SEO Courses Online

Let's take for example an instance to understand how SEO works better.  When someone searches the question- ‘What is SEO?’ on the search engine, they are provided with nearly 92,60,00,000+ search results.
 

The first page itself has around ten articles that answer the question. How did these sites land their articles on the first page?

The sites are not on the first page due to luck. They won't disappear when you hit the refresh button. Every time you type the above question, those sites will be on the same page. By implementing the appropriate SEO practices into their content, many blog posts and websites rank higher on the search engine results page, as compared to the others. The Search Engine Ranking Page (SERP) is responsible for the consistent flow of organic traffic on a website, thereby helping the brand grow and increase sales. 

SEO is a long-term strategy

Having in-depth knowledge about SEO and SEO optimization techniques helps content creators, brands, and small businesses generate revenue faster and more efficiently. Let's delve deeper into the significance of SEO as a must-have skill as well as in growing your business online.

The age and validity of content depend on its relevance to the topic and the audience. Being primarily focused on implementing proper usage of keywords, articles that have been optimized with SEO practices can help them rank higher in the search engine consistently.

While the primary aspect of SEO may be keywords, the quality of content, URL structure, the flow of content, graphics, user convenience, and experience are equally important for natural search engine ranking, boosting the website engagement, and consistently attracting more traffic. 

That said, SEO requires regular efforts, which means that the implementation of SEO should be thoroughly strategized with a clear idea about the objectives and expected results, over a course of 6-12 months.

SEO is the process of making content rank higher on the search engine results page. In the past few years, Google has become synonymous with the term ‘search’. We constantly refer to Googling something when we mean to search for a particular topic. 

Taking Google’s popularity into consideration, there are still more than 20 web search engines to choose from. So why Google?

Google became the top search engine when it changed its SEO criteria and requirements for digital marketers and content creators. Google also changed its algorithms which made searching for a particular keyword easier and more relevant to what the searcher needs. The rankings of the page are in accordance with the SEO rules that are followed by Google’s algorithms and search style. 

However, besides Google, other popular search engines are:

• Microsoft Bing
• Yahoo
• Baidu
• Yandex
• DuckDuckGo
• Ask.com
• Ecosia
• Aol.com
• Internet Archive

The SEO optimization practices that you need to follow will depend on the type of search engine that you want to rank higher in. it becomes a difficult task to make a single content be optimized for multiple search engines for each engine has its own algorithm and SERP requirements. But, SEO optimization for more than one search engine is possible when the basics are followed.

Search engine algorithms are unique formulas that help search engines retrieve keyword specific data, that is stored in a data structure and show it to the user. Algorithms are significant to search engines and online content since they determine the importance of a webpage and its content. 

While all search engines have their unique algorithms, they all share some basic guidelines to work towards a single objective which is to provide data to the user according to the term searched.
 

In order to provide the answer, all search engines work through these three common steps:

1. Crawling

The process of ‘Crawling’ includes specific bots or search engine crawlers checking all the information on the web pages to find the relevant topics based on the keyword. Besides basic content and keyword optimization, factors such as layout, graphics, website experience and page linking are also taken into consideration. These software bots crawl through all the pages to sort out the most relevant content.
 

2. Indexing

The indexing process refers to saving, organizing and storing pages with similar keywords together, that the bots or ‘crawlers’ come across during the initial process of search engine crawling.
 

Suppose the search made includes the words travel, cafe, and bike. While crawling, all relevant articles and content pieces include those words. Once these pages are found, they are indexed while the crawlers keep searching for more content.

3. Ranking

Once the crawlers have found and indexed the keyword specific articles, and no more pieces of content can be found, the pages are displayed on the search engine results page. Here, the priority is given to the relevance of the pages have in terms of the keywords used for searching. This is where the search engines begin to differ from each other. 

Since each search engine has its own algorithm, they all work on identifying the keywords and keyphrases while conducting the search. However, contrary to the unpopular belief that keyword stuffing helps in better ranking, search engines often detect this, which affects the ranking negatively. 

The basis of all Search Engine Optimisation rankings relies on organic search. In terms of understanding the basics of SEO, it is essential to understand the main components that drive the functioning of SEO. For pages that want to increase their online visibility, they need to follow the basic components of SEO, and these include:

1. On-Page SEO

Google’s algorithm is constantly updated, and the updates are always centered around making the user experience better. Hence, pages that do not have much traffic are ranked lower than pages having higher organic traffic. This leads to the need for better on-page SEO. When an article is published, it is to be written in a tone that resonates with the readers and provides useful information without redundancy. This is what on-page SEO is all about. Certain rules will help optimise the on-page SEO like organically incorporating the target keyword in the first paragraph, using proper titles and subtitles tags like H1 and H2, proper linking to other pages within the site, or reliable statistics being hyperlinked, and better titles and meta descriptions.

