SEO Foundations by David Booth
This is an online course offered by LinkedIn Learning about search engine optimization. It is part of a "learning path" called "Become an SEO Expert." The instructor is David Booth and he does a good job. His voice is clear, calm, and he is thorough in what he says. It feels more like he is having a conversation with you instead of pummelling you with information to memorize.
What Content is Included?
The course is broken down into these topics with a little quiz at the end of each topic:
- Overview of SEO
- Keywords: The Foundations of SEO
- Content Optimization: How Search Engines and People View Web Pages
- Content Optimization: Technical SEO
- Long Term Content Planning
- Link-Building Strategies
- Measuring SEO Effectiveness
- Ecommerce: Local and Mobile SEO Considerations
If you get through all 2 hours and 38 min of course material (no prob!) you will get a certificate of completion.
How Much Does it Cost?
LinkedIn Learning does not charge per course. Instead, it is a subscription service. On their pricing page it says that after your 1 month free trial, a month will run you between $25-$35 depending on the payment term. Paying for a longer term will make the monthly cost cheaper.
They claim to have over 16 000 courses to choose from on a variety of topics and you get certificates of completion. The courses they offer are on a wide variety of topics, not just tech related.
I was able to gain access through a subscription service provided by my local library.
Is it Worth it?
In short, Yes!
If you are a complete beginner, this is an awesome overview of the many different aspects that go into SEO best practices and what it all means. I have been learning about SEO for about 2 months now, so I feel pretty comfortable with the many moving parts but I was still able to pick up a few tips and tricks from this course. It is a good idea to have the entire thing in an overview and to see how someone does things a bit differently from myself. Most of it was review, but it stamped in some core concepts a little more firmly and explained things in more detail.
For my personal situation, I was able to use this course to make a "SEO Checklist" of things I want to be aware of when designing with SEO in mind. Structured data like schemas, differing meta data like robots, and what to do with duplicate urls or redirects were topics that I had barely taken notice of that are discussed in depth during this course. So, that was a win!
If you are already comfortable with SEO best practices then this course might seem a bit too beginner level for you to get anything out of. Near the top of this article I listed the chapters, so if you are interested and have a subscription, you can still check out the course. There is a side menu that allows you to jump to any section and video in the course, so if you want to just check out one chapter it might be worth your time.
The only thing I found that was out of date was that the instructor is using Analytics 360 instead of Google Analytics, which is fine because the way he describes how to use the software and the things to look out have not changed. The reasoning behind it all is the same as before.
So, if you have a subscription and want to learn about a new topic, SEO Foundations is a good place to start!