UtilitySEO

SEO basics

How Google finds, understands and ranks pages, and the handful of habits that get a small business site more visitors from search.

  • Beginner
  • 6 lessons
  • 45 minutes
  • Certificate on completion
  • Free
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What you will learn

  • Explain how search engines crawl, index and rank your pages
  • Choose searches your site has a realistic chance of winning
  • Write titles, descriptions and headings that earn clicks
  • Build useful content and links without breaking Google's rules
  • Read your Search Console numbers and judge progress fairly

Lessons

The course in order. Every lesson ends with a short quiz.

  1. 1

    How search engines find, index and rank pages

    The three stages every page goes through before it can appear in Google, and what can stop it.

    7 min
  2. 2

    Keywords and search intent

    How to find the searches your customers make, and pick the ones a small site can actually win.

    8 min
  3. 3

    Titles, meta descriptions and headings

    The three bits of text that tell Google and searchers what each page is about.

    7 min
  4. 4

    Writing content that earns rankings

    What Google means by helpful content, E-E-A-T in plain terms, and why updating old pages pays off.

    8 min
  5. 5

    Links: internal linking and earning backlinks

    How links between your own pages and from other sites help rankings, and which link tactics to avoid.

    8 min
  6. 6

    Measuring what works

    Clicks, impressions, position and click-through rate explained, and how long SEO really takes.

    7 min
Start lesson 1 freeFree account. No card needed.

Who it is for

Small business owners and anyone who looks after a website and wants more visitors from Google. No SEO experience needed: it starts with how search works and explains every term it uses.

The certificate

Pass every lesson to get a certificate you can add to LinkedIn.

More courses

See all courses
BeginnerNotes and quiz

Set up Google Search Console

Get your site into Google Search Console, submit your sitemap, and learn to read the reports that show how people find you on Google.

5 lessons · 37 min
BeginnerNotes and quiz

Set up Google Analytics 4

Create a Google Analytics 4 property, install it on your site, track the actions that matter, and set it up properly from day one.

5 lessons · 36 min
BeginnerNotes and quiz

Get your pages indexed

Make sure Google can find, read and store your pages, and fix the common reasons pages never show up in search.

6 lessons · 43 min

Questions

Yes. Every course is free. You need a free UtilitySEO account to track your progress and get certificates. No card needed.
No. Most courses teach SEO and Google's own tools. One course, Getting started with UtilitySEO, is about the platform.
Each lesson is a few minutes. Most courses take under an hour, and you can stop and pick up where you left off.
A certificate with your name, which you can print, save as a PDF or add to your LinkedIn profile.

Ready to start?

The course is free. Create an account and lesson 1 opens straight away.

Start the course freeFree account. No card needed.
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