Interview with Muriel Archibald of Search Engine Academy West

The other day I had an opportunity to meet and talk with Muriel Archibald - SEO Professional and instructor/ owner of Search Engine Academy West and here is an excerpt from my chat with her:

1. Tell us a little about Search Engine Academy West?

We're part of a larger organization, the Search Engine Academy, which operates throughout North America and is expanding in Europe and Asia. It's an advantage for us because we have a team of instructors who regularly discuss what's going on in the business. We pool our knowledge and resources, so that ends up being an advantage for our students as well.

2. What was your inspiration behind SEAW?

I think the whole field of search engine marketing is fascinating. It's a fast-paced environment where things change all the time, and that keeps it interesting. But sometimes I get frustrated with mis-information and bad advice that people new to the business end up trusting. The opportunity to promote businesses or organizations online is really tremendous, but if it's done wrong you can end up doing yourself more harm than good. There's also the ever-changing aspect to the online marketing business, so people often find older information that might have worked a few years ago but doesn't work now. So I really see a need for this type of training, and I think the need is going to keep growing as more businesses get involved in online marketing.

3. Why is SEO gaining importance nowdays?

I think in a large part it's consumer driven. More and more people are buying online. And even those that don't buy online do a lot of their research through search engines before they make a decision to buy offline. As a result a lot more businesses are making an effort to develop an online presence. And from there it just keeps growing. More consumer dollars spent online means more businesses want to be there, and the more they need to know about effective methods of online marketing. There are lots of credible studies that show consumer online spending has grown every year and will continue to do so.

4. How can students/ residents/business owners of Thompson- Okanagan benefit from workshops?
When you start out learning this process by yourself you can spend a very long time learning what works and what doesn't. I know, because that's exactly what I was doing about 11 or 12 years ago. Lots of reading, lots of testing, lots of mistakes, more learning. Instead I think it makes sense to learn all the core basic methods and best practices, which is what we teach in our basic SEM course. Or take it one step further and learn more advanced techniques. In the end I think businesses will end up with two financial gains - one from the time they will save by learning to do this the right way quickly, and the second because of the increased revenue potential from an effective online presence. And there is great opportunity for individuals to turn this training into a job or a new business. We've had a variety of students, from those who want to start their own SEO business to owners and managers who want enough knowledge to oversee an online marketing campaign and know whether they're getting good advice.

5. Why would they attend this type of training in a classroom rather than online?
I think there are quite a few benefits. There is lots of time for questions and answers, and we find students benefit from hearing each others questions and getting involved in a group discussion. We do some hands-on exercises and we're right there to provide help. And for anyone working on a specific website or idea we delve into that for them with site reviews, brainstorming sessions and general discussion of their particular situation.

6. Are there any pre-qualifications for joining Search Engine Academy West? (like should they be graduate, university students etc?)
Anyone with an interest in learning how to promote a website using search engines, social media and other online avenues is welcome to sign up for the workshops. One thing they do need is a basic understanding of html. You can learn it for free at htmlgoodies.com if you follow their html primers. There are also more structured courses through the HTML Writer's Guild if you want to get into it deeper.

7. What do you think about future of Search Engine/Social Media industry as a career?

Lots of opportunity. As we talked about, the number of businesses who want to take advantage of online marketing is growing every day. They might hire someone inhouse to work on it, they may outsource it to agencies. So you might get hired to work for a company on their specific website or you might get hired by an SEO firm that provides that service to clients. I know of some very good SEO firms that pay well and have told me they have a hard time finding qualified staff to fill positions. So they're very interested in people who have some formal training. One of them hired one of our students earlier this month. Or you might decide to start your own business offering SEO/SEM. Online marketing is growing to the point people are now beginning to specialize in some key areas like building links to a site, social media and blogging.

8. Tell us about your upcoming workshops?

We're working right now on determining dates for the 2010 Kelowna workshops. The first will be in the spring but it's possible we'll book a second workshop earlier if we need it. We keep the classes very small - under 20. If people are interested I'd love to hear from them so I can keep them posted on upcoming dates. We're also holding a Vancouver workshop starting March 8, and another in Calgary April 12.

You can follow Muriel on twitter at http://twitter.com/seawest1

For more information about SEO workshops, visit: Search Engine Academy West

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