Many times in business people get certifications to prove their worth to a perspective employeer, client, or even just themselves. Often these certifications can be easily attained by anyone who can read a book and memorize a practice test. As you may have noticed in the sidebar of this site, I’ve managed to become certified by both Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing.

For me this is a great honor that I’ve worked hard to achieve. This is especially true with the case of Google AdWords. To get certified for Yahoo, I sat down and went through their materials fairly quickly and took their test. I believe I got like a 92% on the test. Since I’m extremely familiar with YSM, it was very straightforward. Google was a whole lot tougher to get certified for a lot of reasons.

First, Google requires at least $1,000 spend over a period of 90 days. Second, Google’s test is much more rigorous. Last, Google’s training materials are very in-depth, which is a good thing, but it makes the whole process take a lot more time. After a long period of study, I was fortounate enough to pass with flying colors. The trickiest questions were some strange questions about geo-targeting and conversion tracking using their conversion tracking system. Neither one of those areas is particularly interesting to Ideastone or its clients, thus I can’t feel too terrible about that area of weakness.

So what is the point of getting Google and Yahoo certified? The biggest reason is that my clients aren’t experts in online marketing. That’s what I’m hired to do for them. Thus, having Google and Yahoo certify my knowledge in the area shows my clients that at least on a basic level, I know what I’m talking about. However, Ideastone still needs to prove itself in actions, deeds, and service and that is what we intend to do for each and every client.

We don’t expect you to see the certifications as proof that we are the best in the industry, we only have them to prove that we belong in our industry and that we deserve a chance to make your business better.