Can You Learn SEO in Flagstaff, Arizona?

ByAaron Charlton, PhD

I provide SEO (search engine optimization) services in Flagstaff, Arizona and have worked in digital marketing since 2007. When I first entered the field, there were no formal books or structured courses — we learned almost entirely through blogs, experimentation, and trial and error. Fast forward to today, and we understand search engines far better. There are now countless educational options available, though the quality varies significantly.

The good news is that you don’t have to live in a major city to learn SEO. There are excellent free online resources available anywhere (which I’ll cover in another post). In fact, traditional educational institutions are not always the best starting point. I hold both an MBA and a PhD in Marketing, and neither program meaningfully covered SEO.

In my experience, the most effective path combines hands-on learning — optimizing your own website or doing low-cost work for others — with carefully chosen online courses. Paid programs can also be helpful, not just for structure and accountability, but because they often provide credentials that boost your credibility in the job market.

Below are the learning options I recommend for those wanting to build real SEO skills in Northern Arizona.

1. SEO-Related Offerings at Northern Arizona University

Flagstaff is a college town and at any given time, maybe 1 out of 3 or 4 residents is a young college-aged adult grinding away at the university trying to earn some marketable skills and credentials at Northern Arizona University (NAU). Like most universities, NAU does have a marketing department and many relevant courses are taught there. Perhaps the most relevant course is Margaret Dunfee’s digital marketing course:

Margaret Dunfee is full-time teaching faculty at NAU and teaches the digital marketing. She holds an M.B.A. from NAU and is the Principal Consultant at Mariposa Consulting. Her career spans leadership and analytical roles across higher education, consulting, finance, and economic development.

NAU also pretends to offer an online certificate in Digital Marketing (72 course hours; $412) but it is actually just a 3rd party called Ed 2 Go that teaches it and they just pay NAU for their brand. So really you can get the NAU credential but it’s really just a money grab. The education could be excellent–I don’t know. But it is a deceptive offering in my opinion since it has little to do with NAU and it’s not even local to the area. I would advise caution if you are hoping to get some benefit from one of these types of courses.

Unfortunately, that’s all I could find at NAU but keep in mind that there are a ton of relevant skills taught all across the college: writing, researching, analysis, human psychology, etc., so while they might not directly teach SEO, they can help you get better at SEO and really any kind of office job generally that requires these skills. I myself was a History undergrad and it taught me really solid researching and writings skills that have benefited my career tremendously.

2. SEO-Related Offerings at Coconino Community College

As a 2-year college, Coconino Community College (CCC) teaches broader, more foundational courses. For this reason, it’s unsurprising that they don’t teach something as niche as SEO. They do have a digital marketing offering through Ed 2 Go (400 course hours; $3,999), but again I caution that CCC doesn’t really teach the program. They just partner with a 3rd party that licenses their brand name. In my opinion it’s a deceptive practice. And it’s not local anyway. So for those seeking to learn SEO while at CCC, I recommend a combination of hands-on (do it for a company for free, or for your own hobby site) and free online courses, which I will go into in another post.

3. Hands-On Learning

Photo credit: Christian Velitchkov

How can you get hands-on learning if you don’t know anything and nobody is willing to hire you? Great question! Sometimes you have to be a bit entrepreneurial to break into the marketing world. My suggestion is the following:

  1. Start a hobby site. What are you interested in? Build a simple site and start cranking out content. The first thing you’ll notice is nobody will see it. How can that be remedied? As you figure it out, you’ll build some great SEO skills and you’ll also have a portfolio project you can show to potential clients. Sometimes it only takes one early success to win over that first client.
  2. Work for free or cheap. If you don’t know what you’re doing, try offering free or cheap services to figure it out. You can work for a friend, family member, or local non-profit that needs some SEO help. Once you get them ranking you have both real-word skills and a portfolio project you can show to potential clients.

4. Free Online Courses

I’ll go into this more in another post but there are a ton of really great free online courses you can use to hone your SEO skills. Here are a few I often recommend to young people hoping to learn the SEO trade:

5. Parting Thoughts

Marketing is a tough field to be in. Most of the people making good money with their SEO skills are either running their own agency or doing it for their own company. The field itself suffers from constant layoffs and low pay. Google, though, is the world’s biggest gold mine. If you can learn SEO and do it for your own company you could do really well. If you’re interested in learning SEO, please reach out and connect with me. I can help you get started and point you in the right direction.

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