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Technical SEO and AI Search Essentials with Semrush

Master the technical foundations that drive website performance across both traditional and AI-powered search. This hands-on course teaches you to identify and resolve critical issues that impact organic traffic, while also optimizing for AI crawlers that power systems like ChatGPT.

Who is this сourse for?

Non-technical marketers and business owners looking to bridge the gap with developers and master technical SEO fundamentals for both search engines and AI platforms without coding expertise.

What you’ll learn

Learn how to implement search-friendly site architecture that maximizes crawlability for both search bots and AI crawlers. Master sitemaps, structured data, Core Web Vitals, and mobile optimization using Semrush tools to validate site performance.

Earn Your Certificate from Semrush Academy

Semrush has been recognized by the search community across the globe, winning several accolades as the best SEO software suite. Learn more

Rita Cidre

Rita Cidre is a marketing leader, instructor, and storyteller with 15 years of experience working at the intersection of marketing and content. Rita has held growth marketing leadership roles at Zillow Group, Time Inc., and National Public Radio (NPR). Currently, as the Head of Academy at Semrush, she builds innovative educational programs and courses designed to empower digital marketers around the globe.

Rosa Amato

Rosamaria Amato is a Scale Customer Success Manager at Semrush who’s passionate about helping users make the most of their digital marketing tools. She’s spent the last few years hosting live webinars, workshops, and creating educational content to help users get measurable results. She is passionate about making complex SEO concepts accessible and actionable, empowering marketers and business owners to reach their goals with confidence.

Course Structure

Strategy: Course Intro

Meet Rita and learn why you don't need to be tech-savvy to succeed at technical SEO. Get tips for making the most of strategy lessons and hands-on walkthrough videos with real Semrush tools.

1 video

3 minutes

Strategy: What is Technical SEO and Why Does it Matter?

Think of technical SEO as back-end maintenance - you can have the most beautiful storefront, but if the pipes leak, shoppers won't buy anything. Learn how search engines actually discover and rank websites.

1 video

4 minutes

Walkthrough: Essential Tools for Technical SEO

Set up your essential toolkit including Semrush Site Audit with mobile-first settings, Google Search Console, and Google PageSpeed Insights. Complete the setup tasks to follow along throughout the course.

1 video

2 minutes

Strategy: Site Architecture

Good site structure creates a roadmap telling search engines what's important and how everything connects. See how Semrush's own website flows from broad to specific, keeping important pages within 3 clicks of the homepage.

1 video

5 minutes

Expert: Site Structure

SEO expert Crystal Carter shares strategies for organizing site architecture, discussing tools and approaches for brand new websites versus existing ones that need restructuring.

1 video

17 minutes

Strategy: XML Sitemaps

Stop making search engines wander around blindly - XML sitemaps are like handing them a detailed map with every page labeled. Learn what lastmod, changefreq, and priority tags actually tell Google about your content.

1 video

3 minutes

Walkthrough: Submitting an XML Sitemap to Google

Ready to give Google direct access to your website's roadmap? Follow along step-by-step as we demonstrate how to submit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console and help search engines discover your content faster.

1 video

1 minute

Walkthrough: Using Site Audit Tool to Find Crawlability Issues

Get hands-on with Semrush's Site Audit tool to spot broken internal links, orphan pages, and other crawlability problems that waste your precious crawl budget.

1 video

4 minutes

Strategy: Indexing

Getting crawled doesn't guarantee you'll appear in search results - Google's mobile-first indexing means they judge your entire site based on the mobile version. Learn about HTTP status codes and what they mean for indexing.

1 video

3 minutes

Strategy: Robots Meta Tags

Leave polite instructions for search engine bots with robots meta tags. Master the combinations of index/noindex and follow/nofollow to control exactly how search engines treat each page.

1 video

4 minutes

Strategy: Structured Data (Schema) Markup

Help search engines understand that "2 eggs" means ingredient and "Bake for 15 minutes" means cook time. See how Dell uses JSON-LD markup and why structured data is crucial for AI search tools.

1 video

3 minutes

Walkthrough: Using Site Audit Tool to Find Indexing Issues

Hunt down indexing problems using Semrush's Site Audit reports. Learn to identify pages that can't be properly categorized or understood by search engines.

1 video

2 minutes

Strategy: Core Web Vitals

Google's research shows 54% of mobile users abandon slow sites, which is why Core Web Vitals became official ranking factors. Master Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift metrics.

1 video

4 minutes

Strategy: Security Certificates & HTTPS

That "Not Secure" warning makes users leave immediately - learn why HTTPS has been a Google ranking factor since 2014. See real examples of mixed content issues that quietly damage search rankings.

1 video

2 minutes

Walkthrough: Using Site Audit to Find Core Web Vitals and HTTPS Issues

Use Semrush's Core Web Vitals and HTTPS reports to find speed problems and security certificate issues that are hurting both user experience and search rankings.

1 video

3 minutes

Strategy: Technical SEO for AI Systems

AI bots don't just crawl your pages like Google—they analyze content meaning, assess trustworthiness, and extract detailed information using completely different rules. This lesson covers how three types of AI crawlers work and the specific technical adjustments needed to make your site accessible to both search engines and AI systems.

1 video

6 minutes

Expert: Technical AI SEO

Leigh McKenzie talks through technical SEO tactics that you should (and should not) focus on when it comes to optimizing your site for LLM visibility, including his opinion of the number one issue that could be holding your site back.

1 video

4 minutes

Strategy: Congratulations!

You've just mastered the technical foundations that separate high-ranking websites from the rest. Celebrate your new skills in site architecture, crawling, indexing, and Core Web Vitals - then get ready to put your knowledge to the test with your final assessment and earn your official certification.

1 video

2 minutes

Would You Recommend This Course?

One last thing! If you enjoyed this course (or even if you didn't, we won't take it personally), please give us some feedback so we can keep making even better free content in the future!

1 video

1 minute

Enroll for free

Demystify technical SEO with hands-on strategies and Semrush tools you can use right away.