Now this is interesting. The SEO Firm Marketing Pilgrim recently launched a contest to give away a search engine marketing scholarship prize worth more than $5,000.

Here’s what the prize package includes:

• Full conference pass to the Search Engine Strategies conference held in Chicago this December. (courtesy of Incisive Media)
• A 2-day pass to an upcoming SEO Workshop with the choice of “Beginner” or “Advanced” training levels. (courtesy of Search Engine Workshops)
• A one-year subscription to KeywordDiscovery.com keyword research tool. (courtesy Trellian)
• A copy of Aaron Wall’s “SEO Book” (courtesy SEOBook.com)
• A copy of “Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day” by authors Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin. (courtesy YourSEOPlan.com)
• One-on-one consulting and training with search engine marketing consultant Andy Beal. (courtesy Marketing Pilgrim)
• More prizes to be announced.

If you’re looking to start a career in search engine marketing or improve your existing skills further, this might be something you’re interested in. Basically all you need to do is to write an article about SEO and submit it. Each Monday in October (starting the 9th) they’ll post qualifying entries and let their readership vote on a finalist for that week.

Of the 4 weekly finalists, a final winner will be chosen by a panel of judges comprised of several industry leaders including:

• Rand Fishkin – SEOMoz.org
• Jennifer Grappone & Gradiva Couzin – YourSEOPlan.com
• Mike Grehan – Search-Engine-Book.co.uk
• Kim Krause Berg – UsabilityEffect.com
• Lee Odden – TopRankBlog.com
• Robin Nobles – SearchEngineWorkshops.com
• Barry Schwartz – RustyBrick.com
• Aaron Wall – SEOBook.com
• David Warmuz – Trellian.com

What a great idea from Marketing Pilgrim. They’ll get a ton of independent content submitted to their site, and probably get a lot of great ideas. It’s also a killer opportunity for a hopeful SEM student who wants to step into the big time. If any of you guys are going to take a crack at entering, best of luck!

Here are a couple of articles about the contest:
http://www.internetfinancialnews.com/financialblogtalk/news/ifn-6-20061002NewSearchEngineMarketingScholarship.html

http://blog.clickz.com/061002-115528.html

Here’s the full contest page from Marketing Pilgrim:
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/search-engine-marketing-scholarship.htm