2. Off-Page SEO

While on-page SEO will help with Google crawling and indexing, other factors will help determine the page's ranking. When a search is conducted, the list that the search engine returns are ranked in order of relevance. This is why a page that was created in the year 2022 can often rank lower than a page that was created in 2019. This optimisation that will help with the ranking is done with the help of Off-Page SEO. mainly, off-page SEO makes use of other articles and content for promotion.

An example can be a specific blog that caters to a specific niche and provides hyperlinks to content or products related to that niche. But, off-page SEO is not just restricted to promotional articles. Often podcasts and videos can be considered to be part of the tactics for building on the brand.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO is a part of On-Page SEO that optimizes the technical aspects of a website. Ensuring that the technical SEO of a website meets the appropriate requirements can help it rank higher in search results. This includes making sure the page is secure, it doesn’t take much time to load, it doesn’t have duplicate content, and it is optimized for mobile phones, among other criteria. Having a flat site structure also helps the search engine to crawl and index your website better. A flat site structure means that all pages are only a few links from each other. This can also be done with the help of internal links, especially for pages that are further away from the homepage. The easier it is for them to navigate a website, the higher it will rank among the results. Duplicate content can confuse the search engine in which page to rank higher and therefore results in those pages having a low ranking. Having an XML Sitemap helps the search engine understand the layout of a website better. There are tools available online that make sure a website meets all the criteria to have the optimal technical SEO. 

4. Content

Content SEO refers to creating quality content to rank higher in search results. It revolves around the writing and site structure of a website. The three main components of an optimal content SEO are keywords, site structure, and copywriting. It is important to do keyword research to know all words related to the topic at hand. This allows to include these words and phrases in the content while showing the search engine that a website has the required content that the reader is looking for. Longer and more specific keywords or phrases allow for a better chance at showing up higher in search results. Site structure helps to make sure that it is easy for the search engine to crawl through the content. It also helps to avoid competing with one’s own pages by structuring them in a way that differentiates between two seemingly similar pages. An ideal site structure is like a pyramid with common keywords at the top and closer to the homepage, while longer and more specific keywords are further down. Finally, copywriting establishes the reader’s interest by having original and attractive content that is relevant to what the reader searched for initially. 

In SEO, keywords and keyphrases are crucial. The target audience can be reached when they can gauge their thoughts and needs in terms of content. If the trending search is related to metaverse or data security, having these terms and related terms as keywords will help the content rank higher. Here are some tips to know and utilise the right keywords:

1. Know the Customer Base

The first thing that all content creators and brands need to identify is the need of their target audience. This is possible when creators and brands think like a customer. The initial list of keywords and keyphrases is noted based on intuition and human intelligence. For example, if the brand caters to cyber security, the creators need to consider what firms and companies would need in terms of cyber security. This would include phrases like cloud computing security, cyber security checklist, compliance of security checklist, etc.
 

2. Understand the Competition

Competition is an ever-present and essential part of all industries. When you see that your competition is ranking higher in terms of sales and conversions, you need to understand how they are generating this positive result. Also, reading their content will help you understand the gaps in your own content and work. It will also help with knowing the target audience’s needs. 

3. Research the Keywords and Keyphrases

While keywords are essential and the primary source for optimising SEO, longtail keywords or keyphrases are more curated to meet the customers' exact needs. For example, when a person searches for ‘organic tea plants near me,’ this will yield more accurate results with lists of places that the customer needs. But, the addition of longtail keywords organically into the article would require some extreme writing skills for most of the searches with longtail keywords are not grammatically correct. 

4. Know the Correct Usage of Keyword Tools

Each keyword generation tool has its priorities in terms of what the algorithms consider to be top-ranking keywords. Search engines too have preferences. Google, for instance, would prefer AdSense and Search Console suggestions as both are the company’s own products. But, if the optimisation is to be made for all search engines, referencing from other keyword tools is the safest option.

5. Edit and Analyse

Once the content is set and uploaded, it should be monitored and edited per changing trends. Researching and analysing constantly, be it competitors’ web pages or the trending section, will help keep the content updated and relevant. Maintaining SEO optimisation is a constant process; working according to this will help the brand improve.

Knowing your audience is a significant part of a successful content strategy. Before even forming content outlines, it is important for digital creators to understand their target audience and their expectations alongside studying their competitor’s content.
 

