There is a huge amount of information out there about SEO. And so, if you wanted to, you could probably self-educate. There are several problems with that strategy, however. First off, you don’t know what is actually good and what is of lower quality. In that way, you might end up pursuing a sub-par or outdated strategy (For example, the SEO landscape changes very quickly). Another problem is that when you learn the subject in this way, you’re going to learn a rather piecemeal approach, as you learn what you find. That means there is a chance there will be serious holes in your understanding.
You can sidestep all of those problems simply by following one of the many courses that are out there. And there are quite a few. Some of them are free. Some of them are quite expenses. All of them will give you a good oversight of what SEO tactics and web marketing strategies will work for you and will teach you how to implement them.
Sound good? Then let us stop talking all this up and get straight to it, shall we?
SEO Certification Course
Another course by somebody who knows their stuff, the instructor here is Dany Dover. He wrote the best-selling “Search Engine Optimization Secrets”, was the Senior SEO manager over at AT&T, the lead SEO at SEOmoz.org – yes those are the same guys who we mentioned above – and is the co-founder of making it click.
This course will put you back $399, which is a little cheaper than the ClickMinded course. The course work will take somewhere between 25 to 35 hours to complete.
Note that you can try out some of the aspects of the course on the site (just follow the link above). These are only previews, so they’re not complete, but at least you’ll get an idea of whether this is worth your effort and your dough.
The reviews online are mixed with some saying it’s fantastic, while other being less impressed. Of course, this always happens online. I’ve seen some of the best courses still talked down to people, but it’s something to be aware of, particularly if you want to buy essays or another college papers because first, you should check reviews at Paperwriting.reviews.
SEO training course by MOZ
Over at Udemy (the online platform for learning and teaching courses), Moz offers a great choice for those starting out in SEO. The courses have been attended by nearly 100,000 students and still has an impressive 4.3 stars (which obviously means it’s not just their own staff updating it, right?).
Moz, for those of you that don’t know, is an excellent online marketing company that offers a lot of tools for people who are trying to learn SEO as well as online marketing. They’ve also got some very insightful articles on their main site, so I have no doubt in my mind that their SEO program will be fantastic.
The best part? This course is absolutely free. So even if I turn out to be wrong, you’ll only have lost the time you invested. You get a certificate of completion, in case you want to find work in the industry. It is also compatible with the iPhone, iPad and for Andriod, which means that you can learn SEO while you’re on your way to your regular job.
ClickMinded
This course is given by Tommy Griffith, who is the SEO project manager over at AirBnB. And as you no doubt know, they rank exceptionally well – so there is no doubt he knows his stuff. Of course, to get such a highly qualified teacher, you will have to pay. And it isn’t exactly peanuts. The full course will set you back $497 US.
Fortunately, there is a free trial that you can try out, which will give you some of the basic details. In this way, you can check out what you think and if you like it. From there you can decide if you can actually try the course out or if you’ll go look elsewhere.
Over at immobile the course gets 5 out of 5 stars as well as the prize for best of 2014. The users themselves rated it at 4 out of 5 stars, but that is pretty meaningless as there have only been 3 ratings – which might well simply be the teachers of the course!
The course includes a huge number of topics, including
- Introduction to SEO
- On-Page Optimization
- Off-Page Optimization & Link Building
- Technical Optimization
- Internationalization & Local SEO
- Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird Updates
- Starting a New SEO-Friendly Site from Scratch
- Recommended Tools & Services
.University of San Francisco Advanced Search Engine Marketing
The university of San Francisco – which ranks 107thin the 2017 ranking – is an impressive place to get certified by. For that reason, you should seriously consider their Advanced Search Engine Marketing degree.
Here you’ll not just learn the standard SEO tricks, but also the common pitfalls that you’ll want to avoid, like black hat tricks which eventually always get discovered by Google (and anybody that implements them harshly punished.
Even better, this course doesn’t just give you videos to watch, like the other courses do. Instead, you also get actual live class time with professors, where you can ask questions and get direct feedback. Now, that is a bit 20thcentury, admittedly, but it works for some people. Of course, the fact that you’re getting actual fact to fact time does put you back considerably. This course will cost you $1,495 US.
Search Engine Marketing Course
The idea here is that you work through the courses at your own pace and that you take as long as you like – provided you continue to pay the $99 US per month to keep your access. There are quite a few courses that you can take, including SEO starter, SEO advanced, PPC starter, PPC advanced, keyword research, link building, website usability and copywriting for PPC.
Each course has several lessons, so it will probably be a bit of a struggle to actually finish it in one month. So yeah, expect that to set you back at least 200 US. Still, that’s not so bad in comparison to some of the other courses, right?
Do note that if you want to get certified, you’ll have to pay an additional $295 US.
Online Marketing Institute Certification
The OMI is a hard company to know for sure how good they are. That’s unfortunate, seeing as they charge 859 US for their course! The problem is that those places that do give a review seem to be affiliated with them, which means they’ve got a bit of a conflict of interest.
At the same time, if you check out their blog and their material, they do seem to have a good grasp of what SEO means and how to make you good at it. Still, that’s not a lot to go on if they’re asking you to fork over that kind of money. I think the people over at reviewtopia explain it all very well, so check out what they’ve got to say, check out what courses you can and then make your judgment based on that.
Or, you know, you can go for one of the free alternatives first. That’s never a bad idea.
Last words
So there you have it, a whole list of different choices and options that you can try out to get ahead in the SEO field. Yes, quite a few of them are quite expensive (Though not all of them) but they will give you a great deal of information about how to get into this game properly.
And though you might be able to learn all of that on your own if you just read enough articles, you won’t get accredited that way. And being accredited can be incredibly useful if you’re trying to break into the industry as a newbie.
Do note, whatever course you decide to take, make sure that you have a platform that you can try out your strategies on, be it a website that you have or that you’re managing. It is vitally important for you to learn by doing, as that will make it far more likely that the information sticks around.
And that’s important, as a lot of these courses will close their doors after you stop paying, which means that whatever videos and lessons they have are suddenly once again locked to you. At that point, you really do want to make sure that you’ve got everything down and can recite it backward. And the absolute best way to do that is to learn by doing.
After all, knowledge isn’t the same as information. You can consume as much information as you want and still not be knowledgeable. The only direct application will do that for you.