Search Engine College Students Favor Search Engine Marketing Self-Study Courses
By Kim Krause Berg
I remember the hot summer days where my favorite excuse to sit out
by my swimming pool and "work" was gathering my notes and
research to write a self-study website usability course for a new online
school called The Search
Engine College. I was part of an esteemed list of tutors
invited by Australian-based, Kalena and Jerry Jordan, founders of the
school.
Not only did we need to develop our courses, we also needed to learn
how to instruct online via software from Moodle. This
software application connects tutors, courses and students by providing
a virtual environment in which everything is a click away, from no matter
where you happen to be in the world.
Two years ago, website usability and user centered web design were
not part of mainstream search engine marketing discussions. I knew only
a few top-level SEO industry experts who were interested in the relationship
between marketing to search engines and the follow through to humans
who find optimized websites that rank well. Kalena was not simply interested.
She wanted it taught to her SEO students. We thought we'd start with
a basics course and see how it did. This year it is more popular as
companies insist on usability standards for their websites (and after
the Target lawsuit, there is more of a push for accessibility standards).
The Search Engine College promotes holistic marketing, and it shows
in the Jordan's implementation of new plans for their school. As I became
aware of some of the changes in store for the coming months, I thought
it was time to get the story. If you haven't explored
what the Search Engine College has to offer, now is a good time
to squeeze a course or two into your education budget or plan on a fresh
start for next year.
The dialog below is based on an email interview with both Kalena and
Jerry Jordan. Answers are presented in a unified voice for easier reading.
Kim: I can hardly
believe it’s been over 2 years already since the Search Engine
College was launched. Its growth and industry acceptance has generated
some new changes for you and the school. Can you tell me more about
your plans?
Kalena/SEC:
Neither can we! We were literally overwhelmed at the response we got
when we launched. There was obviously a great demand in the industry
for courses such as ours and we have had to grow quickly to keep up
with that demand. As this industry is always evolving, we have committed
ourselves to grow and evolve with it. Since we launched, SEC has entered
into a formal agreement with resellers in Australia and Europe to provide
our online training courses to their customers. We are also in negotiation
with a large training provider in the U.S. for the provision of SEC
courses for university credit via their worldwide education channels.
We are continuing to look for third party resellers and possibly accreditation
for our courses with educational institutions worldwide.
These partnerships should substantially increase the global market for
our courses as well as the industry recognition for our certification.
Kim: How many tutors
do you have on staff now?
Kalena/SEC:
At the moment we have five tutors on staff, (including yourself), but
we are looking to increase this number over the next 12 months because
of our expanding curriculum and eagerness to offer more subjects. We
are very lucky to have the tutors we do. They have spent a lot of effort
putting together their course materials and integrating their years
of wisdom and expertise into a fun learning format.
We also have industry professionals developing courses for offering
in 2007 via our existing tutors. These new courses will be in search
engine friendly “Content Management System Site Design”
and “Web Site Analytics” and will be a perfect fit for the
courses we already offer. With the addition of these courses, students
will be able to design their own search engine friendly CMS sites, optimize
them, advertise them via PPC, analyze the results of their efforts and
use this information to improve their online marketing efforts. SEM
should be cyclical and we are trying to provide students with all the
tools they need to make their efforts successful.
Kim:. Do you have
plans to expand the teaching staff or course offerings? If so, please
share some of your ideas?
Kalena/SEC:
Absolutely! Our current courses include:
Search Engine Optimization 101
Search Engine Optimization 201
Pay Per Click Advertising 101
Pay Per Click Advertising 201
Web Site Copywriting 101
Web Site Usability 101
Link Building 101
Keyword Research 101
Until recently, we offered a single certification for each of the above
subjects. Now we are very excited because we are in the process of launching
SEC Certification Pathways, a series of 3 or more bundled SEC courses
that follow 3 distinct tracks of study:
A) Certified Search Engine Optimizer (3 courses)
B) Certified Pay Per Click Marketer (3 courses)
C) Certified Search Engine Marketer (5 courses)
The courses have been bundled together to enable students to study
the material for each course simultaneously and to save money on purchasing
each of the courses separately. These combined levels of study also
provide students with a higher standard of proficiency and industry
certification than previously possible.
