I often get asked by younger individuals what courses they should take if they want to get into the field of search engine optimization and internet marketing. Currently there are very few institutions that offer SEO courses and since there are very few clearly defined standards for SEO many schools struggle to come up with an effective course outline. I thought it might be useful for those individuals wondering what path to take if they heard the path of someone who has built a career around what SEO has to offer.

*here are the ingredients that made up my path to an SEO career

Have a Passion for Technology

In high school I gained a love for the internet and building websites and when I got the chance I jumped at the opportunity to take a tour of a school that focused on information technology . From there went to get my Associates Degree in Computer Applications and Programming. Not sure what I wanted to do with the degree I just acquired I took the first computer related job I got offered which was the IT consultant for a small business. There I setup a computer network, provided support for their custom software application and worked on the company website. Of all the things I did there working on the company website was my favorite, but at the time you still had to do most of the HTML coding by hand. Powerful content management systems like wordpress, joomla and drupal weren’t widely available and the training that school gave me was very limited since we learned a little about a lot but not enough of one thing to really apply ourselves.

Think Like a Business

After working as an IT consultant for  a while I realized that computer programming wasn’t really for me. At this time I decided to go back to school and for something I always thought I had a knack for… business.  While acquiring my degree in business I had a co-worker who setup his own website but didn’t have a clue on how to get traffic to his website. This is the moment that got me involved into SEO. I spent the next few months reading every available SEO article, blog and website I could get my eyes on. After a while I was able to figure out who the reliable SEO sources where and which sources where bogus. This is important since a lot of the material online about SEO may be out-dated or written by someone who has no real SEO experience.

Develop an Online Portfolio

Once I helped get my friends site optimized and it started to generate traffic I quit my help-desk job and took a pay cut to get a job in web development. I knew that before I could get a job in internet marketing I was going to need some more background in the web. After working as a web designer for a small company 6 months I developed my own portfolio site to showcase what I’ve learned and started sending out my resume to every SEO company even if they weren’t hiring. In no time I got my first interview and my online portfolio turned out to be a big selling point. Included in my online portfolio was a directory I setup, my friends site I help setup and a site I put together for a non-profit organization(great way to gain experience).

Have a Desire to Keep Learning

Even after getting my job in SEO I’ve gone on to get my MBA, continue to purchase new books and spend about 30 minutes a day reading SEO RSS feeds. I strongly believe you need the desire to keep learning new things in order to be successful in the field of internet marketing. You must also be willing to try new things, this is where my interest of social media marketing came into play. You must be willing to go outside of your comfort zone.

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Good Luck!