Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a popular skill, but it can be difficult to find a good place to learn it.

SEO agencies only want to hire you, if you already have experience, and most online courses are superficial and will not teach you enough to get any real skills.

So where can you learn this skill properly?

It is definitely possible to learn SEO online, and in this article I will show you the best way to learn SEO effectively. This is the approach I have used myself to learn to rank high in Google and other search engines, and it is a method that can be learned by anyone willing to make an effort.

Disclosure: This page may contain affiliate links. This means at no cost to you, I may receive an affiliate commission, if you purchase something through one of these links.

Why SEO is a valuable skill

Let’s first look into why SEO is such a valuable skill to have today.

Once you have the skills there are many directions you can take it into. More or less any company has a website today, but a website is not worth much without traffic. Some of the best traffic comes from searches, as it is relevant traffic since people are searching actively, and the traffic is also free.

So more or less anyone with a website need to think about SEO – many do still not know the importance of this, but more and more want help to do this.

So when you have the skills, you suddenly have a very valuable skill. You can for example start working with SEO for a certain company, you can start your own SEO company, you can get a job at a SEO agency and work for their clients, or works as a freelancer.

One thing people sometimes overlook is that SEO also can be used to is to create your own online income. Once you know how to rank websites, you can build your own and get a lot of traffic to them. When you have traffic, you can monetize the traffic and make really good money this way by having your own websites and not having to have clients or anything else.

So there are many opportunities when you know SEO. Personally, I combine some of the options and have several websites I make money on, I do a bit of freelancing for an agency, and I teach SEO courses once in a while.

The direction you want to take it into is up to you, and when you know SEO, you will know a skill you can use for yourself, and a skill many people are willing to pay a good price for. So definitely a skill worth learning.

Who can learn SEO?

Anybody can learn SEO. It is a misunderstanding that you have to be a technical genius to be able to do it.

It will take some effort to learn it, but if you are willing to put in some time to learn it properly, you can learn it no matter your previous experience and no matter your age.

The great thing is that you can learn SEO online, so it is not dependent on where you live. You can learn it at home, no matter if you live in the city or in the countryside. All you need is an internet connection.

There are however many SEO online trainings that are of poor quality. You might learn some basic skills, but often you will not get the full overview and not be able to put all the pieces together.

Therefore, I want to go over some important things when learning SEO, so you know what to be aware of when choosing a course. After that, I will also share my top recommendation with you (or you can click the button below to join it right away).

Important things to remember when learning SEO

When choosing a way to learn SEO, there are certain things you need to consider and look for.

SEO takes time:
SEO is not a quick fix whether you work on your own websites or client’s websites. I have tried to have a client that after a week was unsatisfied that they did not see any results yet.

This is just not how SEO works. It takes time to build trust with Google and other search engines. Getting good rankings is something that has to be earned and is not something that can just be ordered from one day to the next.

If any course promise you can learn to get good rankings overnight, it is not a course worth taking. SEO takes some patience both to do and to learn.

So be prepared to not see immediate results, when you work with SEO. But once the results then come, you can keep building up traffic, which leads to endless possibilities. So it is definitely worth the effort and patience.

SEO is not about manipulating search engines:
One of the most misunderstood things about SEO is that it is all about figuring out the algorithm of Google and manipulate this to get good results.

This is a very poor long-term approach. It is not just about learning some fancy SEO techniques. It might have worked in the past, but the search engines are becoming very smart, and they can see through manipulation.

You of course need to consider it is a machine, and there are some things you therefore need to remember to do. But overall the approach should not be about manipulating the search engines.

Think of it is you are making it easier to the search engines to understand what your website is about, and making it easier for the potential visitors to find relevant information.

Google is interested in providing the best possible search results for people, and if you focus on providing great value and a great experience for your visitors, you will automatically also make Google happy – and then there are of course some technical things you need to learn to make it easy for the search engines (and people) to find your website.

But overall you should focus on quality and not on manipulation – remember that good rankings have to be earned. Once you have earned them, it will also give good long-term results.

SEO takes practice:
Most of the online SEO courses you will find has a lot of theory about the steps you need to take. This can be a good start, but it will not be enough.

You should not expect to know SEO after just taking a 3-hours online theoritical course. This might help you learn some of the basic theories, but to really make it work, you need practical experiences.

Therefore, the best way to learn it is to follow a course that takes you through it step-by-step, but at them same time gives you time to work on your own projects and gives you different tasks for this.

It will take a little longer, but you will integrate, and you will at the same time also see your own results. Then it will not just be SEO theories you know, but you will have practical experiences and results.

You can earn while you learn:
A really great thing about learning SEO is that if you learn it by working on your own project, you will be able to earn while you learn.

As I mentioned earlier, once you have traffic, there are many ways to monetize this traffic. So while you learn SEO and learn to build up traffic, you will at the same time be able to increase your earnings from month to month, if you follow the right approach.

This is quite unique to learn a skill, where you can earn while you learn. And the potential for your earnings can just keep growing, and as I wrote earlier, there are many directions you can take it into, and the direction is entirely up to you.

What SEO online courses to stay away from

Now you know what to look for to find a good long-term approach to learn SEO. There are however also some things you need to make sure to stay away from.

As good rankings can lead to a lot of money, there are of course people working hard to try to manipulate the results. There are several techniques called black hat SEO techniques that are developed for this purpose.

It is called black hat because it goes against Google’s guidelines, and if Google finds out you are using these techniques, you risk getting a penalty and getting completely deleted from the search results.

These techniques used to work really well, but many of them are not working today and will give you a penalty right away. Examples of this is hidden text, keyword stuffing, and automatic link-building.

There are still some people that get good results from using black hat techniques, and it can be a way to speed up the results. But there are also people that end up losing all traffic (and income) overnight, when Google has an update and notices this kind of manipulation.

So it can be risky to use these techniques in the long run. Whether you think it is worth the risk or not is up to you, but you just need to be aware of the risks.

So if you see a course where they are teaching you something that seems to give too fast results or that do not feel like it is something that focus on quality, it will very likely be black hat techniques you are learning. Then make sure to do some further research and look into it to get more info before deciding if it is a risk, you want to take.

In general the best SEO results come from a long-term strategy, where you focus on quality and have the patience to build it up naturally. But there are courses that teaches a different approach, and you need to be aware of the risk of this approach before you join.

The best way to learn SEO

There are MANY courses that teaches SEO. I have tested several approaches, and learned a lot of things at different courses. But I had a hard time getting the full picture and overview, which is necessary to get really good results.

After quite a bit of searching, I found the online community Wealthy Affiliate. It is a platform that has step-by-step trainings in internet marketing and the core training is focused around SEO and learning how to do this properly for good long-term results. This includes learning SEO copywriting, SEO techniques, technical SEO, using blogging to improve ranking, improving user-experiences, and more.

It teaches you how to use these skills to build your own website and make an income on this. This means that you will be able to build and grow your own online income while learning SEO. This is how I have also learned to make money on my own websites, and where I have learned most of the skills to be able to do SEO work for other people (and charge them for it).

Below you can see an example of how the traffic to one of my websites developed in the beginning by following the training there.

An example of how my website traffic grew by following the training.

This is just an example of what can be achieved over time, and does not even show the full potential. When you get this kind of traffic, you will be able to make money on it continuously directly on your website, and you can use the results to show as an example and both agencies and private companies will be happy to hire you to take care of their SEO.

I am not the only one that has had great results with following the training at Wealthy Affiliate. There are thousands of other members there that have been able to create their own full-time online income, start their own SEO agency, or promote their own business, depending on the direction they wish to take it in.

Wealthy Affiliate does not only have great step-by-step training. It also gives you all the tools you need to learn SEO, you get great hosting for your websites, there is a whole community of helpful and successful online marketers there ready to help you succeed and learn the skills to get good rankings, and you can get your first 10 lessons for free.

If you join through the link below, I will also automatically be told that you have come from my website, and I will then personally be available to help you with any questions you might have. I will contact your shortly after you join and help you get started with the training.

Final thoughts

SEO is an extremely valuable skill to learn. You can use it to create your own online full-time income, you can use it to get a job at companies or agencies, or you can use it to grow an existing business you have.

It can however be difficult to find a good place to learn SEO properly. Most courses are superficial or focused on techniques, without giving you the full overview.

In my experience Wealthy Affiliate is without a doubt the best place to learn SEO effectively. It has great support, excellent step-by-step training, and it uses an ethical long-term approach that focuses on quality.

So if you want to learn SEO properly and learn all the opportunities for income this can lead to, then I invite you to join the community through the link below and get started with your first 10 lessons completely for free.

If you have ANY questions about Wealthy Affiliate, about learning SEO, or anything else, just leave a comment below, and I will answer asap.