This also depends on the product or business that needs to be marketed. 

Marketing depends on the target audience and identifying the group that can be positively affected by the content and engage with it. The target audience would be people looking for products or solutions that are similar to the brand you would want to launch and promote. If the brand is related to fabrics, the target audience will be designers. Terms like B2B or B2C help determine the category under which the target audience would fall. Once the target audience is identified, it becomes easy to monitor what they need. This understanding is important for creating successful SEO strategies. 

The primary function of SEO optimization is to generate organic traffic to the website. If the website is related to fabrics, then the content must focus on why that fabric will be a designer’s ideal working material. Simply writing about generic facts like the fabric’s texture or how great a loved one would feel while wearing may not help. This understanding is made better when demographics are taken into consideration while conducting keyword research.

Another effective way to identify the audience is by keeping track of who visits the website. This is generally done using tools like Google Analytics or FoxMetrics can help understand the demographics of the visiting audience. Social media platforms also provide analytical tools to help creators and brands understand the viewership of their content. Once the expectations of the target audience is understood, creating content curated for that group becomes easier. This also helps brands gain better momentum in terms of revenue generation.

For successful implementation of SEO and related digital marketing activities, it is primarily essential to understand the competition. In today’s global market where new brands enter the competition every day, there is no ‘one’ brand that caters to all the customers. For instance, in the footwear industry, right off the bat, you can easily list at least 10 names of different brands and retail outlets.
 

When you set up a new brand or outlet, why should people buy from you and not others? This question can be answered only when you analyze what your competitors are providing and understand the gaps in their content and marketing strategies. This is also known as SEO competition analysis, which is significant before creating an SEO strategy for your brand. 

The primary features that encompass SEO competition analysis are:

• The target audience and knowledge on the competitors marketing strategies is the primary feature for competition analysis. It is important to understand that sometimes brands create products that cater to a specific market only. Hence, the primary step towards competition analysis is understanding the features of the product and what makes it stand out from the other brands.

• Once the competitors are assessed, keyword analysis is the next step. Keyword analysis helps businesses identify the gaps in their webpage with respect to keyword identification, frequency, and usage. Not all keywords have a good ROI or Return on Investment. If the price for keyword analysis is more than the price of each item you are selling, then there is no point in opting for that keyword. This understanding will help you know what keywords to focus on and what can be omitted.

• The content strategy must be planned as per the keywords and the material that the target audience would want to read and retain

Organic traffic is the best way to ensure the page ranks higher. This basically means that the traffic must be organic ie. genuine and not paid or bot-generated. 

Websites with relatable content attract more genuine traffic as compared to websites that are unable to generate content that the audience relates to. Simplified, quality content with good language, and rich but easy-to-understand vocabulary is the key to a happy audience and regular website traffic. For instance, if the article is about the advantages of opting for a career in data science, the article should not be a definition of what data science is or what computer applications are. The article should talk about the statistics of the growth in the data science industry and how the evolving data world would generate more jobs. But most importantly, the content of the article must make the readers want to explore the field of data science.  

Incorporating SEO keywords in the content also helps draw more organic traffic to the page. These keywords are often the most-searched words or long-tail keywords that can make your content be indexed when the bot crawlers look for relevant content for the keywords. Promoting the website on other popular blogging platforms also helps draw attention to the products that your business offers.

Besides SEO, optimizing copies with SEO copywriting techniques also helps many brands draw in the desired crowd helping with lead conversions and generating buyers. But, do all brands and articles require the same techniques? 
SEO is not just knowing the keywords and focusing on the titles and metatags. It requires consistent monitoring of the changing algorithms of the search engines to ensure the page remains credible and visible. Usually, people do not go past the first page of the search results. If their input does not yield the desired result, they try other keywords or opt for longtail keywords. But, they rarely go beyond page one unless they are desperately in need of more factual content.

Some of the best ways to improve the SEO of your page or website are:

• Constant monitoring of the gaps in links or keywords. This can be done by checking the content on the competitors’ websites. The quality and type of content that the competitors are putting out and the views they are getting will help you understand what the audience wants to read and what connects with the audience. 
• Make use of Google Passage Ranking. Google Passage Ranking identifies individual passages within the content for finding relevant keywords and content. For example, an article is about online courses and covers topics like the best courses to pursue online, top colleges to consider, salary packages, and all relevant information about online degrees. When a person searches for a particular topic like MBA or Cyber security courses and your article has a passenger mentioning the same, Google Passage Ranking will index and display that page because that passage has relevant phrases that match the search.
• Focus a little more on feature snippets or meta descriptions. Many articles are made more visible on SERP based on the meta descriptions. This snippet or description summarizes the content and has the important keywords to attract the crawler bots for efficient indexing. 
• Make use of FAQs to help the content become relevant. If the content addresses a particular question, it has a higher chance of getting organic traffic than content that is catering to generic topics. This also means that the topic and the content should have an authoritative tone and the content should be authentic and expertly written. 
• Increase the number of backlinks for the website and the content. Asking around reputed bloggers and social influencers to give your page a mention may not help as much however generating powerful and impactful content will automatically draw numerous readers and marketers consistently.

