At one point in time, I held many different kinds of marketing and SEO certifications from Google, Bing, HubSpot, and some other companies. I’ll admit it, I thought they would help bring in new clients, but they didn’t. In fact, my clients and prospects didn’t even bat an eye to them, and looking back, they had some very good reasons for that.

Why Online Marketing & SEO Certifications Don’t Matter

1. It’s Incredibly Easy To Cheat On The Exams

The exams for nearly all of these marketing certifications are strictly online and the test questions rarely change. How can you not be tempted to cheat!? Really, if someone wanted to cheat on a Google Adwords exam right now, all they would have to do if type in “Google Adwords Test Answers” and click on any of the results.

Too lazy to take the test yourself? No worries: you can pay someone to take the tests for you! There are actual services available that will get you every SEO, PPC, and online marketing certification out there. Heck, you can probably find these services on Fiverr, too!

But this right here just brings another problem to light: the vast number of test cheaters has devalued these certifications. Since any Joe with an Internet connection can pass the exams, the certifications hardly have any significance in the industry.

2. SEO Certifications Are Hard To Come By

At the moment, there are actually very few SEO certifications available, and none by Google or Bing (those are pay-per-click certifications). To make matters worse, the current SEO certifications that are available are only offered by medium-sized companies such as:

• Matthew Woodward’s PBN Specialist Certification Program
• SEOCertification.org
• ClickMinded’s SEO Certification
• HubSpot Academy’s Inbound Marketing Certification

With the exception of HubSpot, all of these certifications cost money. Upon completion, all you’ll receive are a bunch of pretty pixels that say “good job” and mockery on SEO forums.

3. Clients & Prospects Just Don’t Care About Them

I know I already mentioned this at the beginning of the article, but I once thought that clients would be impressed when they saw links to all the big-name marketing and SEO certifications I had. As it turns out, clients couldn’t care less! Do you want to know why? Because they care about results; they don’t want to know what you know, they want to know how what you know will bring them new customers.

Now, you might be thinking, “But Alistair, what about prospects!? They have to care about those SEO certifications, right?” No, even they don’t care. Imagine yourself in the position of a small business owner who just wants to hire an SEO. What’s more important to you: a trustworthy local company with a history of delivering results to your fellow local business owners, or 20 year old Billy with a Matthew Woodward Seal of Approval (who is Matthew Woodward, again?).

Why Online Marketing & SEO Certifications Do Matter

They don’t.