SEO Training Course

lilywhites1982

Does anyone know where you can partake in an advanced SEO training course in Ireland. Have been looking online and doesn't seem to be any. Not really interested in a basic course but my company would be willing to pay for me to go on an advanced course?

Suaimhneach

I know of some basic or theory ones, but no advanced ones. If you find one, let us know!

I do think a lot can be self taught with tutorials etc. But that is time consuming and full of errors. An idea might be to approach a company that provides SEO and see if their specialists might provide training?

CCSL

Procad Training offer basic and customised SEO training in Raheen in Limerick
they also offer SEO training onsite anywhere in the country (For a price.)
Normally a 1 day course.

notnem

A lot of SEO is ones opinion and based on trial and error. I think idea A works and idea B doesn't, so I'll do more of Idea A. It is a very creative process and a course could get you hung up on a set of rules that are one persons opinion, or works in the vertical the instructer has worked in.

If you feel a course is the way forward go for it, but there is so much information out there on the web that can point you in the right way. There are also online courses.

For all your SEO news check out this link: http://seo.alltop.com/

There are plenty of forums out there too (including this one) that will help point you in the right direction. SEO is about relevance and authority and buiding both of these, not about 4% keyword density and meta tags. I'd be happy to give you a few pointers if you would like. I know I'm slightly off the point here so please forgive me.

Derek B

Have a read of this:
http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/knowing-your-seo-certification-options.php

notnem

These are not SEO, but are related:

[SIZE=-1]

If you're an AdWords advertiser, Google Advertising Professional, or just interested in learning more about AdWords, you can use our free training to sharpen your AdWords knowledge

[/SIZE]

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

The Google Analytics Individual Qualification is a proof of proficiency in Google Analytics that is available to any individual who has passed the Google Analytics IQ test. An in-depth, step-by-step online course is provided to help you prepare for the test.

http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=en

I'm in the middle of the Google Analtics course and I have to say I've learned a lot and I was already a proficient user.

Irishjack32

Eejits.com offers an online SEO Coaching Program, it has a 7 day free trial offer that finishes soon or may already be finished. It has email coaching support as part of the service. You can see it at. http://www.eejits.com/members

scottyboy1973

I got a note in this am from this crowd with a link to their online marketing course.

"The Digital Marketing Institute's [FONT=&quot]12 Week Diploma in Online & Digital Marketing[/FONT] is being delivered by some of Ireland’s leading Online Marketing professionals. Next classes are in..."



[FONT=&quot]http://www.digitalmarketinginstitute.ie/coursedetails/#2[/FONT]

I was actually coming on to ask if anyone had heard of these guys and if so, were their courses well thought of?

Lilywhites - I guess this might be a bit basic for you??

notnem

Two of the topics they mention on that course are covered in vast detail here, plus you can get Google professional qualifications.

notnem wrote: »

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=en

Derek B

I took the advanced SEO course at http://www.sew-wrc.com/ for work, and while there was some worthwhile stuff in there, it's somewhat dated now. I haven't seen any couse that I'd really recommend tbh.

Suaimhneach

Derek_B, that link wouldnt work for me. Any other links or company name?

Shame there isnt a more up to date source for all this stuff.

Derek B

Jesjes wrote: »

Derek_B, that link wouldnt work for me. Any other links or company name?

Try search on "seo workshop resource centre"..should show in position 1.

Dan Thies is another good option (http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/seo-course.php), his 'SEO Fast Start' ebook was quite good from memory.

I would imagine the SEMPO certification to be one of the better, if not the best certification around, although I haven't seen it myself.

scottyboy1973

try these guys

I just started a more general Digital marketing course (which includes SEO sections) last week and they see very good. maybe they will have something or be able to point you in the right direction?

http://www.digitalmarketinginstitute.ie

Scotty

scottyboy1973

in fact, now that I actually look.....................
http://www.digitalmarketinginstitute.ie/masterclass/advanced-search-engine-optimization-seo/

a 1.2 day advanced SEO course!

Jimmyjimster

Try Market defender, they are quite new to the world of SEO and PPC software but there methods are meant to be very effective, worth a look i'd say.

seachto7

On a side note, are there any good up to date SEO books? I've heard that the "....Dummies" book gives a good over view of what to do. Or would it be better to trawl the net and build up some info that way...

notnem

seachto7 wrote: »

On a side note, are there any good up to date SEO books? I've heard that the "....Dummies" book gives a good over view of what to do. Or would it be better to trawl the net and build up some info that way...

The SEO for Dummies one seems to be very SEM focused. There are so many books out there. Aaron Wall used to do a very detailed book which would of been the pick of the lot but now offers a course instead (LINK). The book will be a little out of date but could be worth a read.