Posting content on the internet is all about engaging the readers, marketing the brand, building a brand image, retaining customers, and generating revenue from digital content. 

That said, the aim of ‘Gaining Results’ can be divided into two categories. The first one is gaining organic ranking with proper SEO optimization. The second one is paid ranking where the search engine is paid to put the website on the first page. 

Organic ranking is the result of relatable content being shared across various platforms due to its relevance and the search volume of the keywords used in the content. Organic results, though slow, provide a long-term engagement opportunity. On the other hand, paid results provide quick results as the content is linked with advertisements and pops up on other pages to make people curious and visit the provided link. Most of the paid results are generated by posting the content along with organic results pages.

While paid results may offer quick results in terms of ranking and initial visibility, the organic method is what matters for businesses looking for long-term results. When people come to the pages and sites naturally, they will read the content as the site is shown to deliver relevant content. This will lead to the content actually reaching the target audience and sales become better.

Google Search Console is a web tool that offers you free services that include monitoring, maintaining, and troubleshooting the presence of a site on the Google search engine pages. The primary actions performed by the Google Search Console are:

• Confirming Google’s crawl bots to find the site.
• Fixing issues related to indexing, even requesting new and updated content to be re-indexed.
• Viewing data related to the site’s traffic via Google Search. This included an analysis of which queries lead to that site or the frequency with which the site appears on Google’s search engine.
• Receiving alerts about issues related to indexing.
• Showing sites that link to the given website.
• Troubleshooting Search features issues like issues with mobile usability, etc.

Google Search Console is popular among site administrators or SEO specialists who monitor a website to ensure that the page is able to monetize the content. While Google Search Console is easy to master, there are a few points that should be remembered to make the most out of this free analytical service.

1. The first step is to verify the ownership of the website. Since the Search Console works toward helping a site be discovered and indexed, establishing ownership will provide options to optimize the page for better visibility.
   
   
2. The second step includes checking the indexing report to make sure that the site adheres to all the points mentioned. This will also help fix errors or gaps in the site settings.
   
   
3. The third step is to ensure that the site is adhering to the guidelines that will make the site mobile web browser friendly. The Console reports will show any and all errors that would prevent the site from functioning properly when viewed from the web browser.
   
   
4. The fourth step is to submit a sitemap to Google Search Console.  While the pages on the site can be viewed when SEO optimized, this step will ensure faster discovery of the site.
    
   
5. The final step is to monitor the site's performance. The Search Console provides performance reports that will contain details about the traffics that the site gets and also breakdowns related to demographics and queries that led to the site’s discovery. Metrics and trends are also provided. These will help with the betterment of the content.

SEO is an investment to help your business grow digitally. As search engines have helped with the growth and success of many sites and businesses, making pages optimized for SEO will help the business not only maintain its relevance but also with attaining better rankings. SEO offers long-term returns and organic results. 

More than 3 billion searches are processed every day by Google. This has a direct effect on the leads and sales as ranking is everything when it comes to search results. People rarely go to page 2 of the search engine and page 1 lists about 10 to 11 search results. The competition is high as many results are paid pages. When a site gets optimized for SEO, it can rank higher, organically. These include having longtail keywords along with relevant titles

The use of mobile browsers with increasing frequency also leads to the need for SEO optimization of sites to help them get discovered with ease. Small businesses often are at an advantage when people add a business along with the term ‘near me’ or ‘in the (locality name)’ for real-time discovery is possible. If you are in a particular area and look for food or something specific near you, the local listings will get preference over big names that might be more than 15 mins by road from your current location. This is where local SEO helps businesses rank over big names.

In terms of investment, SEO is fruitful when you know how to work around the changing algorithm. When a search engine page gets refreshed, often the rankings and listings change. With industries saturated with competition, generalized SEO can lead to a shift in ranking but, if there are localized or specific SEO techniques implemented then the page can not only rank high but also stay on top for a long time. Investing in proper SEO techniques can help businesses convert leads to sales.

