SEO Training for Beginners: Core Fundamentals Course
Welcome to SEO Core Fundamentals course, where you will learn the essential skills of search engine optimization!
This course’s designed for anyone seeking to start optimizing their website to be featured by Google. By the end of the course, you’ll be able to check how search-engine-friendly your website is, analyze your top competitors, discover how you can improve your content, and work out your individual SEO plan.
In addition to some general SEO information, you’ll be learning the skills of keyword research, competitor analysis, content optimization, technical auditing as well as link building and so much more.
To follow all the instructions, you’ll need to be using SEO PowerSuite tools (you can download and use the free version of the software).
The ideal student for this course is a junior SEO or digital marketing specialist, or just a website owner maybe like you that wants to expand their knowledge of search engine optimization best practices. Now. There are no requirements necessary to enroll – you just need to be motivated and ready to learn “my favorite” SEO skills 🙂
So feel free to take a look through the course description and I look forward to seeing you as my colleague in the world of SEO!
If you have any questions, know that I am here to help!
Introduction to SEO Core Fundamentals
Welcome to the course! In this introductory module, you're going to learn why SEO matters today, how it is integrated in search engine marketing, what the main SEO categories and pillars are, and the 9-step list we're going to focus on in this course.
Let's see what you've learnt from the first module - answer a few questions below to ensure you've grasped the basic concepts!
Understand Searching and Ranking
In the second lecture, let's talk about the search eco system - if you want to master SEO, you definitely need to understand how Google works, how websites get ranked, and what's your primary task as an SEO specialist.
Take a quiz after you finish watching the lecture to make sure you got all the concept and terms right!
SERP Content Research
The top ranking factor in SEO is to understand the prospect and the best way to understand your prospect is by researching the SERP content. In this lecture, we'll talk about the search avatar, types of content, and search intent.
Assignment
1. Take a quiz in this module.
2. Study the SERP for your seed keyword and make notes about the content types and SERP features (is there a map pack, or videos in the results?)
Make a list of seed keywords
Make a list of your top competitors.
Make a list of seed keywords.
3. Study the downloadable materials and external resources.
How to Find and Analyze Keywords for SEO
Keywords are the cornerstone of any SEO campaign, that's why you should be very careful when choosing the phrases you're going to target. In this module, I'm going to show the complete process of building your powerful keyword list. To follow all the steps, you'll need the software called Rank Tracker, you can download and use the free version of the tool: https://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/
Assignment
Take a quiz.
Use your seed keywords to expand your target keyword list. You can download Rank Tracker and use its keyword research module to find relevant keyword phrases.
Apply filters to pick the best keywords.
Split the keywords into relevant keyword groups and see if you already have content on your website that fits those keyword groups. Use Rank Tracker or Google spreadsheets to assign keyword groups to your site’s landing pages.
Download the SEO campaign worksheet and start filling in your data.
Learn How to Find and Analyze Your Online Competitors
SEO competitor analysis helps you get answers to the questions like:
Who are my SEO competitors?
What keywords should I target?
What topics should I cover?
Where can I find links?
What do I need to beat the competition?
Watch this lecture to see how you can find and analyze your top SEO competitors, as well as discover some low-hanging fruit opportunities.
Assignment
Take a quiz.
Analyze the top keywords of your competitors, mark down all the low-hanging fruit opportunities for your website.
Analyze the content of your competitors - can you do better?
Check how your competitors are building their backlinks - can you get links the same way?
Fill in your worksheet with the competitor information.
The Overview of Google Ranking Factors: Technical, On-page, Off-page.
Understanding Google ranking factors is crucial for SEO - as these factors are the criteria applied by Google when evaluating pages to decide the best order of relevant results to return for a search query. In 2206, Google said that it was using over 200 ranking factors and this number might have doubled since that time. In this lecture, let's talk about four common pillars of Google ranking factors.
Assignment
1. Take the revision quiz.
On-page SEO is the practice where you optimize page's content for search engines and users. Common on-page SEO practices include optimizing title tags, content, internal links, etc. Watch the lecture and follow the steps shown in the demo to conduct your first on-page SEO analysis.
Assignment
Take the revision quiz.
Follow the on-page checklist to check and fix your site’s landing pages (you find it in the Downloadable materials). To check your website, you can use a tool like WebSite Auditor (there's a free version): https://www.link-assistant.com/website-auditor/
Study the HTML tags guide (Find the PDF in the Downloadable materials)
Learn about the major technical SEO factors and ways to optimize your website to make it accessible and search-engine-friendly.
Assignment
1. Study the technical SEO checklist (you can find it in the External Resources)
Discover the most important off-page ranking factors and see how you can optimize them to get a ranking boost.
Assignment
Take the revision quiz.
Use the backlink checker tool to check and analyze the backlink profile of your website. (You can use a free tool like https://www.link-assistant.com/seo-spyglass/free-backlink-checker-tool.html).
Collect and analyze backlinks of your top competitors. Use the tool like SEO SpyGlass (download the free version: https://www.link-assistant.com/seo-spyglass/) to find backlink intersections.
Write down your link building plan.
Ranking Blueprint and Monitoring Best Practices
You've learnt so much by this time, congrats! In this lecture, we'll sum up the most important steps of your future SEO project and review the key skills you need to be an outstanding SEO specialist.
This is our final lecture where we'll talk about the importance of monitoring results in SEO. I'll show you the things I usually track, the tools I use, and will even teach you to create your first SEO dashboard!
