SEO certification: How can you get it and why should you?

Once you finish a Yoast SEO Academy training course, you get a shiny certificate of completion and a badge you can embed on your site or share on social media. This way, you can let everyone know about your newly acquired SEO expertise. Awesome! But how useful is an SEO certification, really? Does it make a real difference? The honest answer: it sure can, but it depends on your needs and expectations.

Why getting an SEO certification matters

An SEO training certification can help in several ways. Obviously, the actual proof of certification matters most to those of us 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 when you work in a different field.

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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 while getting your certification. 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 training certification one by one.

1. SEO certification helps you 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. 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’re showing 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 implemented a sustainable SEO strategy. 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 completing a Yoast SEO Academy training course, you make clear that you do SEO the right way, and have the 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. With an SEO certificate, you can back up your claims. You’ve put in the hours, and you’ve completed a challenging training course on SEO copywriting, keyword research, or ecommerce SEO. That will improve your resume for sure!

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 training 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 practical field. Our SEO certification probably is not a guarantee that you’ll get hired as an SEO expert without any previous experience in the field. You could see our training courses are the first step towards expertise, but you’ll still have to apply the principles you’ve learned in the real world.

Fortunately, Yoast SEO 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.

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