While there are many search engines to choose from, Google ranks high in terms of being the search engine of choice. Hence, having a good ranking on Google matters to almost all businesses and pages. But, how can the rankings be made better? There are simple SEO tricks that will help the pages and the site organically attract traffic.
1. Identify Your Target Keywords

The first step toward implementing proper SEO is identifying the keywords. Target keywords help reach the target customers and readers. For this, you need to think like the audience and understand what they appreciate. Instead of having general keywords like ‘best coffee shop’ or ‘roasted coffee beans’, consider opting for ‘popular coffee shop in (location name)’ or ‘how beans are roasted’. Since search engines are used mainly for queries, these keywords and phrases will be what the audience will think of when they are researching.

2. Craft Your Content With Your Keywords In Mind

The content should be catering to the keywords, not the other way round. In SEO, keywords are vital. Hence the content should be developed keeping the keywords as protagonists. Tips like mentioning the keyword within the first 150 words of the content, having one or two keywords in the meta description, and having a high keyword density without overstuffing will ensure the content ranks high. 

3. Internal Linking

If your website offers products and blogs, you will gain higher with internal linking. People who are looking for specific products often want to research and read reviews. If you have a wellness and health company and write a blog about the benefits of a particular product, proving a link to purchase that product will make readers click and reach the product page. This is internal linking and this has greatly helped businesses to sell more products.

4. External Linking

Hyperlinks or external links are links to pages that are not from your own brand. Marketing strategists predominantly favor external linking. Many popular bloggers are requested to add links to websites that they endorse. So, a beauty blogger would talk about the benefits of sunscreens and then link certain products to their content. This linking helps the audience of that blogger to check out the product. This leads to the generation of leads that can later become sales.

5. Site Speed

The speed at which the page loads also affects the ranking of the site. If a page takes a long time to load due to factors like the presence of videos, images, and advertisements, then Google does not rank that page at the top. This is due to the fact that Google is developed to keep in mind the user experience and user needs. Focusing on factors like minimizing the use of Javascript and CSS, enabling compression, and will help the site speed become better and the page rank higher.

6. Social Signals

The terms like ‘viral content’ or ‘internet sensation’ are all examples of proper implementation of social signals. Content is sharable. When content is relatable, the content gets shared and more people forward the same. This sharing and collection of likes make the content rank high. Social signals help the search engine crawlers to collect data about SEO found on the page on the basis of its relevance. Someone wrote an article about cyberbullying and shared the link on social media. The content relevance would make that page be considered to be top-ranking when someone uses the keyword cyberbullying on any search engine.

7. Content, Content, Content!

Content is the key when generating revenue and business growth is priority. Keywords, linking, and site analytics, all become meaningless if the content is not up to the mark. While algorithms and artificial intelligence help with making the site rank on the basis of keywords, it is the content that draws a human being. When you cater to specific content with expert opinions, you draw in more leads. A person looking for ways to repair their wooden deck would want techniques and useful ways, not what a deck is and what wood to consider. This understanding and curating the content to stand out will help your page grow.

8. How to optimize your content

For a page to rank high, the content should be relevant and the on-page SEO to be top-notch. This begins with conducting proper research for relevant keywords, and the gaps in the content about that topic. Working on doing research for the same and curating an authoritative and relevant article will help the content to be considered by the crawling bots. With proper SEO techniques related to title tags, meta descriptions, and redirects, the content becomes optimized.

9. Make Sure That Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

As most of the content is read on mobile phone browsers, ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly draws more readers and organic traffic. If there are two sites that have articles about gardening tools but only one has optimized the site for mobile browsers, then that site will be preferred. Even if the content found on the other page is more relevant, if it is not web browser friendly, it will lose traffic.

10. Optimize Images and Videos

Images and videos add more definition to content. If a topic is about trends and the content is heavy on statistics, then pie charts and graphs will make the content more user-friendly.

Let's say you are visiting a place for the first time. You want to travel alone and hence have no guide with you. While walking down a narrow road, you want to buy something as a souvenir and you search for ‘curio shops near me’. Your location is already set with the navigation system on your device. So, the search engine will return you the names of curio shops that are within walking distance from where you are standing. That search result happened because those businesses were optimized with Local SEO. 

Google algorithm develops after conducting trillions of searches. So, when a person looks for specific keywords that can be listed as businesses and deliverables, then even without the near me tag or location name, the map listings of nearby stores are returned as search results along with generic blog posts. So, a coffee shop or chocolate pastry eggless will have a listing of shops nearby that sell coffee or eggless chocolate pastry along with blogs related to recipes, origin stories, etc.