All courses in the above Certification Pathways are tutor-supervised
with a tutor assigned to guide students through the lesson material
and review their assignments. Students who want to receive industry-recognized
SEC Certification in these subjects must turn in all assignments for
grading, complete all online quizzes and the final exam and make a 70%
overall pass.
Completion of any of Search Engine College's Certification pathways
will better prepare students who want to jumpstart their career path
in the search industry. As mentioned earlier, we are also looking at
the possibility of adding the following subjects to our curriculum in
the near future:
- Web Site Analytics 101
- Content Management Systems 101
- Blog Marketing 101
- Article Marketing 101
Kim: Can you share
with me about how many students have enrolled so far and from what parts
of the world?
Kalena/SEC:
Without giving too much away, I can tell you that we’ve had
hundreds of students enroll with SEC since we launched and they’ve
come from a total of 21 countries worldwide, including the U.S., the
U.K, Australia, India, South Africa, Malaysia, New Zealand, Finland,
Jordan and Russia.
Kim: One of the
recent changes came about due to the finding that time zones made for
interesting circumstances with some online courses. Now, as I understand
it, there are two course styles - self-study and certification. Please
explain them in more detail. Have you found one type preferred over
the other?
Kalena/SEC:
Yes, our previous tutor-supervised course style (online classroom
chats, one-on-one student-tutor meetings etc) has not proven to be very
popular compared to our downloadable self-study version. Setting classroom
chat times for students in multiple time-zones also made things difficult.
Therefore, we made the decision to change our course styles to the following
two self-paced versions:
1. Certification - These courses are tutor-supervised with a tutor
assigned to guide students through the lesson material and grade their
assignments. Students who want to receive industry-recognized SEC Certification
in Search Engine Optimization must take the Certification version of
a course under tutor-supervision and make a 70% overall pass.
2. Self-Study - Students who take a course via self-study do not receive
tutor-supervision, do not submit assignments and do not qualify for
SEC Certification.
All courses now consist primarily of downloadable course material and
online resources together with weekly lesson review quizzes and a final
exam for completion at a student’s own pace, in a time-frame that
suits them. The lesson material used is the same for both course styles
and students have 12 months access to the online course area.
We offer two learning styles to give students the ability to choose
the method that suits them best and to provide the lesson material at
a lower price point to those students who don’t require our formal
certification.
Kim: I hear you're
redesigning the SEC website. Can we get a glimpse at what you have in
store for it?
Kalena/SEC:
Sure! Take a sneak peek at our new design here.
We plan on rolling out the new template within the next 2 weeks.
Kim: There are
other educational facilities that offer courses for the search engine
marketing industry. I've always felt that SEC stood out from the pack
because you recognized early on the value of user centered design and
how it benefits SEO/M efforts. What other ways does SEC offer better
value than its competition?
Kalena/SEC:
I guess the biggest difference is in our delivery method and choice
of study options. We don't currently offer our courses via face-to-face
training. All our courses are delivered online via Moodle (open source
academic software) and include downloadable lessons, online interactive
quizzes for each lesson, virtual AND downloadable resources, online
chat and forums plus an online interactive final exam. Each of our courses
can be studied under tutor-supervision (with compulsory assignments
uploaded by students for grading by their tutor) OR via self-study (with
self-graded assignments and no tutor involvement).
We also provide our SEC graduates with ongoing support and permanent
access to our SEC Lounge area. We also try to encourage students to
participate in group discussions and sometimes have guest tutors join
a class chat session. The most successful of these were Danny Sullivan
and Alan Perkins. I don’t know of any other online training institutions
that offer such an interactive curriculum and such extensive resources.
