Kate: Can you imagine a life where everything was just easy?  You know, like where you ask for things, and then people just bring them to you?

Jack: It’s wonderful…

– “The Family Man” (2000)

Ah yes, wouldn’t it be nice if you could read some sage bit of Search Engine Optimization or Digital Marketing advice, call in one of your well trained staff members, ask them to implement and simply wait for them to bring you the results?

Welcome to the Real World

Is SEO training just one more thing on your plate? Then only worry about the essentials!

I don’t know about you, but that ain’t the business world I operate in.  I grew up in small business, literally, and I’ve spent the last 35+ years in a world where managing a business or a department tends to be like fighting 5 fires in a high wind with a garden hose and a shovel.

Taking time away from all the other concerns of a hectic day to become an expert in SEO simply isn’t an option for most small business managers.  If you’re like me, you long for information that is stripped down to the essentials.

It’s to fill that need in SEO that we created a new online training course called “Real World SEO: Essentials.”  This course is designed to cut through all the stuff that no one in the “real world” will ever do and focus on the meaningful concepts and the realistic actions most busy small businesses CAN take based on knowing those concepts.

The course is divided into 9 modules and is approximately 6 hours of video training.

Who is the Course For?

Business owners and managers

This course wasn’t just designed for business owners.  It is designed for ANYONE who has to get their website seen while managing other business operations.

Independent web developers

It’s also a perfect class for Web developers who need to perform SEO for their clients but need to focus ONLY on the essentials that will have the best shot at results.

Marketing professionals

Finally, if you’re a marketing professional who is expected to manage, or simply know about, Search Engine Optimization, this course is a compact way to bring you up to speed on those concepts that will benefit your clients and put you ahead of most other marketing agencies who are after their SEO business.

Get the First 3 Modules for Free

Already know you want the full course?  Sign up here and take $50 off (this introductory offer is only good through January 31st, 2017)

 Try it Out for Free

We know how valuable your time is, otherwise you probably wouldn’t have been interested in the premise of this post.  So instead of forcing you to commit to a purchase of the full 9 modules, we’re giving away the first 3 absolutely free.  Once you sign up you’ll also get a downloadable free bonus: our SEO Workflow Journal, a template similar to what our agency uses for managing an SEO project.

The free sampler we’re giving away carries a double benefit: Not only will you have an idea of the value of the training before you purchase the full course, but regardless of whether you get the full course, you’ll get valuable and actionable insights.

What you’ll learn in Real World SEO: Essentials

Get the First 3 Modules for Free

Already know you want the full course?  Sign up here and take $50 off (this introductory offer is only good through January 31st, 2017)

Module 1 – Introduction (34 minutes)

• The Starting Point: pragmatic SEO
• Be ready to roll up your sleeves and do some work
• Expectations for the course
• What you will need
• What the goals of the course are

Module 2 – Basic Understanding (22 minutes)

• How search engines find web pages
• How they organize and store web page content
• The anatomy of a SERP
• Why certain sites are ranked higher than others

Module 3 – Evaluating Your Website (36 minutes)

• How to evaluate your current website
• The importance of KPI’s
• Getting started with Google Analytics and Google Search Console
• Resources for evaluating your website such as Open Site Explorer

Module 4 – Make it Search Engine Friendly (SEF) (62 minutes)

• What SEF means
• How to check for health problems using Google Search Console (GSC)
• How to create an XML sitemap and let Google know about it, also using GSC
• What a robots.txt file is, and why you need to check yours

Module 5 – Keyword Research (58 minutes)

• Why keyword research is foundational to SEO success
• How to do keyword research using Google’s “keyword planner”
• How to determine whether a keyword is really competitive
• Why “themes” are more important than “keywords”
• How to set priorities for your SEO using your keyword research

Module 6 – Relevancy (56 minutes)

• The important principle of “relevancy”
• Key parts of the page for SEO
• How to optimize a page for relevancy
• What Panda is, and how to check your content for Panda-proof quality
• The importance of a content-creation strategy

Module 7 – Authority (43 minutes)

• The second pill ar of SEO success: Authority
• What PageRank is and how it changed the search engine game
• The impact of Google’s Penguin updates
• Link-building basics

Module 8 – Conversion Optimization (27 minutes)

• Why visits are meaningless without conversion
• What factors keep people from taking action on your website
• What conversion boosters will help you to get the most out of your SERP rankings
• How higher conversions can also help your organic SEO efforts

Module 9 – Managing Your SEO (21 minutes)

• Learn the difference between urgent and important
• How to avoid SEO paralysis
• How to get the most out of the SEO Journal that we provide as a bonus
• What options are available to you to take your study of SEO and Internet Marketing to the next level

Bonus Materials

• Sample SEO Workflow Journal (a handy team document for tracking and managing your SEO)
• Google Special Search Operators for Keyword Research
• Match Type cheat sheet to help you get the most out of Google’s Keyword Plan

Get the First 3 Modules for Free

Already know you want the full course?  Sign up here and take $50 off (this introductory offer is only good through January 31st, 2017)

Ross Barefoot

Ross Barefoot got his start in small business managing an importing company in the bicycle industry.  While there, he tried his hand at programming to find more effective ways to track, market and sell his company’s range of bicycle parts. He loved the web marketing side of things so much he became a professional web developer in 2001, starting a website design business in Western Colorado. He took his first SEO certification course from the Search Engine Academy in 2002, followed it up with another in 2004, and decided to jump full time into SEO training and consulting in 2011, becoming a Master Certified Instructor with the Search Engine Academy, where he continues to serve on the Board of Directors. Today, Ross is CTO, trainer and chief SEO strategist at Horizon Web Marketing (www.horizonwebmarketing.com), a full-service digital marketing agency based in Las Vegas.