Local SEO is primarily for businesses that cater to customers and has both online and offline store presence. When a business is optimized with local SEO, it has a higher chance of ranking in Google’s indexing in an organic manner.

Businesses are not limited to just online stores on websites. Many businesses have developed downloadable applications keeping mobile optimization in mind. But, if a customer searches for food delivery on the search engine, how can you ensure that your app ranks high on the SERP? Apps today are created keeping ranking and SEO in mind. This is known as App Store Optimization or ASO. 

The process of making apps rank high is similar to keyword usage for SEO content. Certain keywords are analyzed and tagged to the app so the app is included in the list of search results when a person is looking for a new app. Given that 40 percent of app discovery happens through app store search, optimizing the app for ASO becomes crucial. This optimization is done by adding factors like keywords in the title, adding relevant subtitles, and keywords added to the app description. Along with these, factors like ratings and downloads are also considered.

One example of app store optimization would be that when you search for ‘free books’ on Play Store, the first app rating is 4.1 while the second one is rated 4.7. This is the paid results part. Even the organic results have an app rated 4.4 listed in the fourth position while an app with a rating of 4.1 is listed as first. While the ratings should have determined the ranking, this ranking is possible because the app with a 4.1 rating has a strong app store optimization game.

For digital creators, the content platform is not limited to just articles and blog posts. Videos and memes are also part of the digital content world. With YouTube being the largest free video content platform, creators have found a niche of their own and even made a career out of it. Who can forget Lilly Singh and her viral videos? The honesty with which she spoke about her frustration being a brown kid in Canada, made her instantly relatable to many NRIs. then, she started creating content that not only dealt with current topics but things that kids have faced during their growing years.

This has led to the need to understand YouTube Videos Optimization or YouTube SEO. the YouTube videos optimization technique is similar to those practiced in content SEO. The titles, meta titles, short introductory posts, and hashtags, all are to be created keeping the keywords and SEO techniques in mind. The video content too has to be relevant to the title. Click baits only work from time to time. If the creator constantly relies on click baits in titles and thumbnails while the content is not even funny, the creator will lose followers and credibility.

The proper implementation of SEO techniques plays a vital role in helping a business grow. SEO is not just limited to knowing keywords and writing relevant content. Keeping track of the changes in the marketing terminologies, keeping track of the changing algorithm, and analyzing the gaps in the implemented strategies are all part of SEO optimization. Hence, without having proper training the understanding of which tools to use or which analytics to refer to becomes difficult. You can learn on your own, but that is a time-consuming process. With an SEO learning course, you get to be taught by industry leaders. 
But, what makes learning SEO online as compared to offline are:

• You can fix your rate: There are various online SEO courses offered by reputed SEO companies. Each has its own course fees and some offer perks like the first class free or access to tools that top digital marketing companies use. But, you can curate the SEO course as per your needs and that determines the rate you pay.
• You can set your own pace: The major benefit of opting for online courses is that you are not bound to attend a certain amount of classes at a certain time, it is not a university or school coursework. All the classes are recorded and uploaded on the course site and you can study whenever you want.
• Proper training: SEO techniques are not set in stone. What works for one might not be suited for others. But, there are certain basic principles to follow and training helps with empowering you with a knowledge of that basics along with knowing which strategies to opt for and which to avoid based on your needs. 
• Expert knowledge and trade secrets: All the SEO courses are curated by experts. They will let you in on their secret of success.

The SEO course syllabus caters not only to helping learners understand what SEO is but also to the practices to avoid as those can negatively impact a page optimized for SEO. The search engine optimization course syllabus includes:

• Website Planning and Creation
• Domain Name Registration
• Domain Selection
• Hosting and its types
• Basic knowledge of the World Wide Web
• Website wireframe and architecture
• Basics of developing and designing a website
• Usability & user experience of a website
• Why say yes to a responsive website
• Website competitor analysis
• Website navigation and optimization according to a user-friendly interface

SEO Course Introduction

• What are search engines
• Difference between portal and search engines
• How search engines work
• What is SEO
• SEO techniques (On page and Off page)
• Difference between White hat, Black hat, and Grey hat SEO
• What is the need for SEO
• Things to consider before starting SEO of any website
• What is Ranking
• How Google ranks a website
• Get familiar with the basic terms like crawlers, robots, and spiders
• How to choose the best search engine

Keyword Research and Optimization

• Introduction to Keyword research
• How and why choose the right keywords
• Different types of keywords
• How to do Keyword analysis
• Keywords density analysis
• Tools for keyword research
• Competition analysis
• Localized keywords research

On-Page Optimization Techniques

• Introduction to On-page optimization
• What are Title, Description, and Keywords tags
• Difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary tiles
• Length of titles, meta description, and Snippets
• H1 to H6 Tags and their importance
• Important keywords in the title, meta descriptions, and content
• When and where keywords can be placed
• Difference between Internal links and External links
• Anchor Text
• Anchor links optimization
• Headers optimization
• Importance of Alt tags and Image tag
• Image tag optimization
• Content Optimization
• SEO friendly content
• Optimizing SEO content
• Page naming / URL Structure / Permalink
• Website structure & navigation menu optimization
• Filename optimization
• Page speed optimization tool
• Robots.txt
• URL Canonicalization/ 404 Implementation
• Difference between HTTP / HTTPS
• Different types of Sitemaps and their importance
• Google SEO guidelines
• Google Analytics and Webmaster integration
• Google sandbox effect
• Keyword Proximity, Authority, Prominence, and density
• Iframes/ Frames effect on SEO
• URL renaming/ rewriting
• Duplicate Content / URLs
• HTML Validations using W3c
• Broken link analysis
• Website architecture
• Bread Crumb
• Google webmaster tool
• Creating effective landing pages
• On page Audit
• Yahoo Feed Submission

Off-Page Optimization Techniques

• Introduction to Off-page optimization
• Local marketing of websites based on locations
• Social Media optimization techniques
• Introduction of link building and its types
• Directory submission
• Blog and article submission
• Forum posting
• Forum signatures and commenting
• Free classifieds
• Classifieds posting
• Press release submission
• Video submission
• Business listing submission
• Guest blog
• Local SEO (Local business listing)
• Detail knowledge of Link building and backlinks
• Social bookmarking
• Photo & Video Sharing
• Infographics sharing
• Document Sharing
• Content Marketing and its importance
• Question and answers
• Web 2.0 submission
• Importance of backlinks / Link building
• A home page promoting tips and techniques
• Strategies to build qualitative and relevant backlinks
• Competitors backlink research and submission
• Tracking the links and PageRank
• Submission to do follow websites
• RSS Feed submissions

 Search Console/Webmaster Skills

• Sign up for a webmaster account
• Verifying website under Google Search Console
• Introduction on webmaster
• Effect on inner page ranking through inner linking
• Understanding queries and Average keyword position
• Search Appearance
• How to improve website quality and performance by using the information in the search console
• Google Index
• Search Traffic
• Google My Business
• Google Crawling

Google Updates and Algorithms

• Introductions to Search Engine Algorithms
• How Algorithms Work
• Algorithm & Google Panda
• Detail information on Search Engine Penalties
• Procedures for recovering from Search Engine Penalties
• What is Google Panda Algorithm?
• How Google Panda Algorithm affect millions of websites?
• Things to know about Google Penguin
• A brief introduction to Google EMD Update
• How to save websites from Google Panda, Penguin, and EMD
• Recover your site from Panda, EMD, and Penguin

Things to Avoid in SEO

• Black Hat SEO
• Try to avoid Grey Hat SEO
• Exact-match Anchor text
• Keyword Stuffing
• Spam comments
• Unnatural links
• Domain and Keyword Cloaking
• Intrusive Interstitial Ads
• 3rd party “Paid” links
• Article spinners
• Automated link building
• Doorway Page, bots, spam, Link Baiting
• Link and article directories
• Duplicate Content and Cloaking
• Paid / spam blogging

The digital presence of businesses has increased with the lockdowns and the need for changed marketing skills. It is predicted that by 2022, the digital advertising market with generate a revenue of USD 375 billion, globally. Brands have optimized their websites for selling products and services while many have tied up with e-Commerce platforms to increase their sales. The online competition has grown. In such instances, having a strong SEO game will help your brand to rank higher.

More than 75% of people rely on organic search results and out of those, about 30% of leads are successfully converted to customers. With this high rate of search, brand awareness with SEO is a must. AI and Voice Search are becoming predominant search factors when it comes to optimizing search results. Along with this, about 73% of users rely on mobile browsers to find what they need. If businesses are not optimized to be mobile-friendly in terms of their website design, they will fall back.

SEO plays a vital part in helping potential leads to be generated as the audience passes through the marketing funnel where they become aware of the brand, gather knowledge, invest in the product, become loyal customers, and finally enjoy benefits from the brand. This funnel is essential for all levels of marketing and transparency about the same helps with better lead conversions.

