Should Internet Marketing Be Taught in High School?

Posted by PARudy in Blog, Internet Marketing, SEO

For the most part, search engine optimization is like the utmost of jargon to the outside world. Little is known about how search engines develop rankings through the SERPs and what websites must do for themselves to make sure that they have a little bit of visibility in the world.

And that simple fact, the fact that many people have no clue what the acronym “S.E.O.” even stands for, means one thing for people in the Internet marketing business: SEO’s (what you call someone in the Internet marketing business) are able to charge big $$$$ for Internet marketing services. Services that most anyone on this planet can do with the right information.

And I don’t mean to say that anyone can do this because that, realistically, is not true – because it takes a certain type of person to create for themselves on the Internet. You have to be wily – and you have to have a good mind for business. But theoretically and technically speaking – anyone can get into providing SEO services, because a lot of them just require two things: Time to learn how search engines operate, and a basic set of writing skills. With those two things, anyone can do what even some of the top SEO dogs do, and everything else will fall into place.

Why am I talking about this when the question is: Should SEO be taught in high school?

I have sought out other opinions on the debate on whether high schools should teach students about SEO or not (many of these opinions coming from SEO’s) and a lot of them have shared the some opinion on the topic. Many believe that SEO should not be taught in school because it would overflow the SEO business. Students would realize that you do not need a college degree to make a lot of money in this world and you would have 17 and 18 year old kids providing SEO services for much better prices – which they are very capable of doing.

But personally – I feel as if that is a terrible argument, and the only reason I would say that including it in a high school class would be a bad idea would be because the Internet and SEO is ever changing – now more than ever – and who knows how long the fundamentals of SEO will be around. That being said there could be an ever adapting class – which would obviously be an awesome idea!

Every student, and every person on this planet, should have a right to know just how Google and other search engines feed information to people. In fact, the basics of SEO like content creation for the Internet, what link building means, and why we see what ads we see when we use a search should be engraved into every single person’s head that uses the Internet. Millions upon millions of people use search engines like Google every single day – those people have a right to know how the information they arrived at actually got there and what agendas were at hand.

This is the exact reason that to prep for the algorithm update titled “Panda” Google used qualitative research that included asking people questions like “Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit card? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids?” Both Google and searchers were tired of low quality content showing up in the search engine results pages – sites that were there because of manipulative SEO tactics rather than providing what it is exactly that the searchers are looking for. People of this planet should be able to recognize when agendas are at hand – and when content ranks because it should rank – or at least have the option to learn at a young age.

Wouldn’t You Love to Teach SEO?

One cool thing about this is that there would be tons of people that would be able to teach SEO in high school. Online projects could be completed within a semester and it is the perfect side job for many people that are in the business that prefer to work at night or have wacky hours.

Young kids have very creative minds. In fact it’s been said that all of our greatest ideas as humans are thought up by the time we are 18 and we spend the rest of our lives working on them. Not only would SEO be a beneficial class for the students – but it would probably turn out to be the most fun! Isn’t that why we as SEO’s go into it in the first place? Because it is fun?

About PARudy

has written 1 post(s) for FMS SEO.

Philip has been in the SEO industry for quite some time. During his time spent he has been involved in many AdWords campaigns, link building campaigns, and specializes in local business Internet marketing.

• View all posts by PARudy →
• Blog