Dirk Maartens
Lead Instructor
Former agency strategist who got tired of explaining the same optimization concepts differently to every client. Now teaches those concepts directly to business owners and marketing teams.
Why we approach training differently
Most SEO courses teach theory first, tools second, and leave the actual application as homework. That sequence doesn't work when you're trying to rank a plumbing business in Msunduzi or get a retail shop visible for local searches. You need to see the process from problem to solution, with your own website as the example.
Our workshops start with auditing your current situation — what's actually preventing your pages from ranking, which technical issues matter most, and where your competitors are getting links you're not. Then we work through fixes together, using your content and your target keywords. By the end of the first session, you've usually already improved something measurable.
Real client sites, actual ranking problems
Every exercise uses participant websites. You're not optimizing a fictional pet store; you're fixing metadata on your actual service pages, researching keywords your customers genuinely use, and building content that addresses questions people ask when they're ready to buy. We cover local citation building using Pietermaritzburg directories that matter, schema markup for service areas in KwaZulu-Natal, and Google Business Profile optimization specific to South African search behavior.
What you'll be able to do afterward
After the foundational program, participants can run their own site audits using Screaming Frog, identify indexing issues through Search Console, conduct competitor gap analysis, and write title tags that actually improve click-through rates. You'll know how to prioritize technical fixes, when to rewrite content versus leaving it alone, and which link-building tactics work for regional businesses versus national brands.
The local search intensive teaches Google Business Profile optimization beyond the basics — category selection strategies, review acquisition systems that don't violate guidelines, and post scheduling that correlates with actual traffic patterns. You learn citation building across Durban and Pietermaritzburg directories, geographic content targeting for surrounding areas, and how to track local pack rankings accurately.
We don't promise first-page rankings because that depends on your niche, competition level, and how much work you put in afterward. What we do promise: you'll understand exactly why pages rank or don't, how to diagnose issues yourself, and what actions actually move metrics. If you implement what we teach, your visibility improves — how much depends on execution consistency.
Who this makes sense for
Small business owners handling their own marketing, in-house marketing coordinators who need SEO skills, freelancers adding search services to their offerings, and agency staff who never got proper training. You should already have a website and some familiarity with basic web concepts — we're not teaching HTML, we're teaching how to make existing sites perform better in search.
See workshop structure