SEO Training
SEO Training Courses in the UK
SEO - Search Engine Optimisation, is an extremely valuable skill.
The job websites - at a time of increasing unemployment - seem to be full of very well paid positions for SEO executives. The reason for this is that actually, there are very few people in the UK who are truly skilled in SEO - and for that reason, those that are tend to choose to work for themselves regardless of the large amount of money they could earn working for an SEO firm.
The main reason that very few people in the UK have real SEO skills, is that there are very few UK SEO training courses available. You can't just go & enroll on an SEO course at your local night school, they don't teach it in schools, there are no college courses in SEO in the UK, that I'm aware of, and there are very few real opportunities to learn real SEO from someone who knows how it's done.
I think the reason most SEO consultants don't offer to train, is that training is much harder work than just doing SEO - and at the same time, when training new SEO consultants, we're creating real competition for ourselves - and at the moment in the UK, there is not a lot of competition from REAL SEO consultant who actually do the work, and I think most consultants would agree that they'd prefer it that way - it's difficult promoting a clients website when you're up against another professional, so really for us, the less true SEO professionals out there, the better!
So - most SEO consultants are self taught. I have been teaching myself SEO for roughly ten years, and I dread to think how much I have spent over these years on ebooks, courses & programs, but I'm sure whatever the amount, I would have saved money by doing an intensive SEO training course, if there was one available when I started !
I have now started to offer SEO training courses in the UK, to help people who are serious about becoming professional SEO consultants. My training courses are one to one, intensive training courses, that include a year of help & support.
Are SEO training courses absolutely necesarry
No - they're not, however finding a professional SEO consultant to train you, will help you to take a huge leap towards becoming an SEO consultant, drastically reducing the learning curve that most SEO professionals have to go through.
What kind of SEO training course should I look for?
Look for a training course which is run by actual current SEO professionals, people who're doing this for a living. The world of SEO is an ever changing one, someone who used to be a great SEO consultant who now just trains, isn't likely to be training you using fresh knowledge & experience.
How much should I expect to pay?
SEO is a very valuable skill, and a good SEO consultant can make a lot of money, therefore logical thinking will tell you that no SEO consultant is going to offer to train you for a small amount of money, they are in effect training a future competitor, so they need to make more money than they would make in the same amount of time working for a client, otherwise what would be the incentive to offer training courses? So, if you do find a course which seems very cheap - just think logically about the value of such a course, and why such valuable training is being offered for bargain prices.
There are some valid reasons that a course would be offered for a smaller cost, for instance a course that was teaching a number of people at one time, would enable a lower cost - but in my opinion SEO taught in a class is never going to be as valuable as one to one training with a professional SEO.
What else should I take into consideration?
The main thing to think about - is what happens after the course? Like learning to drive, the REAL test comes after you've passed & you're let alone to drive. Remember the first few weeks of driving, scary right?
A good SEO course should include after training support. I continue to support people for a year after the course, included in the price of the course - and I offer packages for continued support after a year.
