s learning resources. It is also easy to search for certifications in various digital marketing related topics.
- Level: Beginner-Intermediate
- Hours: just over 2
- Key Learning Outcomes: Keyword Research, Link Building, Website Analysis
- Price: Free
- Enrollment: ~250,000 (in the entire Hubspot Academy, not just this course)
- Learn more here.
5. Semrush SEO Fundamentals Exam
Semrush has a slightly different curriculum and certification structure.
It lists courses separate from exams.
If you are confident in your knowledge and up to the challenge, you can take the exam and get certified quickly.
Alternatively, you can complete as many courses as you want before taking a single exam.
Alternatively, if you don’t care about the certification exam and just want to study, you can skip the certification exam.
This certification exam is paired with a course of the same name, but Semrush offers several SEO-focused courses and certifications.
- grade: Beginner-Intermediate
- Hour: Exam – about 30 minutes. Lesson – Four hours.
- Key Learning Outcomes: SEO basics, technical SEO, ranking signals, mobile SEO
- price: free
- learn more: take an exam – course
6: Ahrefs’ Complete SEO Course for Beginners
I’m cheating a bit on this one. There is no certification at the end of the course, but as I’ve already said, I might doubt the only value of certification itself.
So you won’t get a digital certificate to add to your LinkedIn profile – but you can still brag about it.
I like this because it’s serious; it’s a YouTube playlist. Easy access, anytime, anywhere.
- grade: Beginner-Intermediate
- Hour: about two hours of video
- Key Learning Outcomes: SEO basics, link building, on-page SEO, technical SEO
- price: free
- Learn more here.
7. Paid certification
I cheated again; I decided to group paid certifications here. Trusted names in the industry offer these, so you’re likely to get a lot of value out of them.
However, if you’re new to the industry and just want to get started, consider saving these for later.
Moz College
Moz Training Institute Various courses are included.
There’s a free class to get your feet wet, but certification costs $395 or $595.
Moz does provide a powerful Learning centre You can get a lot of insight from these industry veterans.
Yoast Comprehensive SEO Training
Yoast is the ubiquitous WordPress SEO plugin.
If you’ve ever done any work on the content side of digital marketing, you’ve probably come across it.
its training course It’s an annual subscription model for $99 per year. There is a free course you can try to get started.
in conclusion
There is a key difference between courses and certifications. Not all courses are accredited. Some of the best don’t.
Certification has its uses. They’re a quick way to demonstrate proficiency to employers and clients – if you don’t have extensive experience, they can serve as proof of your skills.
If you use them, getting certified in a specific tool can be helpful for your resume. Your list of certification tools is impressive and helpful!
But what you learn is much more important than digital certificates. You shouldn’t discount a course just because you’re not certified.
In fact, the digital certification itself isn’t particularly impressive.
Don’t let this stop you from looking for learning opportunities. Free and paid digital courses are essential to your career.
You can learn new skills, keep up with the industry, and earn higher rates by applying your knowledge correctly.
Don’t focus on getting SEO certified. Focus on learning SEO.
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