SEO is a dynamic industry that is essential for all creative activities that are looking to monetize their content. But, what sets SEO apart from simple digital marketing is that SEO is designed to cater to a specific audience. 

Coming to India, there is a growing demand for SEO specialists as businesses have started to understand the importance of SEO-optimized content and how it affects marketing. India is also a place where many international companies invest in because the costs of labor here are less. But now, Indian companies have started to understand and respect the jobs that SEO creators do and the pay is getting better. This has further increased the content industry’s visibility.

Work from home and freelancing have become a trend in India. With content creation and SEO strategy optimization, content creators, especially writers, can earn a hefty amount doing remote work.

There are various jobs that require SEO knowledge. This has led to the diverse SEO-related job profile being created. The most common job profile that a person considers after completing an SEO optimization course is to become an SEO specialist. As an SEO specialist, the person is responsible for keeping the website updated so that the web pages of that site can be indexed and ranked as per SEO search results. They work with various strategies that are specific to SEO to give the best results. A fresher with no experience can earn around INR 2 lakh per annum. People who have over 6 years of experience can earn around INR 6 lakh per annum. With the promotion, the SEO strategist can become an SEO Consultant, and then they are tasked with implementing overall SEO strategies pertaining to the company. The salary for an SEO consultant, as a fresher, is about INR 4 lakh per annum.

SEO is a wide discipline. There are various avenues that one can take. But, when it comes to salary, the prime determining factors as to who will earn what depends on the following:

• Expertise: SEO strategies are understood better the more experience you gather. Promotions are also based on the years of experience the SEO strategist has. 
• Location: Not all cities pay the same, even though the rank and the experience levels might be the same. What an SEO strategist with 5 years of earns in Kolkata is less than what an SEO strategist with the same years of experience will earn in Bangalore. The demand for the role and the cost of living in that city determines the salary.
• Designation: SEO strategist is the beginning. People can go on to become SEO managers and with each promotion, the salary increases.
• Certification: While SEO can be self-taught when a person shows that they have SEO certification course work done, they will get more importance. The certification implies that the person has taken the time to know the technical aspects of SEO and can perform the job better.
• Skills: When working with a company, you can develop skills like reducing the time it takes to analyze keywords or knowing exactly what to search for. These skills will also help you get better job placement and an increased salary

On average, SEO specialist jobs are more in demand in foreign countries when compared to India. This is clearly seen in the pay that an SEO strategist earns even as a fresher. While a beginner SEO strategist from India makes around INR 2 lakh per annum, the fresher salary for the same in the USA is USD 20,000 which converts to about INR 15 lakh per annum. The reason behind this high demand for SEO strategists abroad is that the digital marketing and SEO optimization requirements are greater. India is just starting on the journey. Their SEO game is still in the nascent stage and proper implementation techniques are possible only after years of professional training. 

The salary for an SEO strategist with over 6 years of experience is about USD 60k to USD 70k.

The factors that determine the salary for an SEO strategist working abroad are:

• Certification: There are many online and offline courses for SEO available. Each course offers certifications and packages that are determined by the field in which the student has gained expertise in. This certification type will help determine which job profile you can consider when joining the industry.
• Experience: Experience always plays a vital role in determining the salary of an individual. The more experience you have, the more will be the pay because the solutions you will offer will be guaranteed to work and you will have expertise in your field that will remove the scope of errors.
• Location: Not all cities across the globe pay the same. The salary depends on the requirements that the city has in terms of generating jobs and how much it costs to live there.
• Job Profile: As mentioned above, the certification determines the job profile. This job profile further determines the starting salary package you will be drawing.

Businesses thrive when they meet their correct audience and customers. If the content is written for a shoe company, the focus should be on the design and functionality of the various shoes manufactured and sold by that company. Hence, when the company promotes itself using the design and functionality as keywords, it will attract the correct set of buyers. This is the primary reason that SEO courses are in the limelight. 

The concept of SEO-optimized content did originate in the 1990s, but its importance is understood better in today’s content-driven and data-driven world. With the introduction of Google’s algorithms that focused on the users, the SEO optimization techniques implemented changed how online marketing was done. Businesses that focus on keyword-rich content that addresses the needs of a particular set of potential customers succeed in converting leads to sales. In a study conducted by Hubspot, the data collected showed that over 50% of conversions in businesses happened via organic search due to the proper implementation of SEO optimization strategies. Hence, the need for SEO courses is increasing. Marketers are investing time to properly understand SEO concepts that can help their content be organically ranked and their businesses fare better.