Google SEO Secrets seems to be a very concise look at SEO and seems to me to cover all the basics. I've seen an older version so maybe see if you can get your hands on that.

scottyboy1973

seachto7 wrote: »

On a side note, are there any good up to date SEO books? I've heard that the "....Dummies" book gives a good over view of what to do. Or would it be better to trawl the net and build up some info that way...

Just started a digital marketing course last week. here is the suggested reading for SEO

SEO for Dummies - Peter Kent
Web Marketing for Dummies -Jan Zimmerman
SEO Made Easy - Brad Callan
SEO Bible - Jerri Ledford
Dont make me think - a common sense approach to web usability - Steve Krug

Theres also a load of stuff on google as I think folk have referenced before

link8r

These courses can be good to at least learn some of the terminology but

I've seen quite a few courses on offer and they mostly look like the "on-site" SEO types - which to be honest contains a lot of Garbage. For years, the most common SEO tip used to just be "H1" tags.

I've been using for a long time (since 2001) and have my sites pretty much #1-#3 for years - and I guarantee you that on-site is nothing without off-site SEO. And you can't really teach it - it's about who and what you know.

I see that most companies that offer "SEO" don't actually rank well - for example, Coyote Consultancy in Limerick do a course with the Limerick County Enterprise Board but dont rank for "Coyote Consulting" for example, let alone for "SEO" . Again, huge emphasis on Page SEO things like H1 tags, descriptions, keywords, - all published by Google to not affect Ranking.

Yes, they will affect other things like click-through from a search result and towards establishing Relevance. But authority comes from Googles Patented link-voting system - which is what helped them to differentiate themselves from Yahoo/MSN/Alta-vista/etc back in 2000/2001

CCSL

link8r wrote: »

These courses can be good to at least learn some of the terminology but

I've seen quite a few courses on offer and they mostly look like the "on-site" SEO types - which to be honest contains a lot of Garbage. For years, the most common SEO tip used to just be "H1" tags.

I've been using for a long time (since 2001) and have my sites pretty much #1-#3 for years - and I guarantee you that on-site is nothing without off-site SEO. And you can't really teach it - it's about who and what you know.

Yes, they will affect other things like click-through from a search result and towards establishing Relevance. But authority comes from Googles Patented link-voting system - which is what helped them to differentiate themselves from Yahoo/MSN/Alta-vista/etc back in 2000/2001

By the way the company is called Coyote Consultancy for a search for SEO limerick (the target area) I am on page 1 also while the older tags like H1 are not as important as they once were it is still important to have your site correctly set out for access for people with disabilities who use screen readers and is set out in the web guidelines. And google still stresses formatting - see below for an extract from Googles webmaster guidelines.

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the "ALT" attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.
• Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
• Review our image guidelines for best practices on publishing images.

Best of luck with the new site looks very nice.

link8r

Thanks - trying out a new site -v- primaryposition.com which is quite nicely ranked.

link8r

CCSL wrote: »

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the "ALT" attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.
• Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
• Review our image guidelines for best practices on publishing images

That doesn't help rank - it just prevents indexing issues. HTML errors aren't going to hold a site back an awful lot unless they are quite severe. I'd put having 100% validated HTML at the bottom of a list - and Matt Cutt's video's would largely agree.

Definitely broken links are important for a number of reasons. But it's off-site SEO that ultimately is the deal-breaker in ranking. IMHO.

CCSL

But when it comes to what you can teach in the classroom or learn from a book and that is the point of the thread then pagerank and the value of inbound links is about as far as you can go.

Unless companies have staff dedicated to trawling the net for inbound links of value or they employ other companies to do so (that's what keeps SEO companies in business after all :cool:) Then there is a limit to what Book learning can do and a point where experience comes to the forefront.

In the short term on-page seo is important if your not even showing up properly in Google. The number of sites without even the basic tags is surprising.

I totally agree that in the long term a well planned inbound links policy will serve to "up" the page rank and improve the long term traffic exposure for the site but good links can be costly so its a case of fix the site first then go to work on off site links.
If the site is well designed from the off then onsite work should not be needed but that is not always the case.

If you are an experienced SEO person then you will already know the basics but if you are the owner or manager of a small company with no experience in SEO then you have to start somewhere and a lot of people find learning from long technical manuals a bit hardl.

So a good basic book like "advanced seo techniques" by David Jay is a good place to start 37 pages long basic as hell but readable and understandable to non techies.

CCSL

Just a quick addition to the above posts.

Limerick County Enterprise Board are running 1 day "Basic" SEO courses for people who have little or no previous experience with any Search Engine Marketing or on or off page SEO.

This course is designed to introduce beginners to the concepts they need to understand. If you are already experienced in SEO it may be a bit too basic. But its a good place to start if you are just beginning.

