How to be an Online Marketing Professional

Every so often I meet someone who says they are interested in learning more about Online Marketing and they ask me to recommend a course, I do this article to respond in a general way to all those interested in Online Marketing.

I honestly do not believe that there is any course that can prepare someone well enough to perform SEO or SEM tasks correctly, this is something that must arise from own experience, the best way is to be self-taught.

I'm not saying drop out of university or stop taking a course that you plan to do, do it, but never stay in theory ... do not overvalue a university or postgraduate degree, after all, in such new careers the most possible is that the titles or certificates are simple decorations.

Without practice, theory is useless.

How do I get opportunities to put my theoretical knowledge into practice?

Most likely, at the beginning you have to create your own opportunities, no matter where you start, the important thing is to start.

Although it is not necessary to know HTML or web programming, it is always a good base since at the beginning we will most likely handle ourselves, create a blog and promote it, make a web page on a topic of interest, learn to use Google analytics, trying different tools or launching a mini campaign in Adwords, it all adds up.

Find a family member or friend who is an independent professional or has a business, register a domain, get hosting, create a simple landing page and run a small campaign in Adwords ... do not consider any of this as an expense, but as an investment in education.

I do not want to make this article long and boring, so I leave you a short list of things to do if you want to start in this world:

1) Learn HTML, CSS and some PHP: It is not 100% necessary to handle PHP or databases, but the broader your panorama, the better professionals you will be.

2) Learn basic SEO techniques: Once you know HTML and have done an experiment or two, you need to have at least some basic SEO good practice notions. You can find infinities of articles and tutorials about it both in this blog and with a simple search about it.

3) Google Analytics: Install the Google Analytics script in all your experiments, Online Marketing is about measuring results, it does not matter that they have few visits, the idea is that they get used to reading this data.

4) Get your first "customer": They don't need to earn money or anything, what they have to do is experience how it works, at least with a relative.

Create a simple page, apply some other SEO advice that you have read out there, install the Google Analytics script, send weekly reports on how the work is evolving, etc.

5) Adwords: Read about Adwords, then launch your first campaign and keep reading more, interpret what happens with each change you make and measure the evolution of the campaign.

Don't expect any course to be magical or some graduate degree to work miracles, and don't wait for your first "job" in the field to learn.

People who really know about this subject value proactivity and self-learning more than a couple of pieces of paper ... experience, however small, is more valuable.