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Earlier this month we asked you to take two polls in one post, we asked do you want SEO certification & standards.
I wanted to share the results from the Do We Need SEO Standards poll today and then share how the results differ from the Do We Need SEO Certification poll tomorrow.
We had about 150 responses to this poll and the results were that most SEOs do want SEO standards.
65% of the SEOs out there said yes, we SEOs need SEO standards. The rest pretty much said no, we do not need any SEO standards.
SEO standards is a controversial topic for the industry. Since there is a lot of black and gray hat techniques, having standards kind of rubs them the wrong way. At the same time, some would say Google's webmaster guidelines are a form of SEO standards.
Like I said, I will share the other poll "Do We Need SEO Certification" tomorrow.
Forum discussion continued at Sphinn.
This post was written earlier and scheduled to be posted today.
Comments:
Michael Martinez
04/25/2011 03:44 pm
I think the first step toward agreeing on standards would be to agree on best practices. People don't confuse best practices with certification and the strongest resistance I see against adopting industry standards seems to be grounded in the concern that standards would necessarily lead to, require, or somehow involve certification.
JP
04/25/2011 09:31 pm
The certification element has been showing up in the UK over the past year too and I think the feedback has been pretty positive. http://www.nma.co.uk/opinion/ipa-search-qualification-could-be-just-what-the-sector-needs/3010236.article
Tim Dineen
04/27/2011 03:56 pm
I"m surprised that more people want standards than want certification. I see the certification process as being one that can ascertain a person's knowledge level - without judging their commitment to actual follow through on any sort of standard. Why wouldn't people want to have "proof" that they at least understand the topic they're talking about?
Tim Dineen
04/27/2011 03:58 pm
The problem with this is that best practices, in our industry, are subjective. We just need to agree on a desirable knowledge level of those best practices then certification will be useful.
Michael Martinez
04/28/2011 02:11 am
The subjectivity would be removed by the open process required to adopt credible standards through the ISO system. Certification just doesn't offer any credibility to our industry because we're not regulated. Unless you want to argue for regulation, there isn't much point in arguing for certification.
Michael Martinez
04/28/2011 02:14 am
Credible certification can only come from a central authority. All the certifications we have today are independent of each other. They are "training course certifications", not certifications tied to a body of standards or licensing criteria. It's unfortunate that more people are not speaking up in favor of standards, especially given how many SEOs have migrated into this industry from technical fields that have benefitted from international standards. The standards process has become somewhat tarnished, perhaps.
SR
04/28/2011 01:19 pm
Certification yes, but licensing no. Especially if the regulation is to be done by the federal government. I do my own SEOing for my company because of the lack of integrity of the first 4 firms I used. The only promise they kept was the monthly deduct from my CC. I've been following my competition and noticed that new local service companies are ranking well do to mock reviews rating local services as 5 star from companies in Texas Colorado and California.
link building campaign
05/16/2011 12:14 am
Do you think there should be SEO standards or are Google's webmaster guidelines sufficient?
Varina Brown
08/02/2011 06:35 am
Hello friends.. I agree that there should have to be seo standards.. Without standards, it's like body without a skeleton..And we can't think of this..So there should have to be the seo standards..