The SEMPO Institute, a training division of SEMPO, is now offering agency training certification. The certification basically is a seal of satisfactory completion of their course work.

SEMPO Institute is offering Gold Seal level certification and Platinum Seal level certification. Gold Level requires that 20% to 49% of their search marketing employees graduate from a course. The Platinum Seal level is for 50% or more employee participation and certification.

It costs $250 to apply and is valid for one year. SEMPO circle members get the application fee waived.

SEMPO Chairman Dana Todd said:

SEMPO Institute is the pre-eminent training organization for best practices in all aspects of search engine marketing and advertising. The Institute certification process will provide interactive agencies that participate in our program with a means of showing they are up to speed on current SEM strategy.

The courses and certification program are open to all search engine marketing, advertising, public relations, and interactive marketing agencies – basically any firm that needs to know best practices in search engine marketing in order to serve their customers well.

I currently do not see a way to sign up for the certification on the SEMPO Institute web site.

Related Topics: SEM Industry: Organizations

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz