SEO Training Course

Type "why is my website not ranking" into Google and you'll find millions of results — most of them vague, some of them outdated, a few of them just plain wrong. That gap between generic advice and an actual working strategy is exactly why a proper SEO training course still matters today, AI search or not. This program is built for people who want to stop guessing and start understanding why one page outranks another — not memorising checklists that expire the moment Google updates its algorithm again.

Softcrayons runs this as a full SEO certification course, covering everything from keyword research to technical audits to the newer territory of AI search visibility. Looking for SEO training near me, an SEO course online with certificate, or simply the best SEO course that doesn't waste your first three weeks on theory? This is built around actual websites, actual rankings, actual mistakes you'll make and fix in a safe environment before making them on a client's site.

One honest note before anything else: SEO doesn't work on a fixed timeline. Anyone promising rankings in two weeks is either lying or talking about something else entirely. This course teaches the skill properly — which sometimes means slower, but it's the version that actually holds up on the job.

What Is SEO, Really — Beyond the Textbook Definition

Ask ten marketers to define SEO and you'll get ten slightly different answers, none of them wrong exactly, most of them incomplete. At its core, search engine optimisation is the practice of making a website easier for both search engines and actual humans to understand, trust, and choose. Three parts to that, and missing any one of them weakens the whole thing.

Technical SEO makes sure a site can actually be crawled and indexed properly — invisible work, but skip it and nothing else matters. On-page SEO is about content and structure: does the page answer the question someone actually typed in? Off-page SEO is reputation — backlinks, mentions, the signals that tell Google other people trust this site too. Most beginners focus entirely on keywords and ignore the other two. That's usually where rankings stall.

Who This Course Is Built For

Complete beginner, wondering if SEO for beginners content online is enough on its own? It usually isn't — not because those resources are bad, but because SEO is one of those skills where reading about backlinks and actually building a working strategy for a real site are entirely different experiences. This course is designed for a wide spread of people:

• Students wanting a specialised skill that pairs well with a marketing career.
• Content writers looking to add SEO to their existing skill set — and charge more for it.
• Business owners tired of paying agencies for work they can't evaluate.
• Freelancers aiming to offer SEO services as a standalone consulting line.
• Working professionals in marketing roles where SEO knowledge is now assumed, not optional.
• Anyone chasing a recognised SEO certificate to strengthen a resume.

No coding background needed. Genuinely none — though if you've dabbled in HTML before, a few technical modules will feel a little more familiar, not that it changes the outcome much either way.

The Skills You'll Actually Build

Here's where most SEO courses go wrong: they teach modules in isolation, so a learner finishes knowing keyword research and technical audits as separate, disconnected skills. This course keeps circling back to how they connect, because that's how SEO actually works on a live site.

• Keyword research: finding what people actually search for, not what you assume they search for.
• Understanding search intent — because ranking for the wrong intent gets traffic that never converts.
• On-page optimisation: titles, meta descriptions, headers, internal linking, content structure.
• Technical SEO: site speed, crawlability, indexing, structured data, mobile-first fundamentals.
• Off-page SEO and link building: earning authority without resorting to tactics that get a site penalised.
• Local SEO: Google Business Profile optimisation, for anyone targeting a specific city or region.
• Content SEO: writing for humans first, structuring for search engines second — never the other way round.
• SEO analytics: reading Google Search Console and GA4 data well enough to know what to fix next.

Where AI Search Fits Into This

Search has changed more in the last two years than in the previous ten, and pretending otherwise would be doing this course a disservice. Google's AI Overviews now answer a meaningful share of queries directly, without a click ever reaching a website. That's not a reason to panic — it's a reason to understand Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), the practice of structuring content so AI tools cite it, reference it, and pull from it.

This module covers structured data, schema markup, and the kind of clear, well-organised content that both traditional search engines and AI crawlers can parse easily. Nobody has this fully figured out yet, to be fair — the platforms themselves are still adjusting month to month. What this course teaches is the underlying principle, which tends to survive algorithm updates better than any specific tactic does.

Inside a Real Training Session

One class starts with a plan: audit a live website's technical SEO, page by page. Twenty minutes in, someone notices the site's sitemap hasn't been updated in months, and the whole session shifts — unplanned — into a conversation about why stale sitemaps quietly tank crawl efficiency. Nobody scripted that detour.

