Best Blackhat Forum

Module 1: Welcome
 
Videos included:

• Your Success in the Course
  

Your results after this module:

• This module will set you up for a great start
• You’ll understand how this course works and how to get the most out of it
• You’ll meet like-minded people
  

 
 
Module 2: Falling in Love with Technical SEO
 
Videos included:

• Technical SEO vs Content SEO
• 3 pillars of Technical SEO
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll understand the fundamental difference between on-page and technical SEO
• You’ll get an ultimate framework of 3 pillars of Technical SEO
• You’ll see what power you have over website’s ranking as a technical SEO
  

 
 
Module 3: How Google Works
 
Videos included:

• What happens before a page can rank: 5 stages you must know
• Crawling: robots.txt
• Indexing: meta robots index, noindex
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll get a full picture of all the stages a page goes through before it appears in the search results
• You’ll be many steps ahead of most SEOs who can’t explain crawling, indexing, rendering and ranking
• You’ll be able to stay away from the common mistakes most SEOs make when they try to control crawling and indexing
• You’ll see unexpected results of my SEO experiment with page indexing
  

 
 
Module 4: Controlling Crawling and Indexing of a Website Like a Pro
 
Videos included:

• How to check if a page is indexed and how to get a page indexed quickly
• 3 Types of canonical tags and their purpose
• Why did Google choose a different canonical tag?
• Using HTTP status codes for the win
• Redirects and redirect chains (how to use + bad examples)
• Setting up redirects (via plugins, cPanel and .htaccess)
• How to use cURL for HTTP Requests
• How to fix duplicate content issues (common + eCommerce examples)
• The ultimate guide to handling website pages
• Sitemap.xml
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll understand possible indexing issues and know how to solve them
• You’ll understand how Google chooses canonical pages and how you can influence that (hint: it’s not only about canonical tags)
• You’ll find 5 possible reasons why Google chooses wrong canonical tags on your website
• You’ll learn everything you need to know about HTTP status codes (and the best analogy for them), redirect chains, duplicate content and so much more!
• You’ll know how to fix duplicate content issues, including eCommerce-specific ones
• You’ll get an ultimate guide on handling any page on your website
  

 
 
Module 5: Internal Linking: the Devil is In the Detail
 
Videos included:

• URL structure: what works and what doesn’t
• How to approach URLs with parameters
• What makes a perfect website structure
• Everything you need to know about internal linking
• Actionable ways to improve internal links
• Internal linking at scale
• Pagination: how to handle it the right way
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll learn all secrets of creating a winning URL structure (including one thing that 99% of SEOs don’t know)
• You’ll understand how to handle URLs with parameters (heads up: it’s not always straightforward)
• You’ll know how to build the right website structure and 1 of the most important things that should drive your decisions
• You’ll learn the answers to the most discussed topic: Buttons vs. Links
• You’ll get 7 actionable ways to analyze and improve internal links that you can use right now
• You’ll learn how to set up internal linking at scale
• You’ll understand how to set up pagination the right way
• You’ll learn the best ways to use faceted navigation for eCommerce websites
  

 
 
Module 6: Page Experience from a Technical Point of View
 
Videos included:

• SSL, HTTPS and security
• Mobile-friendliness
• Valid HTML Page Structure
• Structured data: important things you need to know
• The best ways to implement structured data manually and at scale
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll understand what Secure Sockets Layer is and how it’s related to SEO
• You’ll learn unexpected things about mobile-friendliness
• You’ll understand what valid page structure is and how to make it work for SEO
• You’ll know what tags should never ever be found in the <head>
• You’ll get my simple process to implement structured data
  

 
 
Module 7: Advanced Page Speed Optimization
 
Videos included:

• Core Web Vitals: facts and secrets
• Analyze Core Web Vitals like a pro
• Advanced page speed optimization
• How to approach page speed optimization as an SEO
• How browsers work. Critical rendering path optimization
• PageSpeed Optimization from a developer’s perspective – a bonus session with Erwin Hofman
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll understand CVW and the 2 ways they are measured
• You’ll learn secrets about your Core Web Vitals scores
• You’ll get all tools you need to properly analyze page speed
• You’ll learn how to provide meaningful page speed recommendations
• You’ll understand the right way to approach CWV optimization efficiently
• You’ll get the ultimate scheme for page speed improvements that will save you time
• You’ll learn how browsers work and what you can do to optimize critical rendering path
  

 
 
Module 8: Javascript SEO
 
Videos included:

• Google rendering. Client-side rendering vs server-side rendering
• Source code vs rendered HTML: how to check it the right way
• JavaScript SEO issues: examples and explanations
• SEO-friendly J best practices
• Using Screaming Frog for JS debugging
• 3 steps to debug JavaScript issues and win
• Debugging a NextJS website + infinite scroll
• Debugging an eCommerce website
• Debugging link blocks on a website
• Debugging a pop-up and content in tabs
• Bonus video: Lazy Loading debugging on Search Central Live
  

Your results after this module:

• You will understand how Google renders websites (and why it’s different from how browsers do it)
• You will learn why JavaScript can be tricky and what SEO issues it can cause
• You’ll understand the difference between client-side and server-side rendering
• You’ll learn the 3-step framework of JavaScript debugging (so you’ll know exactly how to do it in different settings and with any frameworks)
• You’ll know how to make sure the JavaScript used on a website is SEO-friendly
  

 
 
Module 9: Technical SEO Website Audit
 
Videos included:

• The technical SEO audit checklist
• How to not get overwhelmed (even if you audit a website with millions of pages)
• Importance of a manual check (and how not to fall into the rabbit hole)
• Technical SEO Audit template: putting everything together
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll get an ultimate checklist for a technical SEO audit with reference to the course lessons
• You’ll learn a secret that will help you to simplify your auditing process and not get overwhelmed (even by websites with millions and millions of pages)
• You’ll get an audit template that you can use for your clients
  

 
 
Module 10: Prioritizing technical SEO recommendations
 
Videos included:

• An ultimate framework for prioritizing your technical SEO recommendations
  

Your results after this module:

• You’ll understand how to prioritize SEO issues so that you can provide the right recommendations at the right time
• You’ll understand the thing you need to consider to prioritize your recommendations
• You’ll get an ultimate framework for prioritizing technical SEO issues
  

 
 
Bonus sessions from the best guest speakers
 
PageSpeed Optimization from a developer’s perspective
 
Erwin Hofman
A web performance consultant, “the page speed guy”.
Cool things you’ll learn:

• The right way to structure the <head> section for SEO and page speed optimization
• A curious thing about using @import
• What is the first thing you need to consider when optimizing a website for speed
• Why field and lab test scores might be very different
• Caching URLs with parameters
• What is Interaction to Next Paint and why it might become part of CWV
• Why delaying all JavaScript loading is not the best approach