Is a Google Certified SEO Consultant any better? The answer, it depends. Search Marketing is not easy to do and we seek to guide you to determine whether certification makes any difference in your experience as the client. Many profess to be experts in SEO, and sometimes, they use Google to demonstrate their professed expertise. Clients get burned all the time from even SEOs who are Google Partner, much less have any Google qualification. We want to demystify this conundrum for every business to get the right professional.
Table of Contents
Why You Need SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is important for branding and building trust with your audience. It is not the same as Google Ads (formerly Adwords) and the way they are managed is not the same. Optimizing for organic search is what SEO is about, which means there is no funds paid to Google for it to run. Users behave differently when they find a website via SEO as opposed to Google Ads, so the approach differs a lot.
A Google Certified SEO Consultant Can Cheat You Know?
To be upfront, anyone Google Certified SEO Consultants can cheat an exam. These are multiple choice and free. Getting qualified is not hard if you cheat as this is open book. However, getting a piece of paper alone does not guarantee individuals know relevant strategies. A search engine does not care about a piece of virtual paper. This is the reason why consultants specialise. To master every area of digital marketing is impossible. It takes a whole company with a team to deliver on all aspects. If you can cheat, why should you care about these certificates?
The answer is, if they are obtained legitimately, there is some indication of the person’s skill and expertise. If both marketers are equal, the one with the certificate still wins.
To find out more about Google Consultants and Account Strategists, click here.
Google Skills Are Still Real
Despite our bleak opening that sent everyone’s world crashing down, why are these exams worth anything? The answer is because a true expert needs to be updated. SEO performance is more than just technical factors like website speed, microdata and so on. Although there are many courses online that a consultant can use even during agency practice, learning from the horse’s mouth – is vital for a holistic approach.
The fundamentals of good SEO includes understanding as much documentation from Google as possible, so certificates play a part.
However, these certificates do not actually teach SEO in great detail. SEO knowledge is mostly reading compliance documents from Google, especially about algorithm updates. This is why many SEOs do not have active certifications. Technically knowledge of algorithms prefaces any certificate they may have in terms of important knowledge.
One thing to note, is that these certificates expire! If an SEO is not transparent that they expire or how often they renew their certificates, do not bother paying attention to these. A skilled pro who cares about maintaining his certificates is the best professional you can work with and trust.
What Certificates Matter?
These are the certificates that matter the most when consulting the right person/agency. They are:
- Google Analytics (GA)
- Google Tag Manager
Google Analytics
This is the basic of the most basic certifications. Having advanced tools like Moz is not as important as this in delivering comprehensive analysis to provide evidence their work is effective. The principles of good analytics make it worth to see if they passed this test.
To pass this test does not make you an analytics expert, but basically this is the easiest way you can assess whether the expert takes his profession with total dedication and seriousness. Experts with both past results and this certificate, at the minimum are treating this like a profession. Just looking at this one criteria, eliminates the mountain of so called proven results that are simply false.
Just by checking this, you will be more certain they can prove their actions are what caused the improvement. Identifying whether an consultant has this will make it more likely you have a winning agency.
Tag Manager
The Tag Manager is another important certification. Now, even though we think this is important, there are many consultants who fare fine without these. Nevertheless, anyone who passes this and gets a certificate without cheating, is really an expert at tracking nearly anything on your website. Tag Manager is the best way for any agency to vary the default tracking. Agencies with good tagging experts are going to be more valuable than anyone trying to guarantee you good backlinks, which they cannot.
To find out more about the four types of backlink variables, click here.
Tag Manager enhances the data collected on visitors to your site, it becomes easier to ensure healthy activity remains on it, and opens all kinds of possibilities. If they have developers well versed in Tag Manager, their proficiency in this trade is very high. We are such an agency. We started with a common vein of receiving training from some of the best experts in the world for PPC, and have links internationally to the best professionals.
Furthermore, increasing ranking of businesses is easier through Tag Manager, because you can inject schema markup through it, which is the most effective way of doing so.
