As mentioned in my recent posts, I started my very first formal SEO training course with former colleagues. The training course started with the basic understanding of how search engines work. How the pages get crawled, indexed and ranked.

The next topic covered the essential elements for an optimized page, as well as navigation and website usability study. It was then followed by learning the website audit process, then learning how to do on-page optimization. As the training progressed, the training became more of coaching, as they learned not only the basics of SEO, but learned how to setup their own WordPress blog as well.

I advised each one of them to pick a topic or niche that they are familiar and passionate with, then the setup process began. Setting up included choosing of a good template, picking the right and necessary plugins, and applying the SEO knowledge they just acquired. Everybody was very excited.

As sessions are done every Saturday only (everybody in the group have a day job), each of them had a chance to build content for their blog, applying whatever SEO techniques they have learned. And just like any other “school”, each “student” fared differently. Added to the fact that not everybody in the group are “good” writers, most of them are analytics experts, the task is very challenging.

The fourth session, last Saturday, was link building. So this coming Saturday, the final day for the training, we will see who’s doing their assignment. How soon they can have their site ranking in the SERP’s, only time will tell. I am very confident though that if they put into practice the things they have learned during the training, they will achieve their goals in no time.