What is the Fastest Way to Learn SEO?

If you’re interested in learning SEO but want that learning to be as efficient as possible, this article can help. 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. Below, you’ll learn about different class types, what they entail, and how long they tend to take. By the end of this article, you should be armed with the knowledge to choose the class that works best for you. 

Free Resources: The Very Basics

Free resources are available for learning SEO. YouTube boasts a wide range of tutorials and informative videos on all kinds of SEO subjects: from short five-minute episodes on the fundamentals to more in-depth breakdowns of advanced topics. YouTube is a great way to explore your initial interest or get answers to specific questions on SEO. Other websites like WordPress, Google, and LinkedIn offer short free tutorials and trainings designed to help you grasp the history and basic principles of SEO. Free resources are often your fastest option and can last anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours. Their brevity is one reason they are so valuable, but the drawback of these courses is that they will lack the in-depth knowledge and real-time interaction with an expert instructor that more immersive programs offer. With that in mind, it’s best to use these resources as a brief introduction to make sure you’re interested in the subject as opposed to the sole source of your education. 

Introductory Classes: Ideal for Eager Beginners

If you’re looking for something slightly more in-depth than YouTube tutorials and blog posts, an introductory course is a great place to start. These classes cover the history of SEO, basic principles, and the three main pillars (on-page, off-page, and technical SEO). They often will focus on specific tools as well, like SemRush, Google Analytics, and Keyword Tool. You’ll have access to top-notch curriculum crafted by an expert instructor and will usually spend a portion of the class on project-based assignments that can be added to your professional portfolio. Introductory courses can be held in-person or online in a live or on-demand format. 

Introductory courses will often cover subjects like research, SEO headlines and keywords, content optimization, sitemaps, and site architecture. The goal of an intro class is to offer you a strong foundation in the subject, building your confidence to pursue more advanced tools and techniques. These courses can vary in length from a few hours to a few days, but rarely are longer than that. 

Certificate Granting Programs: For Aspiring Professionals

While certificates take substantially more time than introductory courses or free resources, they offer a wider breadth of knowledge, noteworthy credibility, and the potential to network. These programs cover an SEO curriculum in a few weeks (or a few short months for part-time students) 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.

On-Demand Courses: It's Hard to Tell

Self-paced courses from websites like Coursera and Udemy can be a great way to learn as well. These classes are a great way to learn the ins and outs of SEO from whatever angle you find to be the most interesting, so if you want to learn about keywords, Google Analytics, on-page SEO, or off-page SEO, there are plenty of SEO experts with their own tutorials and blogs that can help.

If your schedule is complicated or you prefer to learn at your own pace, on-demand classes offer the most flexibility and freedom. All lessons are prerecorded and there’s no due dates or class times to worry about. You can skip any lessons you’ve already mastered or spend more time on more difficult subjects. With this comes the disadvantages of no live collaboration with other students or instant feedback from an expert instructor. While you’ll have more time to master challenging subjects, you won’t have someone to help walk you through those challenges or provide additional insight. 

It’s also important to remember that with more freedom comes less accountability. On-demand classes can work for independent learners who can keep themselves on task and motivated, but may not be the best fit for those who find motivation through accountability. Without scheduled class times and due dates, you may fall behind or take longer to complete your training. And without the right level of motivation, you can easily lose interest in completing the training altogether.

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.