Last updated on November 25th, 2022
When I started creating websites, I knew hardly anything about SEO. I tried to find reliable sources of information but instead, I found a lot of misinformation and charlatans.
SEO is super important when it comes to marketing, but a lot of first time business start-ups have never even heard of it before. So, if you want to learn SEO from reliable resources, then here is my list of the 5 best websites where you can learn SEO for free.
Why It’s Important To Learn SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s an integral part of helping your business grow and be a success. It refers to the steps business owners take to help make their website (and as a result, their business) more visible online.
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This increase in visibility has many benefits as it allows more potential customers to find your business through the internet. As 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search, SEO can have a positive impact on your revenue and sales.
Not only that but also helps cut down on costs for customer acquisition by 87.41%. It can help boost your brand, give you an edge over your competitors, and support any content marketing you hope to try (see also, ‘What Are the Best Niches for Affiliate Marketing?‘).
Because of this, 70% of marketers view SEO as a better marketing strategy than the likes of PPC. Marketers also view SEO as an important marketing strategy with 75% claiming that their SEO tactics were either extremely or very effective.
So, SEO can have a huge impact on your business’s success. You, as a business owner, need to learn and understand it if you want your business to be visible online – but how?
How To Learn SEO Online
First, you need to understand the basics of SEO. I have only given a brief overview in the above section, but there are plenty more articles out there to help you understand what SEO is and how it works (see also, ‘What is Cloaking in SEO‘). These can be read for free and help you understand the groundwork of SEO.
One of the best free to read guides I have often used in the past is Google’s own SEO Starter Guide.
Because Google has over 80% of the search engine market share, it’s great to see exactly what their criteria is when it comes to choosing which websites get to the top of search result pages.
This way, you can use it as a checklist to ensure your website meets all of Google’s targets for their most highly recommended search results.
If the guide is too wordy for you or you’re finding it difficult to follow, then I would recommend you check out some podcasts (such as The Authority Hacker Podcast) or YouTube videos from Bruce Clay.
Best Free SEO Online Courses
A great way to learn more about SEO is to sign up to an SEO course. Some courses do cost money but there are plenty of free courses available too.
Here are some of the best free SEO courses you can check out to learn everything you need about SEO to help your business grow. I personally have tried them all and found the information useful and reliable. I’ll go into a little more detail in each section, so let’s take a look!
SEO Training Course From Udemy
Udemy is a go-to online education provider and is well known for their high quality courses. As a result, I obviously had to check out their SEO training course.
The course covers all the fundamentals of SEO including keyword research, link building, and SERP features.
It also covers SEO reporting (see also, ‘How to Create White-Label SEO Reports and Automate Them‘) which can be useful for marketers as well as business owners. The course also supports its students to build their own SEO strategies for their own projects.
Customer Reviews: This course has a 4.4 course rating on Udemy, with many of the reviews praising it for being easy to use and understand. If there’s one complaint, it would be the lack of a workbook or additional resources other than the video lessons.
My Verdict: The course is totally flexible. You can watch your recorded lectures on any device and any time that best suits you, you don’t need any qualifications to sign up, and it’s free. Although there’s no certification, it’s a great free resource to check out.
SEO Training Course: Building Sustainable Traffic For Business Growth From Hubspot
Like Udemy, Hubspot is another popular online education provider known for its amazing courses. They too offer a free SEO training course which also covers the basics and offers you the information you need to help build your own strategy for your business.
You will learn everything from keywords to backlinks, understand how important each component is, and be able to evaluate your own website’s SEO. This way, you will have all the tools you need to optimize your website even further.
Customer Reviews: I struggled to find any reviews from other students as Hubspot doesn’t share its course ratings on its pages. However, I found plenty talking about the great quality of Hubspot in general – but nothing solid that referred directly to their SEO Training Course.
My Verdict: I found this course to be pretty short but I liked how everything was broken down into clear categories.
This I think a lot of people will be grateful for, especially if this is their introduction to SEO. If you’re struggling to wrap your head around SEO, then this is the course to check out.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization By Coursera
To become an SEO expert, you will probably need to take multiple courses and study the topic for several weeks – and this is something you usually can’t get with a free course. Despite this, Coursera offers a specialization package which you can enroll in for free.
It features multiple courses and has a flexible schedule for you to fit in around your lifestyle.While you are studying a range of areas all related to SEO, you also get to build your own project alongside and receive a certificate at its completion!
Each course stretches from the basics and fundamentals, to advanced content and tactics businesses can use to really boost their SEO. So, this course will help you master SEO but be prepared for a lot of learning and commitment over the next few weeks.
Customer Reviews: This selection of courses has a great 4.7 star rating on Coursera. In fact, each course never dips below the 4 star rating mark, so it’s clear that the thousands of students who have tried this package were impressed with what they got!
My Verdict: I loved the convenience of having a bunch of linked courses in one place, and it’s great for natural progression from beginner to advanced level.
The information was solid and the ability to build your own project alongside the course is something I know a lot of people will love. Although it will take you a long time to get through these courses, I seriously recommend them!
SEO Foundations By LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s SEO Foundations course ticks all the boxes you need to understand the foundations of SEO. This includes taking a look at how SEO works in practicality, from measuring its effectiveness in businesses and checking out the best internal linking practices.
You also receive a certificate at the end to help prove your knowledge to potential employers.
Customer Reviews: The course has been liked by over 1,300 users within the few months it’s been available for – that’s pretty impressive for a LinkedIn course!
My Verdict: This course isn’t the best of the best for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s barely over an hour long but some people may love how short and fast-paced it is (especially if you’re looking for a refresher course).
Secondly, you have to use your LinkedIn free trial to access it for free. So, it may not be accessible to all but it’s the best refresher SEO course I could find.
To access this SEO course for free, you will need to use the free trial from SkillShare but it will be worth it to access this course. It focuses less on the basics of SEO and more on the practicalities of it, including how to use mobile SEO, on-page SEO practices, and link building.
This course is more intermediate than beginner level as it’s more in-depth and tackles tricker elements of SEO.
Customer Reviews: This SkillShare course has mostly positive reviews, with most of the reviews praising how engaging each class was and how helpful and clear the instructions were.
It seems like most of the negative reviews are from people who the course isn’t applicable for – like beginners or hobbyist bloggers who don’t need this level of SEO.
My Verdict: I loved how practical this course was and how it linked the things you learn about in other courses to real-life scenarios and projects.
It could really help those who understand SEO think more practically on how they can apply it to their businesses. Unfortunately, this course is only free if you have access to a free trial but it’s definitely worth it in my opinion.
Final Thoughts
So, those are 5 websites that offer free SEO courses for you to check out. As a bonus, I have also linked to the free Google SEO Starter Guide for you to check out too – I hope this has helped you find all the resources you need to learn more about SEO!
