What is the Best Course to Learn SEO?

There are many things to consider when choosing the right SEO class for you. Your time and money are valuable resources, so it’s a good idea to be sure you’re investing both wisely. SEO training courses and certificates can be expensive and time consuming, although these two factors will vary from class to class. Plus, there are so many ways to study SEO, from free tutorials to associate certificates and college degrees to bootcamps, and each will have varying benefits and challenges. 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by making a decision, don’t worry, this article will help you weigh the pros and cons so you can decide which class is your best fit. Regardless of which option you choose, learning SEO is absolutely worth the effort as it can open up alternative career paths, allowing you to earn more money and find professional fulfillment in a range of industries.

Are You Brand New to SEO?

If you’re brand new to SEO, there are many things you will want to consider. Firstly, what is it specifically that you want to learn? Do you learn better in-person or virtually? Live or on-demand? Introductory classes can be attended live online, on-demand, or in person and typically cover all the fundamental theories and techniques of SEO. They’re designed for those with limited or no knowledge of SEO, so they’re perfect for newbies.

If you’re still trying to decide if SEO is what you want to study, free resources may be a better route. YouTube videos, online tutorials, blogs, and discussion boards can be a great place to gain a general understanding of SEO so you can decide if it’s the right subject for you. While these resources will save you money, they aren’t intended for robust learning, so if you are confident you want to learn SEO, an introductory course is a better choice. 

How Much are You Willing to Pay?

The financial cost of education always needs to be considered. You’ll want to make sure that the price is within your budget, but you’ll also want to make sure that the cost of the course is worth the knowledge and skills you will learn. While attending a professional development class is a good way to advance in your career and increase your earnings, you might not want to (or be able to) pay any price to further your SEO skills, and you may find there aren’t enough benefits to enrolling in the most expensive training option possible.

Overall, the cost of an SEO course will vary depending on the depth of knowledge, course length, and whether it’s live or on-demand. Typically, the immersive courses are the most expensive. A college marketing degree can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take four years to complete, but will provide in-depth learning. Alternatively, a bootcamp or on-demand training course will cost substantially less, but these will only provide you with entry-level skills.

How Quickly Do You Need to Learn New Skills?

Course lengths can vary widely and require varying amounts of your daily time. You’ll want to choose a course that helps you optimize your time, providing you with the most value both financially and logistically. If you’re looking to launch your career as soon as possible, a bootcamp or quick course may be a good option. If you have more time to dedicate towards learning and want to master advanced subjects, a longer course like a certificate or degree could be best. 

There are three crucial ways SEO determines search engine success: technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO. Each aspect focuses on different areas to optimize a website's ranking in search engine results, so course length may be determined by how many of these ways the course covers. Learning SEO typically takes one to three months for the basics and up to a year to fully master. Factors affecting this include time available for study, the rate of information absorption, and whether you're learning independently or in a class.

Do You Want to Become a SEO Professional?

If you want to become an SEO professional, you’ll want to consider how much the curriculum covers, if career services or mentorship are provided, and if portfolio development is included. Certificates take substantially more time than introductory courses or free resources, but they offer a wider breadth of knowledge, noteworthy credibility, and the potential to network. These programs aim to cover can often be attended full-time or part-time and are focused on professional development and technical training. 

While they may be longer than other options, they are also shorter than an undergraduate or graduate degree. The content covered will focus more on professional skills rather than introductory material or advanced theory, so you won’t get the immersive theoretical background that a marketing program would give you. You also won’t spend 2 to 6 years working on a degree, or saddled with substantial student loans debt. These kinds of programs are the fastest options available for students whose goal is immediate professional development and employment.

How Much Technical Training Do You Need?

If you have a foundation in marketing, web development, or content creation, transitioning into SEO will be fairly straightforward as you’ll already be familiar with some of the technical aspects.. For those starting from scratch or in unrelated fields, it may take additional hands-on experience and continuous education to become proficient. The technical side of SEO includes ensuring that a website meets the technical requirements of modern search engines with the goal of improving organic rankings. Important elements of technical SEO include crawling, indexing, rendering, and website architecture, which are typically covered in more in-depth courses like bootcamps, certifications, or degrees. 

Do You Prefer In-Person or Online Training?

This is perhaps the most important question you need to ask yourself. Online trainings are great for those who prefer a solitary learning environment with minimal distractions. They allow you to learn from the comfort of your own home (or wherever you choose), providing more flexibility. Additionally, if you live in an area with limited (or no) in-person options, online classes open up more opportunities for you. 

If you thrive in a collaborative classroom environment, look into in-person classes. You’ll be able to work with other students, make new friends, and receive feedback and input from your instructor in the moment. These classes also provide a higher level of accountability and are a superb choice for those who struggle to keep themselves motivated or on task. They are, of course, less flexible than an online class, but often their advantages outweigh this one disadvantage. 

Learn SEO Skills with Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers a variety of classes, both live online and in-person in New York City. Their SEO Bootcamp covers the fundamentals of SEO with hands-on lessons in search engine optimization and competitive keyword analysis Led by an expert instructor, this class offers small class sizes, setup assistance, and a free retake should you wish to revisit any of the material. The course also includes a seven-day free trial of SemRush, the top keyword research tool.

If you’re looking for something more robust, Noble also offers a UX & UI Design Certificate that covers design concepts, industry tools like Figma, and research methodologies for creating successful user experiences. UX (User Experience) focuses on designing apps, websites, and other products that are easy and pleasant for people to use. UI (User Interface) focuses on the appearance of apps, websites, and other products, so they are beautiful and visually effective. UX/UI and SEO are complementary fields; having a better understanding of the user’s experience can help guide your SEO strategy. 

Additionally, their Digital Marketing Certificate will provide you with a holistic understanding of all parts of marketing, including SEO. You’ll develop an actionable, multi-tiered campaign and optimize it through search engine optimization (SEO), social media, paid search, content marketing, and email marketing. You’ll also learn to increase your return on investment by using technology to determine key performance indicators, monitor web analytics, track conversions, and create reports with Google Analytics. Tracking your successes and failures will be hugely important as an SEO professional. 

Google Analytics Bootcamp will teach you how to use Google Analytics and its applications for marketing, including tracking data, interpreting reports, and optimizing performance. Google Analytics is often used by SEO experts to help identify content and pages on a website that is ranking well or getting shared a lot. This course will cover setting up an account and understanding what you should be tracking. You’ll also discover the exciting features of GA4, including its data model and advanced methods for tracking events that matter to you. (This course is part of the Digital Marketing Certificate, but can be taken as a standalone course.) 

While not specifically focused on SEO, Web Development with HTML & CSS is a valuable course for any SEO professional, as they’ll often have a hand in website development. This class offers hands-on experience coding websites from scratch, all the way through uploading to make the site live. You’ll learn best practices for structuring and tagging the content of your webpages with HTML, and styling the content with CSS. Using HTML, you’ll learn how to create webpages with text, images, and more. With CSS, you’ll style the content, create centered page layouts, add background images, style navigation, and make the page responsive. Optimizing HTML and CSS is paramount to ensuring not only an attractive design but also excellent SEO performance.