What Certificates Are Nice To Have
Google Analytics 360
This is a very niche certificate despite being part of GA. If anyone has a Google Analytics 360 certification, this is not joke. Analytics 360 is an enterprise version of GA, and the capabilities it opens for the client if they run a large ecommerce store or otherwise large web establishment, this certificate, if obtained legitimately, means they are a top professional internationally. This is the maximum anyone can get in certificates for GA, and would mean this analyst is capable of managing really large entities and has really solid knowledge. It might be harder to cheat for this one from the rest because this level of expertise is so rare.
What Makes Good Google Certified SEO Consultants Other Than These?
Getting qualified search traffic via organic search is the hardest of all services to find good consultants. Revenue Growth in SEO is never a straightforward thing, but rewarding when a dedicated and competitive team is creating your strategy. There are many aspects like content, mobile, desktop speed, reputation management in Google My Business, and so on. Providing a truly effective service in this field needs a decent sized team and is hard.
Companies do not have a transparent way to discern in the internet which agency is truly competent, including ourselves sometimes. It can be hard to evaluate link building especially. Many agencies of this kind try and promise to increase specific keyword rankings to a certain level. You will learn most of the time because of the constantly changing policies and technical changes, this is not possible even if you program AI to try and achieve it.
Strategy and good design is key for a good agency of this nature. If they offer web development as well as SEO, and they have Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Experts, you know this is an agency you can hire. Remember, in this industry an individual cannot achieve much because they are alone. A team is a non-negotiable requirement, and they should have a web developer on board. This is not the same as advertising. Even though we are students of some of the best Ads practitioners in the world, we have to be affiliated with good, quality, prequalified partners to deliver our SEO.
When an industry is saturated, to improve rankings on good keywords is not an easy task. It requires a continued, concentrated campaign, and they day you stop it, competitors can creep in. Many a time, local rankings are the best an SEO agency can achieve, but this can make a world of difference. There are schools of SEO that teaches what are known as “black hat” techniques, techniques looked down by Google. These may have short term benefits but have long term negative consequences.
The playbook to reach SEO goals is complex the basics are not enough. Good SEO teams are harder to find than building a good email list. The general timeline where SEO results can be benchmarked is 3, 6, 9 and 12 months.
User experience plays a huge part of whether you can get an increase in customer enquiries or sales. Targeted leads is actually a very hard thing for SEO to do, and frequently the conversion rate is very low.
Conclusion
We offer SEO solutions through our partners. We are catering to legal and eCommerce niches, but are not exclusive to these industries. Our teams include onsite and offsite optimisation for all clients. All clients are offered verificable, informed, professionally designed reports that are simple and not hard to be familiar and all modified to fit your surrounding context. We measure success based on your terms. We hope the insights of this article, will help you formulate your own requirements when picking an SEO agency. Do you need agencies with Google Certified SEO Consultants?
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FAQ
What is a Google Certified SEO Consultant?
It is an SEO Consultant who has Google Certification for certain Google skills
Is a Google Certified SEO Consultant better than an uncertified consultant?
Not necessarily, but if both consultants are equal, the Google certified consultant is better
What are the most important Certifications for an SEO Consultant?
Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager
What indicates the SEO Consultant is operating on a very high level?
A Google Analytics 360 Certification indicates that the consultant is operating at a very high level that is not typical.
Clarence Ling is the Founder of Marketlytics, and a guerilla marketer. Initially a trained Lawyer and Practice Development Manager, he contributed to the growth of his firm, including implementing software.
Clarence Ling is a Digital Advertising and Analytics Expert. Having a wide range of advertising experience ranging from international real estate, to legal and previously worked in full service marketing agencies, Clarence is a diligent marketer with an eye for detail and a talent for numbers.
Clarence can carefully plan out the best budget levels for the desired outcomes with projections that are more accurate than most.
His background in Analytics enables a clear, big picture assessment of both organic and paid campaigns, enabling maximum efficiency of those digital campaigns. His analytical background brings precise clarity of client or customer interaction and behaviour on online assets.
Clarence’s four fields of practice are Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Email Marketing (EDM). He is best as an Advertiser and is an avid collector of Software As A Service (SaaS) Products, avidly investing in both technology and human capital of Marketlytics.
[…] To see if Google certification helps SEO see this article. […]