10 Completely Free SEO Training Courses
By Si Quan Ong
SEO & Marketing Educator at Ahrefs
Here are ten that won't cost a dime.
1. SEO Course for Beginners
Course provider: Ahrefs
Duration: 2 hours
Instructor(s): Sam Oh
Level: Beginner
Link: SEO Course for Beginners
What you’ll learn
- The fundamentals of what search engine optimization is and how it works
- Why SEO is important
- How to do keyword research
- How to optimize web pages for search engines
- Beginner-friendly link building strategies to get backlinks to your site
- Technical SEO best practices for beginners
This comprehensive course is ours and covers the fundamentals of SEO, including keyword research, on-page SEO, technical SEO, and link building.
2. SEO Certification Course
Course provider: HubSpot
Duration: 3 hours 51 minutes
Instructor(s): Rachel Sheldon, Matthew Howells-Barby
Level: Beginner
Link: SEO Certification Course
What you’ll learn
- How to evaluate and improve your website's SEO
- How to build backlinks to your website at scale to increase your website's visibility in organic search
- How to use insights from keyword research and reporting to improve your search performance
HubSpot’s SEO Training Course is tailored for marketers, content creators, and anyone looking to enhance their website’s visibility. Through practical lessons and real-world examples, the course participants will learn how to build a robust SEO strategy, analyze their website's performance, and adapt to the changing algorithms of search engines.
3. Make Sure Customers Find You Online
Course provider: Google
Duration: 3 hours
Instructor(s): Google
Level: Beginner
What you’ll learn
- How to get started with search
- How to make search work for you
- How to get discovered with search
- How to help people nearby find you online
This free course from Google Skillshop helps businesses discover ways to reach and connect with more customers online. It covers improving SEO and using online advertising (SEM) to boost sales and awareness.
4. Google SEO Fundamentals
Course provider: University of California, Davis
Duration: 28 hours
Instructor(s): Rebekah May
Level: Beginner
Link: Google SEO Fundamentals
What you’ll learn
- How to complete a competitive analysis on a webpage
- How to interpret brand recognition through social media
- How to create sitemaps and robot.txt files, plan redirects, and manage site errors
- How to use a variety of SEO tools to conduct an audience analysis and develop personas of your ideal buyer
Offered by the University of California, Davis, this course on Coursera delves into the fundamental aspects of SEO, including how search engines work and how to implement effective SEO strategies to attract more organic traffic.
However, due to its length (28 hours), it may not be the most suitable if you want to learn SEO fast.
5. SEO for Beginners Training
Course provider: Yoast
Duration: 2 hours
Instructor(s): Joost de Valk
Level: Beginner
What you’ll learn
- What SEO is and what Google does
- Tips for quick wins to improve your site
- Insights into the content and technical side of SEO
This free course discusses what SEO is and how it works. Some of the important points from the course are how to use keywords to optimize your website, how to write content that Google likes, and how to make your website crawlable by search engines.
6. Keyword Research Course
Course provider: Ahrefs
Duration: 2 hours
Instructor(s): Sam Oh
Level: Beginner
Link: Keyword Research Course
What you’ll learn
- How to do keyword research and drive targeted traffic to your website
This is our specialized course that focuses specifically on keyword research. It covers topics such as how to choose keywords, how to analyze search intent, and how to find low-competition keywords.
7. Technical SEO Course
Course provider: Ahrefs
Duration: 1 hour 21 minutes
Instructor(s): Sam Oh
Level: Beginner to intermediate
Link: Technical SEO Course
What you’ll learn
- The fundamentals of technical SEO
- How to run a technical SEO audit
- How to optimize your website’s technical SEO
Another specialized course from us, this course is designed for those looking to dive deeper into the technical side of SEO. It covers advanced topics such as site audits, page speed optimization, and how to resolve common technical issues that can impact search rankings.
8. Technical SEO Certification
Course provider: Blue Array
Duration: 7 hours
Instructor(s): Damion Edwards
Level: Beginner to intermediate
What you’ll learn
- What to consider when investigating a website from a technical perspective
- Which tools to use and how to interpret data
- How to crawl a website in the easiest and most efficient way possible
- What areas to check to comply with the Google Page Experience update
- How to choose structured data
- How to detect and resolve thin and duplicate content
- The common security issues and how to fix them
- Checking your internal linking to give your website the best chance possible to rank well
Aimed at professionals seeking to certify their expertise, this course covers a wide range of technical SEO topics, including crawling, indexing, ranking, and on-page optimization. From site architecture to schema markup, it equips learners with the skills to tackle technical challenges and improve website performance.
9. Local SEO Course
Course provider: Ahrefs
Duration: 44 minutes
Instructor(s): Sam Oh
Level: Beginner
Link: Local SEO Course
What you’ll learn
- How to do local SEO
- How to do local keyword research
- How to do local link building
Ideal for businesses targeting local customers, this course teaches the basics of optimizing for local search. It covers essential tactics for improving local visibility, such as Google Business Profile optimization and local keyword targeting.
10. Advanced Link Building Course
Course provider: Ahrefs
Duration: 1 hour 48 minutes
Instructor(s): Sam Oh
Level: Intermediate to advanced
What you’ll learn
- How to find prospects with the “seed and lookalike” approach
- How to validate link building campaigns with a “blitz list”
- How to craft personalized and benefit-rich outreach emails
- How to create, structure and manage a link building team
- How to scale your link building operations
Focusing on one of the most challenging aspects of SEO, Sam shares his years of experience creating campaigns, sending outreach emails, and building teams. This is a must-finish course if you need help building and scaling your link building operations.
Final thoughts
The best way to learn SEO is to do.
So, don’t just go through the courses, take notes, and leave it aside. You need to actually execute to find out what works and what doesn’t. Create a website, implement the ideas you’re learning, and see if you can get more organic traffic to it.
That’s how you become an SEO pro.
Si Quan is a content marketer at Ahrefs. He has been involved in digital and content marketing for the past 5 years. Before he joined Ahrefs, he was content marketer at ReferralCandy, a 7-figure ARR SaaS company. Si Quan has spoken at some of the industry’s largest conferences in the Asia region, which includes TIECon and Digital Marketing Skill Share. He has also written for some of the industry’s most popular blogs like Sumo and SmartBlogger. His earliest work was marketing a product on Kickstarter, which eventually raised $150,000, more than double the original funding goal. The product was also featured on prominent tech websites, including Engadget, CNET and Digital Trends.
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