A keyword research exercise, wrapped in half an hour, moving straight into the next topic. Others slow down considerably — technical audits especially, where one broken redirect chain can eat the better part of an hour while the group traces it back to its source. You won't leave every class feeling like you've mastered something. Some days you'll leave a little confused, and that's fine — confusion followed by a fix tends to stick harder than a smooth explanation ever does.

Assignments land the same day, usually. Not busywork — a real audit finding to write up, or a set of meta descriptions to rewrite and defend in the next class.

Tools You'll Actually Learn to Use

Knowing a tool's name means very little in an interview. Knowing why it exists, and when to reach for it, means quite a lot.

• Google Search Console — the single most important free tool in SEO, and the most underused.
• Google Analytics 4 for understanding what happens after someone lands on a page.
• Ahrefs and SEMrush for keyword research, competitor analysis, and backlink audits.
• Screaming Frog for technical site crawls that surface issues no manual check would catch.
• Google Keyword Planner for search volume and intent data.
• AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini for content briefs and research — reviewed and refined by you, never published as-is.

Live Projects, Not Just Practice Exercises

Reading about a technical SEO audit and actually running one on a live website — genuinely different skills. This course leans heavily on projects for exactly that reason, so you finish with a portfolio to walk an interviewer through, not just a certificate to mention in passing.

• Complete technical SEO audit for a live website, findings documented and prioritised.
• Keyword research and content strategy for a niche of your choosing.
• On-page optimisation project — before-and-after comparisons on real pages.
• Local SEO project, including Google Business Profile setup and optimisation.
• Backlink audit and outreach strategy for link building.
• GA4 and Search Console reporting dashboard tracking real ranking movement.
• Final capstone: a complete SEO strategy for a sample business, presented end to end.

What This Course Won't Promise You

Worth being direct here. This course won't promise page-one rankings for a specific keyword in a set number of weeks — nobody honest can promise that, since ranking depends on competition, domain history, and factors outside anyone's full control. What it will do is teach you to diagnose why a page isn't ranking and build a realistic plan to fix it. That skill transfers to any website you'll ever work on, which a guaranteed-ranking gimmick never does.

Salary Expectations After This Course

Numbers on a table always look cleaner than the reality behind them. Two SEO freshers with identical certificates can land very different offers — one who can walk an interviewer through a real audit they ran, with actual before-and-after numbers, tends to out-earn one who can only define the terms. The certificate opens the door. What you did with the training decides how far it gets you inside.

Certification and Getting Job-Ready

Complete the course and you receive a Softcrayons SEO Certificate, backed by the audits and projects you actually built — not attendance alone. Mock interviews follow, run by people who've genuinely hired SEO talent before. Feedback isn't always comfortable to hear. That's rather the point — better to hear it here than lose a real offer over the same gap later.

Career Paths This Skill Opens Up

Why Learn SEO With Softcrayons?

Small batches, because a mentor reviewing your audit properly takes more than a passing glance. Every module ends with an assignment, so what's learned on Monday gets applied before it's forgotten by Thursday. The curriculum gets revised regularly too, since Google changes its ranking factors without sending anyone a memo first, and AI search is still evolving month to month.

Doubt-solving sessions run on a set schedule, not just when someone's frustrated enough to ask twice. Career support — resume building, LinkedIn optimisation, mock interviews, placement assistance — starts while you're still mid-course, not scrambling in the final week. Some learners pick up technical SEO fast and slow down on content strategy. Others move the opposite way. Both are completely normal, and neither predicts how good you'll eventually be at the job.

Your Next Step

SEO isn't going anywhere, even as the tools around it keep shifting — if anything, the businesses that understand it properly are pulling further ahead of the ones that don't. This course hands you keyword research, technical audits, content strategy, link building, and AI search fundamentals, backed by real projects and a portfolio worth showing. If you're ready to stop reading generic blog posts about SEO and start actually practising it, reach out to the Softcrayons team. We'll walk you through batch options, answer what you're genuinely unsure about, and help you decide if classroom or online training fits the way you actually work.