INTERNET MARKETING CLINIC HOUSTON
Houston SEO Classes: The Internet Marketing Clinic
Live and virtual SEO and digital marketing classes for Houston business owners, taught by Beth Guide since 2003. Bring your website and your questions. Every class is new.
Galleria 713-703-3030 | Kingwood 281-852-8253
ABOUT THE CLINIC
What is the Internet Marketing Clinic?
The Internet Marketing Clinic is a running series of SEO classes for small business owners across Houston. Beth Guide and Vertical Web started it in 2003 as a night class through the SBDC, and it has grown into daytime, evening and virtual sessions hosted with partners across the region.
The format is what makes it different. Participants drive the class. Beth teaches the topic, then pulls up real websites from the room and works through them live: title tags, Google Business Profile categories, page structure, what the top ranking competitor is doing that you are not. Because the topics follow the questions, we have never repeated a class in more than 20 years of teaching.
Beth’s view, and the reason the clinic exists, is that small business owners should understand their own marketing well enough to judge anyone they hire, including us. A vendor who teaches the work cannot hide behind jargon. You can read more about her background on the about Beth Guide page.
WHERE WE TEACH
Where are SEO classes held in Houston?
Since March 2020 every class has also run on Zoom, which carried the clinic beyond Southeast Texas. You can attend in person or online, and HCC students can register through the HCC Internet Marketing Clinic signup. Past sessions live in our on demand SEO classes library and on the Internet Marketing Clinic podcast.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
What do you learn in a Houston SEO class?
Each month picks one topic and goes deep enough that you can act on it the same week. Recent clinics have covered Google Business Profile categories and the map pack, technical SEO with free crawl tools, writing content that AI engines will cite, Search Console and Google Analytics 4, WordPress setup and plugins, and social media for brand building.
Expect homework you can finish in an afternoon: rewrite a title tag so it says what you do and where, fix your primary business category, add an FAQ to a service page, or check which pages Google has actually indexed. Beth’s rule in class is that your title tag should say what you do and where, not just your company name, and most attendees leave having fixed theirs.
The classes suit owners, office managers and in-house marketers. No coding is required. If you bring a laptop and your website login, you can make changes while Beth walks the room or the Zoom chat.
CLASS SCHEDULE
Upcoming SEO and digital marketing classes
The next five sessions are listed below. Monthly schedules are also posted to the blog, for example the March 2026 class schedule.
THE CASE FOR VERTICAL WEB ON SEO TRAINING
Learn from the team that does the work
STAY IN THE LOOP
Join the mailing list for class reminders
Get the monthly calendar, class reminders and new podcast episodes by email.
LISTEN AND WATCH
Internet Marketing Clinic podcast and recordings
Every clinic is recorded. The podcast carries the audio, and the full sessions are on YouTube with chapters so you can jump to the part you need. Recent topics include website structure for AI search and using AI to write content without hurting your rankings.
If you would rather have the work done for you, the same team that teaches the clinic runs SEO services for Houston businesses, and we start every engagement with a free audit.
Houston's Internet Marketing Clinic has been a popular ongoing SEO and Digital Marketing Series since 2003. Created by seo expert Beth Guide, this podcast is designed to help business owners, learn the tips, tricks, techniques, and lingo of internet marketing. We cover different topics each week in how to help our listeners succeed in having a web site that works for their business, works for their customers but also works for Google so that it is highly ranked and visable. We also teach conversion and user related concepts that help our listens learn how to maximize the ROI. With over 600 attendees each month this podcast expands our clinic and makes it more available to our business owners so they can participate on their timeline.
FROM OUR BLOG
Latest class recaps and SEO articles
What Every Houston Business Owner Should Learn About SEO
Where Do Your Backups Live? A Houston Website Preparedness Check
Browse every post on the Vertical Web blog.
SEO training for owners and teams
SEO classes Houston business owners and their employees can use right away
Most SEO training is built for people who want a career in marketing. Our SEO classes in Houston are built for the business owner, the office manager and the employee who got handed the website because nobody else wanted it. You learn enough search engine optimization to make real changes and to judge the work of anyone you hire.
Each session is part lecture and part workshop. Beth explains the strategy, then shows it on a real site from the room. That might be a law firm, a healthcare practice, a contractor or a retail shop. Seeing SEO applied to a different industry is often what makes it click for your own.
Teams are welcome. Many companies send two or three people so the owner hears the big picture and the person who edits the website hears the details. If your team wants training on your own site, ask us about a private session when you schedule a consultation.
Learning SEO yourself
Can I learn SEO myself, and is SEO paid or free?
Yes, you can learn SEO yourself, and many of the owners in our classes do most of their own work. The basics are not secret: a clear title tag, one H1, content that answers what customers search, a complete Google Business Profile and a fast website. Our small business guide to getting started in SEO is a good first read.
SEO itself is free in the sense that you do not pay Google for organic rankings or map pack visibility. That is the difference from PPC, where you pay for every click. What SEO costs is time. Writing content, fixing technical problems and earning reviews and links all take hours, and that is where owners decide whether to do it, train an employee or hire help.
You do not need a degree to be good at SEO. What you need is curiosity, the patience to read your own data in Search Console and Google Analytics, and the habit of checking what the top ranking competitor is doing. Our on demand SEO courses let you start at any time and replay the parts you need.
From the classroom to your results
Are you a digital agency? Yes, and the classes come from that work
Yes. Vertical Web is a digital marketing agency and SEO company, in business since 1998, with every service handled by our in-house team. The clinic is not a sales pitch for that work, but it is shaped by it. What we teach each month is what we are seeing on client sites that week.
That is why the information in our classes stays current. When Google changes how the map pack works, or AI engines start pulling answers from a new kind of page, it shows up in client data first and in class right after. You get the same SEO strategy we use for paying clients, explained so you can apply it to your own goal, whether that is more leads, more revenue or better visibility in a new area.
Some attendees take what they learn and run with it. Others decide they would rather hand the work off and focus on growth. Either way is fine with us. If you want a team to do it, our Houston SEO services and SEO pricing plans show exactly what we do and what it costs.
QUESTIONS
SEO class questions
Many are. The Houston West Chamber of Commerce sessions have been open to members and non-members free of charge since 2012, and the HCC and SCORE classes are offered through their small business programs. Each listing on the calendar shows how to register.
Yes. Since March 2020 every clinic has been offered on Zoom, and you can choose to attend in person or online. Each class is also recorded and posted to our YouTube channel and podcast so you can watch on demand.
Beth Guide, principal of Vertical Web. She has taught SEO since 2003 and teaches digital marketing for the SBA, the University of Houston SBDC, Lone Star College and HCC, and she appears as a technology expert on Fox 26.
No. The clinic is built for business owners, not programmers. Beth shows the screens, explains the reason behind each step and takes questions about your own website during class.
Topics change every month and follow what is happening in search: Google Business Profile and the map pack, technical SEO, content writing, AI search, social media, Search Console and Analytics, WordPress and email marketing. We have never taught the same class twice.
Join the mailing list on this page for the calendar, class reminders and new podcast episodes, or check the class schedule section below for the next five sessions.
SEO is the work of making your website and Google Business Profile easier for search engines and AI engines to understand and trust, so they show your business when people search for what you sell. It covers content, technical setup, local listings, reviews and links.
Yes. The fundamentals can be learned by any business owner, and our classes are designed for people with no technical background. Many attendees handle their own SEO and call us only for the harder technical work.
Organic rankings are free in that you do not pay Google per click. The cost is the time to do the work well, or the fee for an agency or employee to do it for you.
The Internet Marketing Clinic is a group class, and teams are welcome to attend together. Private training on your own website can be arranged through a consultation.
Want help applying what you learned?
Request a free website audit and we will show you which changes from class matter most for your site.
Galleria 713-703-3030 | Kingwood 281-852-8253 | info@verticalweb.com