Also, as you mentioned, all our courses take a holistic approach to
web site promotion, focusing on the importance of web site design, functionality
and usability as well as search engine compatibility. No risky search
engine optimization techniques or "spamdexing" methods are
taught in our online classes. Only ethical and acceptable methodologies
are taught, based on the webmaster guidelines published by the search
engines themselves.
In fact, all our courses were developed in close consultation with
the search engine’s webmaster guidelines because we were concerned
by the widespread lack of education in the search industry and number
of SEO/SEM operators with alarmingly little knowledge. The situation
seems to be improving these days, but judging by the number of questions
I receive daily via my Search Engine Advice Column, many people are
still confused about search engines! We believe such ignorance can be
curbed via education. That's why we started SEC.
Our course material consists of the most current optimization methodologies
based on the very latest industry data and algorithmic changes by the
search engines. Our tutors keep up to date with their field of expertise
on a daily basis and (as you can concur!) most of them have writing
gigs requiring them to stay at the top of their profession. Each lesson
is reviewed and updated regularly and students are notified whenever
updates occur. They are given instant download access to updated lessons.
We are very conscious of our growing industry reputation and very proud
of our SEC Certification and the quality of our course material. Students
who choose to study with us benefit from the reputation of our tutors
and our standing in the industry in terms of teaching only professional
SEO and SEM best practices as promoted by the search engines.
Kim: I was amazed
that the school launched while you also became new parents and I think
there was even a move to a new home or was it the company offices that
moved? I've long admired your energy and ambition. Do you both work
together constantly, or are there separate pursuits as well?
Kalena/SEC:
I guess I really gave birth to two babies in 2004 – my son Jack
and SEC! It was a pretty amazing year. I think something happens to
you when you have your first child – and you can probably vouch
for this - you become extremely motivated to provide the best future
you can for them and it changes the focus of your life completely.
My husband and I had been thinking about a new venture for months but
the birth of our son gave us the motivation we needed to shift gears.
We make a great team and simply worked ourselves into the ground until
we had fleshed out Search Engine College as a viable business model.
We then approached some of the most knowledgeable people in search (don’t
blush!) and asked them to be tutors. Probably the most difficult and
time-consuming task was writing the course material but we knew we had
to get it right. A well-timed press release and some generous promotion
by our industry colleagues and suddenly, SEC was in business! It was
very exciting – and still is.
We started SEC from our home office in Christchurch, New Zealand but
in October 2004 we moved back to Australia to be closer to family. SEC
has now overtaken our SEO firm WebRank as Jordan Consulting Group’s
primary form of income. We’ve hired staff and operate out of commercial
premises in Bellingen, New South Wales (North of Sydney).
Jerry and I still work together but we have separate offices and often
work different hours to ensure we don’t encroach on each other’s
space too much. We also help to remind each other that life’s
not all about work – you’ve got to find time for exercise
and family life to maintain the right balance. Jack keeps us sane. It’s
sometimes difficult working with your spouse, especially when you are
both ambitious people. But it’s great to share the pride in a
successful client project or to read a testimonial from a happy graduate
who just got promoted and know that you worked as a team to help make
that happen. Life’s good!
***
As Kalena mentioned, she is available to answer questions on search
engine optimization techniques in her newsletter, The
Search Light Newsletter. Kalena can be found in many SEO and Web
Design forums, either as a moderator or contributor. To learn more about
the Search Engine College and its study format, you can download
a free sample lesson. Fees for courses are low. Payment options
include checks, credit cards and PayPal options.
Thank you, Kalena and Jerry, for granting this interview and welcoming
us inside the Search Engine
College.
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Bio and Copyright
Usability Consultant, Kimberly Krause Berg, is the owner of UsabilityEffect.com
(www.usabilityeffect.com), Cre8pc.com
(www.cre8pc.com), and Cre8asiteForums
(www.cre8asiteforums.com/). Her background in organic search engine
optimization, combined with web site usability consulting, offers
unique insight into web site development.
Copyright 2006 Cre8pc.com. All Rights Reserved. Reprint rights by Permission
of the Author