SEO is not that hard to learn. All you have to do is be willing to allocate the necessary time and effort to learn the various SEO concepts.
If you are just getting started with SEO and wondering what it takes to go from novice to expert, then this post is for you. You’ll learn how to approach the SEO learning process and the path to follow to make it less difficult than it seems.
Fortunately, things have changed and you don’t have to spend years learning SEO. There are a plethora of online resources you can use to start learning SEO and why not become an SEO expert in no time!
SEO Learning Plan for Beginners
- Learn how search engines work
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and since the whole process has to do with how to increase the visibility of a website in search engines, it makes sense to know how search engines work.
- Understand the role of SEO in Digital Marketing
Before getting into the nuts and bolts of SEO, you should have clear in your mind what is the role of SEO in digital marketing.
SEO is part of search engine marketing. SEM is the process of getting traffic from search engines either organically (through SEO) or using paid search ads.
SEM is one of the channels available in Digital Marketing. Other channels include Social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, etc.
So, SEO is not the same as paid advertising and it’s not the only component of search engine marketing.
- Understand what is SEO and why it’s important
The next step is to understand what we actually mean when we talk about search engine optimization and why it’s an important process for any website.
SEO can be defined as a set of rules you can apply on a website so that it appears in the top positions in the search engine result pages (SERPS) for related keywords.
Why is this important?
The majority of search engine traffic goes to the websites that appear in the first 5 positions of the search results.
This means that if you want to get traffic from Google and other search engines, your website has to appear in the top positions for the search terms that matter to your business.
- Learn about the different SEO processes
Now that you know what is SEO, the next step is to learn how it works.
There are more than 255 SEO ranking factors to consider when optimizing a website and for ease of reference, they are broken down into a number of sub-processes.
Each sub-process is responsible for a number of SEO rules.
The most important are:
- Technical SEO – the process responsible for crawling the indexing phase.
- On-Page SEO – the process responsible for optimizing the content of a page so that search engine crawlers can understand it better.
- Off-Page SEO – the process of promoting your website on the Web for the purpose of getting links from other websites. Links in SEO act as ‘votes of trust’ and can positively influence the rankings of a website in the search results.
- Learn more about keywords and the keyword research process
When you get to this point, you should already know that everything in SEO starts with a keyword.
SEO keywords are search phrases users type in a search engine that is important for a particular website.
Once you get passed the technical SEO phase, which has to do with infrastructure-related settings, the other SEO phases are strongly related to keywords.
The process to find out which keywords to target in your content, is called keyword research.
So, mastering keyword research is an integral part of your SEO learning plan.
- Learn how to measure SEO performance
The next step has to do with measuring SEO performance. This is critical because if you don’t know what to measure and what KPIs to analyze, you won’t know if your SEO campaigns are successful or not.
To measure SEO performance, you need to learn how to use two important tools: Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
The Google Search Console (GSC) will give you insights into how your website is performing on Google. You can see which pages receive traffic from Google and for which keywords.
Google Analytics will tell you what users do once they visit your website. You can find out which pages they visit, how long they stay on a page and a number of other useful metrics.
- Put SEO to work
Last but not least, it’s time to put SEO to work. That’s the only way to verify what you have learned in the above steps.
The best approach for beginners is to choose a topic they’re passionate about and start a blog.
It doesn’t have to be something fancy or too popular, just pick a topic you know well, set up a website, and start optimizing it for search engines.
At this stage, you’ll most probably have to re-visit some of the guides and remind yourself how to do keyword research, how to optimize your page titles, how to check that search bots can access your content, and a lot of other things.
To avoid getting lost, it’s best to create an action plan and use checklists to help you keep track of what you have to do at each stage.
Social Media Marketing Courses for Small Business Owners
When it comes to building social media marketing skills for your small business, it’s worth taking a strategic approach. Social media marketing can be effective and affordable, but it’s also complex: Each social media platform has a distinct audience and set of norms, and each regularly tweaks its algorithms and content parameters. The stakes are also high: at best, a social media slip-up is a waste of time and money; at worst, it could do serious injury to your brand.
For this reason, many small business owners use online social media marketing courses to cut their learning curves. The right course can fast-track your development of a social media strategy so you can identify and progress toward business goals and avoid marketing mishaps along the way. In this post, we’ll walk you through some options.
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing refers to the practice of using social media channels to increase brand loyalty, generate leads, boost sales, and obtain valuable insights into your customers’ preferences and needs.
For many small business owners, social media marketing is a key part of a larger digital marketing strategy. For one thing, it has huge potential reach—in 2022, Facebook alone reported nearly 2 billion daily active users. Some forms of social media marketing are also free, and many platforms allow you to target customers by geography, demographics, interests, and online behaviors.
