SEMPO,  a non-profit professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing worldwide, will kick off their new sem seo training on January 15, 2007. The online SEM Fundamentals program will be offered through the SEMPO Institute. SEMPO will also offer two additional certificate courses sometime during the first quarter, Advanced SEO and Advanced Search Advertising. [...]

Well Kevin didn’t say that everyone needs sem seo certification and training he did say, “I’ll allow that many SEM  jobs require knowledge and training” in his recent Click Z article “SEM and SEO: Rocket Science or Just Plain Science? Part 2″.  Thanks Kevin, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.  I’ve been [...]

In my original post about associations offering certification or training, I noted that SEMPO had no position on certification and the only assocation to address the issue was SEOPros. They were endorsing Search Engine College and SEO Research Labs. SEOPros now has their own certification program.
Not until the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) launched their sem [...]

My recent article submitted to Marketing Pilgrim’s SEM Scholarship contest was about sem seo certification and training. Here’s a snippet;
Finally, why aren’t the sem seo associations like SEMPO, SMA-NA, SMA-UK, SMA-EU and others taking a stand on sem seo certification or training? Maybe they should develop their own certification or training programs. Rumor has it [...]

Lee Odden at Online Marketing Blog describes the new search engine marketing certification program at the DMA06 conference. There were more than 100 attendees, probably the largest group to get any sem seo certification at one time.  There was a pretty impressive lineup of instructors and courses for the first day including;
 Jeannette Kocsis, VP of [...]

I posted earlier on the DMA and SEMPO seo sem certifications and added “So what has changed? Well, for the first time major industry associations have unveiled an seo sem certificate. ” Wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!
Markland Media’s Jim Hedger, search engine marketing writer and speaker, reported in May of this year on Search Engine Guide [...]

The value of  SEO SEM certification has been debated for years with most landing on the side of useless. Lack of industry practices and standards, as well as the rapidly changing search engine landscape has slowed sem/seo certification growth.  Neverthleless certification for search engine marketers has been around for years and thousands have been certified.  
So what [...]

Web Anyaltics Association . This looks like a great organization. The thing that impressed me the most was one of their mission statements was; Develop and implement training and certification programs thereby strengthening the professionalism of our entire trade. Other associations should include this in their missions statement.

According to my friend Ward Tongen who is attending the SEMPO meeting in NY at the SES Conference 2005, SEMPO has no plans for certification. Where does that leave us when the largest (currently) industry association has no plans to either offer or even promote some sort of certification? Am I wasting my time looking [...]