It covers - Page design for SEO, optimising a Google adwords campaign
Using Google analytics and Google Webmaster Tools,
The importance of Inbound Links to Page Rank
And Blogging as a source of fresh content as well as evaluations of the attendees websites and quick sugesstions for improvments.

Its only €50 for the day Lunch included so not bad as a starting point.
I run Coyote Consultancy in Limerick and am the Instructor for the Course.
Also if you are not aware the Enterprise boards offer website grants for 50% of the cost up to €1000 for the development of websites to qualifing companies. Check with your local board for more details.

Trojan

I am: http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=internet+marketing+training&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryIE

I've seen quite a few courses on offer and they mostly look like the "on-site" SEO types - which to be honest contains a lot of Garbage.

I don't agree here.

On-site is a massively important part of the equation. The 'O' in SEO stands for "optimisation": if you want to optimise, you follow best practices and you can't ignore such a crucial factor. On-site optimisation will boost the vast majority of small business websites who are not competing for highly competive keywords. Getting the on-site stuff right is the #1 thing you should do, because it's 100% in your control. Onsite issues include not just the html, but site architecture, htaccess and creating content - the last is often glossed over.

Off-site is far more influential on your ranking once you get into competitive areas. And it's a lot harder to do right, never mind teach - but that's the joy of the challenge

scottyboy1973

Hi there

the course I mentioned earlier offers advice on both on and off site marketing under the following headings

• Search Engine Optimisation
• Pay per Click Marketing
• Banner and other Digital Image marketing
• Web site architecture
• Web 2.0 technologies
• Podcasting
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Affiliate Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Web Site Analytics
• Dealing with Digital Agencies
• Facebook
• Twitter

I'm not on a sales pitch - I dont work for the digitalmarketinginstitute but I am on one of their courses at the mo and am enjoying it.

S

link8r

Trojan wrote: »

I am: http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=internet+marketing+training&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryIE

I don't agree here.

On-site is a massively important part of the equation. The 'O' in SEO stands for "optimisation": if you want to optimise, you follow best practices and you can't ignore such a crucial factor. On-site optimisation will boost the vast majority of small business websites who are not competing for highly competive keywords. Getting the on-site stuff right is the #1 thing you should do, because it's 100% in your control. Onsite issues include not just the html, but site architecture, htaccess and creating content - the last is often glossed over.

Hi Trojan - interesting, this is me: http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=search+engine+optimiser&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryIE

Content - important (Relevance)
Meta-information (Keywords, Description) - not important to ranking (source: Google Blog)
Technical aspects - Complete HTML compliancy etc almost unimportant

Onsite: Relevance
Off-Site: Relevance & Authority

SEO
Optimisation - the 'O' in SEO - doesn't imply on-site exclusively. I read optimiseto include the necessary tasks, functions and work in both off-site and on-site.

You can rank a site with purely off-site SEO - you cannot rank yourself! It flies in complete contradiction of what Google's PageRank Algorithm and web-voting system works. Pages pass on their authority based on relevance and other hints to other sites. That determines rank order.

You cannot stand as a website and put in keywords (be it Page Title, Description, H1/H4 tags, Content, anywhere) and just rank. It's like saying you can vote yourself president of a country...

Don't believe me? Do a search - "Hotels Dublin", "Landscapers Dublin", "Car insurance" - they all have the on-site SEO and sometimes the top guy has the least. Where they appear - thats off-site SEO (Authority).

Trojan

My point about the 'O' standing for "optimise" is that by definition optimise means "make optimal; get the most out of".

In order to get the most out of SEO you cannot write off the importance of onsite.

turbot

For Micro Niches (especially with long tail keywords) you can get very well ranked if you understand proper onsite optimisation;

- a combination of fast loading, low file size, simple sites
- elegant design
- well positioned (and conceived and structured) content.
- good domain names help a lot too.

For this to be worth anything, you still need to know what keywords are worth targetting, and how to research these and then how to convert potential visitors into more.

Personally, having been doing SEO of various forms for over 12 years, I imagine that you'd struggle to find a decent advanced course in Ireland at all.

If you're interested in finding out how you can learn that stuff from decent sources, send me a PM and I'll forward you some resources.

seamusorogers

Folks

Just following up on the previous post - I have two colleagues on the Digital marketing institute 12 week course. Feedback from them is that this is excellent.

I checked the web site and they are running a 1 week intensive Summer Boot Camp .. I think that I might join up ... anyone else interested in joining me?

RedCardinal

link8r wrote: »

Hi Trojan - interesting, this is me: http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=search+engine+optimiser&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryIE

Ah. The inherent danger of linking to SERPs expecting them to stay the same...

From where I'm sitting right now that result shows me at #1+2, and I can safely say that I'm most certainly not you

I've been a trainer on the DMI course, and the feedback from students about other trainers has been very positive. No idea what they think of me mind :eek: