A free SEO writing course in seven lessons
A free SEO writing course for small teams. Seven short lessons, each with one exercise, take you from the search to a post ready to publish.
This SEO writing course is free and has seven short lessons. Each one teaches a single skill, gives you one exercise, and points to the post on this blog that covers the skill in full. Take one lesson a day, or the whole course in an afternoon. You need a topic, a notebook and a browser.
Who this SEO writing course is for #
It is for people who write for a small business blog and want the posts to be found. You might be a marketer who writes on the side, a founder, or a new writer on a content team. You do not need to know any code or own any paid tool.
Pick one real topic before you start. Every exercise builds on the one before it, so by lesson seven you hold a finished draft about that topic.
How to take the course #
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Choose one topic
Pick a subject your customers ask you about. Write it at the top of a blank page.
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Take the lessons in order
Read the lesson below, then open the full post it links to. Each lesson needs the result of the last.
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Do the exercise before you move on
Write your answer in the same document. The exercises add up to a draft.
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Ask a colleague to read the result
Fresh eyes catch what you no longer see. Give them the question your post answers and ask if it does.
| Lesson | What you practise | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Read the search | Finding the goal behind a query | Twenty minutes |
| Choose your questions | Keyword research on a small budget | Half an hour |
| Brief the post | A one-page plan | Twenty-five minutes |
Show the other lessons
| Lesson | What you practise | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Write the draft | Structure for skimmers | Three quarters of an hour |
| Write the title | A headline that earns the click | Twenty minutes |
| Write the description | The snippet under the title | A quarter of an hour |
| Edit before you publish | The second draft | Half an hour |
Lesson 1: read the search #
What you learn. Every query hides a goal. Some searchers want a quick fact, some want a method, and some want to compare products. That goal decides the shape of your post before you write a word.
Exercise. Search for your topic. Note the type of page in the top five results: guide, list, tool or product page. Write one sentence on what the searcher wants.
Read next: reading a results page, explained for writers.
Lesson 2: choose your questions #
What you learn. A topic holds many questions. Some are asked often, and some are narrow but easy to win. A small blog often does best with the narrow ones first, the long-tail keywords that bigger sites skip.
Exercise. List ten questions people ask about your topic. Use the search suggestions and the questions on the results page. Circle the one your post will answer.
Read next: our keyword research guide for small blogs.
Lesson 3: brief the post #
What you learn. A brief is a one-page plan: the question, the reader, the headings and the sources. It saves more time than it costs, and it lets someone else review the plan before the writing starts.
Exercise. Fill in a brief for your circled question. Keep it to one page.
Read next: the brief template we use with clients.
Lesson 4: write the draft #
What you learn. Readers scan before they commit. Put the answer near the top, give each heading one clear claim, and keep paragraphs short. This lesson is the heart of the SEO writing course, so give it the most time.
Exercise. Write the short answer first, in two or three sentences. Then write one section per heading in your brief.
Read next: our complete guide to posts that rank.
Lesson 5: write the title #
What you learn. The title tag is the blue link on the results page. It has to say what the page answers and give a reason to click, without promising more than the page delivers.
Exercise. Write five titles for your draft. Read them aloud and keep the one that a stranger would understand at once.
Read next: headlines that earn the click without the bait.
Lesson 6: write the description #
What you learn. The meta description is the short text under the title in many results. Search engines may rewrite it, but a good one often stays, and it is your chance to make a promise.
Exercise. Write a description that names the question and what the reader will get. Keep it to one or two sentences.
Read next: how to write the meta description under your title.
Lesson 7: edit before you publish #
What you learn. The second draft is where a post gets good. Cut what repeats, check every number has a source, and read it on a phone.
Exercise. Run your draft through the checklist. Cut at least one paragraph that does not serve the question.
Read next: the editing checklist we run on every post.
After the SEO writing course #
Publish the post, then put a date in your calendar to check it in three months. Look at the searches it shows up for in Google's free Search Console. They tell you which questions to add next.
How this page is marked up #
This page carries structured data for a course: a short block of code that names the course, says who runs it and states that it is free and online. Khalid writes it from the post's settings, so the page and the code always agree.
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By Maren Okafor. Published .
About the author
Head of content at Larkspur Studio
Experience Twelve years as a newspaper sub-editor and content lead, MA in Journalism
Maren runs the writing desk at Larkspur. Before that she spent eight years cutting other people's copy to fit a newspaper page, which is where she learned that every sentence has to earn its place. She writes about planning posts, structuring them and editing them until a busy reader can act on them.
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