Picking a degree that will benefit SEO/IM career

[LukeHutchinson]

I really had no idea where to place this question as there seemed to be no 'suitable' place. I do though feel that it is a viable question and would appreciate any responses that I receive.

Essentially, I'm currently working full time doing digital marketing covering most general aspects as it is in-house and primarily local venturing to maybe 50-70 miles in the region of the local area. I'm doing SEO, PPC, Social Media etc.

I'm certified in networking (I studied in Australia) and have my UK GCSEs along with a variety of other general certifications e.g. business. The college in the area where I work is offering a NVQ in digital marketing and social media so although I'm self taught I'm currently doing this once a month purely for the paper to recognize that I know what I'm doing.

Anyway, getting to the point. I have the opportunity to pursue a degree long term with my employer. I've always had an interest in actually learning to code in a web development language (I can cope at the moment with PHP and do what I need to do) and I've also had an interest in developing iPhone apps etc.

What degree would you recommend in aiding a career in SEO and Digital/Internet marketing in general?. To me it seems to boil down to either a marketing degree or a web development degree.

Thank you in advance, I would love to hear your own experience and what you have a degree in.

Thanks,

Luke Hutchinson.

[mostcg]

This is an old question but I'll share my experiences.

I majored in marketing myself and landed in an SEO position right after graduation. I think the marketing background has improved my writing and sales tactics, and I've seen advertising/PR majors who get into SEO/PPC and are very successful.

I do wish I had some more experience with programming and coding when I started which is something I've had to teach myself on the fly. If you have a thorough understanding of HTML, CSS, PHP and are able to master the technical side of it then you're already a step ahead. It'll make your life so much easier, especially if you're dealing with a large ecommerce site that is going to need changes somewhat regularly. You'll be spending 15 minutes making a change instead of an hour and have more time for content and UX.

[PixelgemsCreative]

Since we now have a CIS perspective, I might as well add my perspective as a Marketing/Communications Degree graduate.

From a technical SEO point of view I did not learn anything relevant to SEO. What I did learn is how businesses operate in many different fields, presentation and communication skills, and consumer behavior. Now that I am paired with a high quality web development company I am able to walk into a room and give a presentation on web design and SEO better than our competitors.

I have learned technical aspects with support from our design team, and I have used this SEOmoz community over the past month to learn many more things to apply to my SEO accounts.

If you love doing technical things I would say go ahead with a CIS degree. My job is much more about consulting, taking meetings, making sales, with maybe 1/4 of my time performing SEO in support of our marketing objectives.

I love doing the technical work, but if I ever want to move into another field of business, it is available to me.

[LukeHutchinson]

Thanks for the advice.

I have about 30 websites in total including a few eCommerce sites that I sell services on (they convert), video autoblogs, niche websites and a variety of other websites.

I'm competent with SEO and have a portfolio for rankings both locally and internationally. I rank locally for multiple keywords, nationally and internationally for low - medium competition niches.

As far as SEO goes, I feel that I am at a stage where I can't learn a great deal more and it is now at a stage where the things I am learning are the kind of things others in SEO learn on a daily basis such as new techniques and questioning existing ones (perfecting them). Don't get me wrong I'm not an SEO expert in comparison to lots of SEOmozers that are SEO professionals are but I am capable of ranking a large majority of websites with all core SEO techniques and can have an in-depth conversation with them.

I also have a few large websites that have 5,000+ pages ranking for lots of keywords in various cities. These bring traffic to my ecommerce websites.

I also have experience with eBay SEO and SEO on a variety of other platforms as well as Social Media and PPC on some platforms.

The college course is extremely simple and covers the basics of social media, as mentioned I'm doing it purely for the paperwork.

I do need to grow my skills though as I lack the commercial experience and I know for a fact that there is a difference between ranking websites in your own time for various niches and ranking them for a corporate company.

I was reading a few SEO articles a while back which actually covered what SEO involves now and as you said it covers a huge variety of things such as general marketing, web development and to a certain extent design.

My view is that the SEO/IM should be capable of managing on their own when it comes to web development. They should be capable of implementing basic features that they need and creating images that are not graphic intensive as well as modifying existing content to suite.

I want to pick a degree that will serve as a backing for my career and the platform for my knowledge. Once I choose a degree I can self teach the other aspects or complete some short courses.

A friend of mine is actually dong a masters degree in computer science and recommended that I do web development as a degree and business as a sub course and then self teach the other things.

Realistically I think that there is only so much you can learn as such when it comes to SEO and Internet Marketing and as previously mentioned no matter how much of an expert you are you continue to learn bits and pieces each day.

Rand is known as a SEO expert but I'm sure he to learns on a daily basis.

Again, thanks for the response I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. I was wary about doing web dev as I don't want to fall into doing web development constantly. I enjoy the variety that Digital Marketing/ Internet Marketing offers as it typically seems to cover bits of everything and does not get boring.

Thanks.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Well SEO in my opinion is not just SEO anymore, it's marketing.  So anything that can help the process such as web design, programming, writing is important now for content issues.  SEO though is something you have to really learn on your own, by the time a college learns what it is, they can't fully teach tactics, because SEO tactics change often.

I personally have a Bach CIS degree and a Masters MISM degree.  I found that they helped me a lot. I mastered in databases, but learned web design, programming, and much more that has helped me start my own company years ago.

I would advise if your looking o get into SEO that you start trying to rank up sites yourself if you already haven't to figure out how to do it.  SEOMOZ.org is a great place to find out info from a lot of very smart people.  Your in the right place asking some good questions.  Keep it up and you will be their.

Have a great night and a happy holidays.