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SEO Fundamentals
By the end of this course you'll know how to get your website found on Google yourself — keyword research, on-page fixes, content, and links. The manual way, with free tools and realistic expectations.
Start with How to Start a Website — Fluent Collective Courses · Next: Google Business Profile & Local SEO — Fluent Collective Courses
Google hands free customers to your competitors every single day. Six modules to take your share — keywords, pages, links, the whole manual playbook. No tricks. Just the work that compounds.
What you'll learn
- Do keyword research by hand and find terms you can actually rank for — not the ones giants own.
- Fix your on-page SEO: titles, headings, and structure that tell Google what each page is about.
- Write content built to rank — planned around search intent, not guesswork.
- Handle the technical basics and earn links that move the needle, including local SEO.
Is this for me?
Who is this course for?
Anyone with a website that isn't getting found. Especially local businesses and anyone publishing content.
What do I need before starting?
A live website you can edit. That's the only requirement — everything else is taught from zero.
How long does it take?
Six modules at 30–45 minutes each. Fair warning: SEO takes three to six months to pay off. This course teaches the work; patience does the rest.
Start here
Module 0: Start Here
Orientation: what you'll build, how the course works, and how to get the most out of every module. Start here before Module 1.
Module 1
Module 1: How Search Works
Before you change a single thing on your site, you need a working mental model of what Google actually does with it. This module explains crawling, indexing, and ranking in plain English, the small set of things Google consistently rewards, and the honest timeline — so you put effort where it counts and don't quit in month two.
Module 2
Module 2: Keyword Research by Hand
Keywords are simply the words your customers type into Google. You don't need an expensive tool to find them — your customers' own language, Google's autocomplete, the "People Also Ask" box, and your Search Console data will hand you a better list than most paid reports. This module shows you the manual process, then how to pick the keywords you can actually win.
Module 3
Module 3: On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is everything you control directly on the page itself — titles, headings, structure, and internal links. It's the highest-leverage work in this course: a few focused hours per important page, and you'll be ahead of most small business sites.
Module 4
Module 4: Content That Ranks
Content is where most sites win or lose — and it's not about volume. Ranking content matches what the searcher actually wants and answers it better than whatever currently holds the top spots. This module covers reading intent, writing comprehensive pages by hand, and the underrated art of improving what you already published.
Module 5
Module 5: Technical Basics
Technical SEO sounds intimidating, but for most small sites it's a short checklist, not a career. Fix the big wins — speed, mobile, and making sure Google can actually read your site — and you're done. You don't need to become a developer.
Module 6
Module 6: Links and Local
Links from other websites are votes of confidence that lift your whole site, and local visibility puts you in front of nearby customers ready to buy. Both are earned by hand — no shortcuts — and both compound over time. This final module also shows you how to measure everything in Search Console, with a master checklist to keep you on track.
Choose your track
Two ways through this course — pick the one that fits where you are.
Starter track
Modules 1–3 plus Module 6 if you're a local business. Learn how search works (Module 1), find your keywords (Module 2), fix your pages (Module 3), then claim your Google Business Profile (Module 6). That's 80% of the value for most small sites. Come back for content and technical work once the basics are live.
Advanced track
All six modules, then the teardown and exam. Site owners with existing traffic should start with Module 5's technical audit — crawl errors and speed issues silently cap everything else. Content-heavy sites: Module 4's search-intent framework is where you'll find your biggest wins.
Your build brief
Everything you write in the build brief prompts across this course's modules collects here. Download it as a designed PDF — and we keep a copy too, so when you're ready for us to build it for you, we already know exactly what you want.
Your answers save automatically as you type — on this device and to your signup email.
Teardown: The Invisible Bakery
A bakery in a mid-size city has a beautiful website — great photos, online ordering, glowing reviews on Instagram. But searching "bakery near me" or "custom cakes [city]" shows three competitors and no sign of them. They're invisible where buying decisions happen.
Diagnosis (Module 1 + 6): Their Google Business Profile is unclaimed — the single biggest local SEO factor, and it's free. Their homepage title tag reads "Home | Sweet Dreams Bakery" instead of including what they do and where (Module 3). They have 4 Google reviews; the competitor ranking first has 180.
The fix, in order: Claim and complete the Business Profile this week (Module 6). Rewrite title tags and headings around "[service] in [city]" (Module 3). Start a simple review request system — a card in every pickup bag with a QR code (Module 6). Then publish one useful page per month: "how to order a wedding cake," "gluten-free options," each targeting a real search (Modules 2 and 4).
Total cost: zero dollars, a few hours a month. The bakery doesn't need more Instagram followers — it needs to exist in the place where hungry people search. Most local businesses are one claimed profile and fifty reviews away from doubling their discovery.
Course extras
Glossary — 15 key terms Final exam — 10 questions, 15 minutes
Want this done for you?
Rather do it with us? Our SEO Implementation ($2,500) — we execute the full audit findings: technical fixes, content, and links.
See done-for-you services