Social media marketing can be particularly effective for ecommerce business owners to drum up notice for their brand. Since your customers consume social media content on the same devices they use to make purchases, you can also drive them directly from social posts to your ecommerce storefront.
- Social Media Marketing by Crystal King at Hubspot
Hubspot’s social media marketing certification is designed to help social media managers develop and execute a social media strategy that builds loyalty and attracts new customers. This course covers strategy, building relationships, measuring ROI, and social listening—or how to use social platforms to gain competitive intelligence for your business.
Length: 4 hours 14 minutes
Cost: Free
- Social Media Marketing Strategy by Braveen Kumar at Shopify
Shopify’s ultimate guide to social media strategy covers everything you need to know to identify your target audience, set goals, and get started using social media to sell more online.
This guide includes in-depth breakdowns of audience demographics and marketing best practices for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok. It also covers social media advertising and monitoring, and how to use Shopify’s social media tools for Instagram and Facebook marketing.
Length: Self-paced
Cost: Free
- Social Media Marketing for Small Business by Martin Waxman at LinkedIn
This LinkedIn course is specifically designed to help small business owners get started on social media. You’ll learn how to make a plan, set goals, and use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to drive customers to your ecommerce store.
Length: 1 hour
Cost: $24.99, or free with a one-month trial
- Grow Your Business with Instagram by Gretta van Riel at Shopify
Shopify’s Instagram-specific marketing course can help small business owners leverage Instagram to grow their businesses. You’ll learn how to build an engaged audience of prospective clients and gain access to templates and tactics designed to help you gain followers.
Length: 2 hours
Cost: Free
- Advertising Philosophy 101 by Taylor Holiday at Shopify
Advertising Philosophy 101 is a free course from Shopify that provides a background in advertising strategy with a specific focus on creating effective ads for social media. You’ll learn how to create and evaluate ad content and how to analyze data to improve ad effectiveness.
Length: 41 minutes
Cost: Free
- Build Your Brand on Instagram by Jade Darmawangsa at Shopify
Business branding is key to the success of your business—and Shopify’s free course on building your brand on Instagram can help small business owners create and sustain a brand that resonates with their target audiences. Its content includes an introduction to the Instagram algorithm, understanding audiences and conducting audience research, influencer marketing partnerships, and using social media analytics to optimize your strategy.
Length: 1 hour 8 minutes
Cost: Free
- Bring Your Business Online by Meta
Meta’s free business course covers the basics of online marketing and business branding in the digital space. Topics include setting goals, identifying your target audience, understanding customer journeys, and content creation. You’ll learn the basics of social media marketing, how to create a social media map for your business, how to create a content calendar, and how to create and plan social media content.
Length: Self-Paced
Cost: Free
- How to Make Money on Instagram by Taylor Loren at Shopify
In 2020, Instagram launched an in-app shopping feature. This free Shopify course focuses on helping small business owners use the platform to make sales within the Instagram platform.
Length: 39 minutes
Cost: Free
- Social Marketing Certification by Hootsuite
Hootsuite offers a beginner-level social media marketing certification course that can help business owners understand key social media platforms, set up profiles, develop a social media strategy, build followers, and learn the fundamentals of content creation and social media advertising.
Cost: $199
Length: 6 hours
- Introduction to Social Media Marketing by Coursera
Offered by Coursera in partnership with Meta, this introductory course covers popular social media platforms, how to set goals and track KPIs, and how to choose the right platforms for your business.
It’s also the first course in Coursera’s Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate program—meaning small business owners can take future courses in the same series to dive deeper into topics like social media advertising or measuring and optimizing ROI.
Length: 15 hours
Cost: $39.99 a month
??11. Fundamentals of Social Media Advertising by Daniel Kob at Coursera
Fundamentals of Social Media Advertising is the third offering in Coursera’s Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate. It can help small business owners who are familiar with the basics of social media get started with social media advertising. You’ll learn how to select a platform for your social media campaign, how to create copy and visuals for an effective ad, and how to build ads on both Facebook and Instagram.
Length: 9 Hours
Cost: $39.99 a month
Social media marketing courses FAQ
What training do you need for social media marketing?
While you don’t technically need any training to start marketing your business on social media, it’s a good idea to seek some out. Free online courses designed with the small business owner in mind can help you make the most of the time and money you spend developing your social media strategy.
Can I learn social media marketing on my own?
Yes! Many small business owners become self-taught social media marketing specialists. To cut your learning curve and optimize results, consider using free online training courses or guides (like Shopify’s guide to social media marketing strategy) to get started.
How much should a social media marketing course be?
While social media marketing courses can cost thousands of dollars, many high-quality options are free. There’s no need to break the bank to become an expert in marketing your small business on social media.
