Week 1 · 3–4 hours
How Search Works
Understand what SEO is, how search engines discover content, and where AI-assisted search fits into organic discovery.
Crawling, indexing and serving are different stages. Publishing is an invitation to be discovered, not a guarantee of visibility.
Learn
Complete only the named pages or lessons below. Links inside them are optional unless the task says otherwise.
How Google Search works
Why this: Start with the search engine’s own explanation of discovery, crawling, indexing and serving.
Pay attention to: Google does not guarantee crawling, indexing or serving, even when a page follows guidance.
SEO Starter Guide
Why this: Build a first-party foundation for site organisation, links and useful content.
Pay attention to: Helping people and search engines understand a page; skip advanced linked documents for now.
SEO basics: what is SEO?
Why this: Add a practitioner-led explanation to Google’s documentation.
Pay attention to: Vendor training complements first-party guidance; it does not replace it.
Check your understanding
You should be able to explain these without relying on course terminology.
Practise
Apply this week’s learning through a guided practical exercise.
Scenario
Choose a public website and treat it as a product to be understood, not merely a collection of pages.
Your task
Explain what the site exists to do, who it serves, what the audience may search for, which pages attract demand, how Google might discover them, and where else the brand might be discovered.
Good work should contain
- Clear audience and purpose
- Examples of acquisition and conversion pages
- A sensible discovery explanation
- At least two non-Google discovery surfaces
Common mistakes
- Reducing SEO to keywords
- Assuming every page should rank
- Claiming an AI platform works in one fixed way
SEO & Discovery Fundamentals Exercise
Review and refine the exercise to a client-facing standard, then save the finished version as portfolio evidence.
Suggested filename 01-seo-discovery-fundamentals.pdf
Skill demonstrated Search fundamentals and audience thinking
An interviewer may ask “How would you explain SEO to a non-specialist?”
Career task
Alongside the SEO exercise, complete one small job-readiness task each week. These tasks build towards confident junior applications.
Create a simple job tracker in Google Sheets or Excel. Add five junior SEO or digital marketing roles with the employer, link, date found, deadline, recurring skills, application status and notes.
Notes
Personal notes stay separate from the questions intended for Chris.
Personal notes
Capture useful observations, definitions and reminders.
Question for Chris
Use this for uncertainties or points you want to discuss.
Finished this week?
Mark the week complete once you have finished the learning, exercise, portfolio output and career task.