Is your Search Engine Marketing agency qualified?

Since there is currently no PHD course in Search Engine Marketing or for Internet advertising in general and main people have started taking advantage of clients. But thanks to Google and Yahoo you can now know if the company or person you put in charge of your website is a qualified professional.

Both Google and Yahoo openly offer training and support for agencies and individuals that are looking to be both professional and educated when dealing with client accounts. You would never let an unqualified accountant manage your corporate books so why would you let the most public and often times the most used part of your business be managed by someone who is not only unqualified but unwilling to be qualified.

Don’t let your business fail due to using an unprofessional and unqualified agency or individual. You can verify their qualifications very easily, as both Google and Yahoo provide pages featuring their qualifications. All you need to do is ask your agency for the link to their pages at Google and Yahoo, these pages will be directly the Google.com and Yahoo.com address and will further define the agencies qualifications.

To see a live example of the Google and Yahoo pages, please check the following:

Qualified Google Advertising Professional
https://adwords.google.com/select/ProfessionalStatus?id=kNbWH8PQsa8fFvJAYPOrLA

Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/af/amb_confirm.php?type=amb&id=1225

At the present time MSN doesn’t qualify agencies or individuals but since the MSN AdCenter still isn’t fully live we’re sure that once it does go live they will also offer certified status to people who real looking to become truly professional.

Another thing that can help you verify an agency or individual is a professional you can ask if they are active members of SEMPO, which stands for the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Origination. Now SEMPO isn’t a level of qualification but a level of professionalism, SEMPO is the largest single body of SEM professional and anyone who is at all serous about Internet marketing is a member. To take a look at the membership list at SEMPO visit: http://www.sempo.org/sempo-membership-directory.php

Hope this helped you understand that even though there isn’t SEM PHD’s there are officially qualified professionals, so who do you have in charge of your website?


Written by Stephen M. Noton, senior SEM/SEO consultant for the Adverted Internet Advertising Agency with offices in Singapore and the United States. http://www.adverted.com