CHAPTER 1: A New Hope
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, marketers who wanted to learn about SEO were forced to mine deep into the caverns of Google search engine result pages to find the answers to even the most simple SEO questions.
Then, out of darkness came a new hope (with a mouthful of a name):
…the Learn SEO and Search Marketing hub!
The SEO and Search Marketing hub housed resources like the Beginner’s Guide to SEO and articles about popular SEO topics like meta descriptions, title tags, and robots.txt. Its purpose was to serve as a one-stop-shop for visitors looking to learn what SEO was all about and how to use it on their own sites.
The Learn SEO and Search marketing hub would go on to serve as a guiding light for searchers and site visitors looking to learn the ropes of SEO for many years to come.
CHAPTER 2: The Learning Hub Strikes Back
Since its inception in 2010, this hub happily served hundreds of thousands of Internet folk looking to learn the ropes of SEO and search marketing. But time took its toll on the hub. As marketing and search engine optimization grew increasingly complex, the Learning Hub lapsed into disrepair. While new content was periodically added, that content was hard to find and often intermingled with older, out-of-date resources. The Learning Hub became less of a hub and more of a list of resources… some of which were also lists of resources.
Offshoots like the Local Learning Center and Content Marketing Learning Center sprung up in an effort to tame the overgrown learning hub, but ‘twas all for naught: By autumn of 2016, Moz’s learning hub sites were a confusing nest of hard-to-navigate articles, guides, and 404s. Some articles were written for SEO experts and explained concepts in extensive, technical detail, while others were written for an audience with less extensive SEO knowledge. It was impossible to know which type of article you found yourself in before you wound up confused or discouraged.
What had once been a useful resource for marketers of all backgrounds was languishing in its age.
CHAPTER 3: The Return of the Learning Center
The vision behind the SEO and Search Marketing Hub had always been to educate SEOs and search marketers on the skills they needed to be successful in their jobs. While the site section continued to serve that purpose, somewhere along the along the way we started getting diminishing returns.
Our mission, then, was clear: Re-invent Moz’s learning resources with a new structure, new website, and new content.
As we set off on this mission, one thing was clear: The new Learning Center should serve as a home base for marketers and SEOs of all skill levels to learn what’s needed to excel in their work: from the fundamentals to expert-level content, from time-tested tenets of SEO success to cutting-edge tactics and tricks. If we weren’t able to accomplish this, our mission would all be for naught.
We also believed that a new Learning Center should make it easy for visitors of all skill levels and learning styles to find value: from those folks who want to read an article then dive into their work; to those who want to browse through libraries of focused SEO videos; to folks who want to learn from the experts in hands-on webinars.
So, that’s exactly what we built.
May we introduce to you the (drumroll, please) brand new, totally rebuilt SEO Learning Center!
Unlike the “list of lists” in the old Learn SEO and Search Marketing hub, the new Learning Center organizes content by topic.
Each topic has its own “topic hub.” There are eleven of these and they cover:
Each of the eleven topic hubs host a slew of hand-picked articles, videos, blog posts, webinars, Q&A posts, templates, and training classes designed to help you dive deeper into your chosen SEO topic.
All eleven of the hubs contain a “fundamentals” menu to help you wrap your brain around a topic, as well as a content feed with hundreds of resources to help you go even further. These feed resources are filterable by topic (for instance, content that’s about both ranking & visibility AND local SEO), SEO skill level (from beginner to advanced), and format.
Use the Learning Center’s filters to zero in on exactly the content you’re looking for.
And, if you’re brand new to a topic or not sure where to start, you can always find a link to the Beginner’s Guide to SEO right at the top of each page.
But we can only explain so much in words — check it out for yourself:
Visit the new SEO Learning Center!
CHAPTER 4: The Content Awakens
One of the main motivations behind rebuilding the Learning Center website was to make it easier for folks to find and move through a slew of educational content, be that a native Learning Center article, a blog post, a webinar, or otherwise. But it doesn’t do any good to make content easier to find if that content is totally out-of-date and unhelpful.
In addition to our mission to build a new Learning Center, we’ve also been quietly updating our existing articles to include the latest best practices, tactics, strategies, and resources. As part of this rewrite, we’ve also made an effort to keep each article as focused as possible around specifically one topic — a complete explanation of everything someone newer to the world of SEO needs to know about the given topic. What did that process look like in action? Check it out:
As of now we’ve updated 50+ articles, with more on the way!
Going forward, we’ll continue to iterate on the search experience within the new Learning Center. For example, while we always have our site search bar available, a Learning Center-specific search function would make finding articles even easier — and that’s just one of our plans for the future. Bigger projects include a complete update of the Beginner’s Guide to SEO (keep an eye on the blog for more news there, too), as well as our other introductory guides.
Help us, Moz-i Wan Community, you’re our only hope
We’ve already telekinetically moved mountains with this project, but the Learning Center is your resource — we’d love to hear what you’d like to see next, or if there’s anything really important you think we’ve missed. Head over, check it out, and tell us what you think in the comments!
