The Institue of Direct Marketing in the UK do a certifiate and diploma in digital marketing which contains a huge chunk about SEO. It's not all SEO as there's some business planning stuff in there and email marketing too but it all about the industry in general. Do a Google search for the IDM and it's sure to appear!
Yes there are. See for example my signature link to go to searchenginecollege.com . I am now also doing 3 courses from them and I really enjoy it. First I thought that I wouldn't learn much because I thought that I already knew the most, but that was not true. Of course in the SEO 101 course there are some obvious things but also some totally new info I didn't knew yet. Some crucial info like a link to a search engine compatibility report you can use to report to your clients. This is just one thing from the SEO101 course, but by doing a pathway course of SEO for example you will do SEO101 + SEO201 + an extra course you can chose for example usability/ linkbuilding/ website copywriting/ Pay per click and so fort. After all if you finish it with a score of 70% or higher you will get an industry certification: -A diploma -A Search engine college seal you can put on your website which links to a unique page on their website to verify that you have passed the course. I am really happy that I enrolled in that course and I recommend that to everybody who wanna become more qualified in doing this work properly because on the web there are also a lot of misinformation. By doing such a course you will step over the missinformation and you learnit faster. Their courses were also covered by searchenginewatch and searchengineland from Danny Sullivan, some very known websits in the seo community. Also the chance to get a job in this industry will increase a lot if you have a SEC certification. So just check it out. There are also some extra resources for students e.g. a seowiki a job forum and of course savings for the next course you take. You will get quizzes and asignments which gets reviewed by your tutor. So you have a realy tutor and of course you can ask them questions. The tutor from SEO101 and SEO201 is Kalena Jordon, who is a respected SEO.
I did the search engine college certification years ago, but seriously I wouldn't bother. Much more information right here on this forum.
I agree with dCristo, DP is better than any classes. The info is current and the class info isn't. As for certifications, your results are your resume. "SEO Certified, MBAs" are all TALK. SEO is just the results.
I don't agree with that, because this forum has also a lot of crap/noise on it from people who don't know where they are talking about. And the pdf's from SEC will get updated everytime. For example on this moment the link building course isn't avalable because of it's getting an update. And it is also a myth that the SEO info changes so fast that education is outdated, that's simply not true and the things that changes are small and get updates very fast and easy. I agree though that SEO is the result; not your "paper", but because of too many people offering bad SEO, the SEO industry has got a very bad image. Really bad in the eyes of people outside this community/industry. So having certifications is a good issue to get more trust. Only to get the trust a certification is worth the money. P.S. here is another link to a bunch of offline Universities offering SEO education: http://www.verticalmeasures.com/education.html Then it is good to know that at last two of these universities are outsourcing their students to Search Engine College" but they ask more money for it.
^^ Dude your promoting the SEC affiliate link in your signature and you expect us to take what you say at face value? The more SEO knowledge that you gain on the forums, the more you begin to realize who is talking crap and who knows what their talking about.
@ dcristo I understand what you say but I would also recommend it when there was no affiliate program because I DO the course. I paid for it and I am glad I paid for it. And yes there were some points that I thought.. hmm maybe it was better if I bought the SEMPO course but then after reading a little further I still find valuable info I haven't seen before on any forum. By the way here the non-affiliate link: http://www.searchenginecollege.com I don't have to earn money for it, but why not if you would link to them anyway? By the way you also have an affiliate link in your sig and there is nothing wrong with it.. unless you haven't bought the product yourself so don't know what you are supporting