How To Get Into The PPC Industry.

I got a message recently from bazkika on twitter :-

Hi Jordan, any tips/recommendations of PPC training/courses to help me get into the PPC industry, I live in the NW England. Thanks

…There’s so many courses out there, I don’t know which are good and which not. Thanks again.

Good question.

I’m not sure I am the best person to answer that question, but I’ll give it a go and hopefully (if I ask nicely) some more PPC’ers will add their own comments to this post.

If you mean ‘How do I get a full time job working in PPC for an agency?‘ I can’t speak from experience as since I started doing PPC, I have only ever worked for myself.

However, if I was going to employ someone, here is my list of requirements from candidates in order of importance:-

• Experience (I don’t want someone who has just graduated and has zero experience in the real world. Some experience of AdWords is vital, even if you have only set up a small campaign for someone free of charge.)
• References (I need someone to tell me you are not a complete arse).
• Qualifications (You need to be an AdWords Qualified Individual ).

I’ll expand on the last point a bit further…

You don’t need expensive offline courses or seminars to achieve this. If you are reasonably good at multiple choice exams and you have enough spare time on your hands, you can pass the 2 online AdWords exams required to become a qualified individual (Do the fundamentals exam and then advanced search). All the information you need to pass the exams is available for free in the AdWords Certification Programme Learning Centre. Total cost for taking the 2 exams online is $100.

If you are not a natural when it comes to online / multiple choice exams, then I recommend ipassexam.com. If you can pass the practice tests then you can definitely pass the real tests.

Alternatively, if you want to work for yourself, you could do it the hard way like I did by teaching yourself, getting qualified, setting up your own web site, setting up your own company, and gradually building up your client base (start in your spare time before giving up your old job) until you are making a wage you can live on. Though this is incredibly hard unless you are natural born salesman as well as very good at your job, and the competition is *much* more intense now than it was when I went full time more than 4 years ago.

Either way, Good luck!