Both Semrush Academy and Ahrefs Academy are free in 2026 — which is exactly why so many UK marketers waste a weekend on the wrong one. They are training arms bolted onto two of the world’s best SEO platforms, and each quietly teaches you to think in the shape of its own tool. Semrush Academy is broad: SEO, PPC, content, competitive research, even social. Ahrefs Academy is narrow and deep: backlinks, keyword research, and the practical craft of ranking content. If you are also eyeing HubSpot Academy, Google’s free courses, or CXL’s paid mini-degrees, this guide shows where these two free options genuinely shine and where they quietly cap your ceiling.
The 2026 landscape: free training, paid tools
The first thing to understand is the business model, because it explains the curriculum. Neither academy is a charity — they are funnels. Semrush and Ahrefs give away excellent training because a marketer fluent in their tool is a marketer who renews a £100-plus monthly subscription. That is not a criticism; it means the teaching is genuinely high quality and genuinely practical, because the companies need you to succeed inside their software. But it also means each academy teaches the version of SEO that its tool is best at. Ahrefs is famous for the cleanest backlink index in the industry, so Ahrefs Academy leans hard into link strategy and content that earns links. Semrush is a Swiss-army platform, so its academy spreads across PPC, content marketing, and competitive analysis. Pick the academy whose worldview matches the work you actually need to do.
For UK marketers specifically, the distinction matters at hiring time. Agencies in London, Manchester, and Leeds tend to be tool-agnostic in job adverts but tool-specific in practice — a shop that runs on Ahrefs wants someone who already thinks in referring domains and content gaps, while a Semrush shop wants someone fluent in Position Tracking and the Keyword Magic Tool. Knowing both is a real advantage; pretending one certificate covers everything is how juniors get caught out in the first week.
| Factor | Semrush Academy | Ahrefs Academy |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of training | Free | Free |
| Underlying tool (2026) | ~£120/mo (Pro tier) | ~£108/mo (Lite tier) |
| Strongest coverage | PPC, content, competitive research | Backlinks, keyword research, content SEO |
| Certificates | Yes — multiple, shareable on LinkedIn | Course completion, lighter on formal certs |
| Teaching style | Structured courses + exams | Practical, video-led, opinionated |
| Best for | Generalist marketers, certificate hunters | SEO specialists, content/link builders |
Pick Ahrefs Academy if…
Your job is to make content rank and earn links, and you want the most practical free SEO education available. Ahrefs’ free “SEO Course for Beginners” and its blogging-for-business material are widely regarded as the best no-cost training in the field — not because they are long, but because they are ruthlessly practical and refreshingly honest about what does and does not work. If you are a content marketer, a founder doing your own SEO, or a junior who wants to genuinely understand keyword difficulty and backlinks rather than just pass a quiz, start here. The trade-off is breadth: Ahrefs will not teach you paid media or the wider marketing stack, and its formal certification is lighter than Semrush’s.
Pick Semrush Academy if…
You want range and a credential you can show. Semrush Academy spans SEO, PPC, content marketing, and competitive research, with structured courses, exams, and certificates that carry recognisable Semrush branding for your LinkedIn profile. For a generalist digital marketer, an agency account manager who needs to speak to clients across channels, or anyone whose role touches paid as well as organic, Semrush’s breadth is the bigger asset. The certificates are also a low-effort, free way to signal initiative to UK employers. The catch is depth: on pure link-building and content SEO craft, many practitioners still rate Ahrefs’ free material higher.
A useful tie-breaker is the tool you can actually get your hands on. If your current employer or client already pays for Semrush, the academy doubles as on-the-job training you can apply Monday morning, and the same logic holds for Ahrefs. Learning the tool you have access to compounds far faster than mastering one you can only watch in tutorial videos. If you have access to neither, both offer limited free tiers and trials — start with whichever academy’s worldview matches your role, complete the free course, then trial the matching tool on a real project before paying a penny.
Where Google and HubSpot fit in
Neither Semrush nor Ahrefs teaches you the strategy-and-reporting layer especially well, and that is where free courses from HubSpot Academy and Google quietly earn their place. HubSpot’s SEO certification is the recognised name UK hiring managers scan for, and it covers the topic-cluster and content-strategy thinking that tool academies skim. Google’s free material grounds you in Search Console and analytics — the free, neutral toolset every SEO uses regardless of whether they pay for Ahrefs or Semrush. Stacking one strategy-focused free certificate on top of a hands-on tool academy gives you a far more rounded junior profile than three certificates from the same vendor.
Most-recommended courses to build a real SEO skill set
🎓Search Engine Optimization SpecializationUC Davis · CourseraThe structured academic backbone — six courses covering on-page, off-page, and SEO strategy. Pair with a tool academy for theory plus practice.→ 🎓HubSpot SEO CertificationHubSpot AcademyFree, fast, and a recognised name on a UK CV. Best for the strategy-and-reporting side that tool academies skim over.→ 🎓Conversion Optimization Mini-DegreeCXL InstituteOnce you can drive traffic, CXL teaches you to convert it. The natural paid next step after free SEO training.→ 🎓Digital Marketing SpecializationUniversity of Illinois · CourseraZooms out to the full funnel — useful if SEO is one channel in a broader generalist role.→ 🎓Growth Marketing Mini-DegreeCXL InstituteFor marketers who want SEO to sit inside a wider growth system rather than as a standalone skill.→Real outcomes and the pitfalls to avoid
The biggest pitfall is certificate-collecting. A LinkedIn profile with eight free SEO badges and no demonstrable ranking results impresses no UK hiring manager — they will ask what you actually moved. Use these academies to build skill, then prove it: rank a real page, grow a real site’s organic traffic, and screenshot the graph. That evidence beats any certificate. The second pitfall is tool lock-in thinking: because each academy teaches its own software, juniors often believe SEO is their tool. It is not. Learn the concepts — search intent, crawlability, referring domains, content gaps — so you can switch between Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Search Console without flinching. The third is ignoring the paid frontier. Free academies get you to competent; CXL-style paid mini-degrees and real client work get you to senior. Map a path that starts free and invests where the return justifies it.
Done in the right order, you can go from zero to a credible junior SEO profile in a few focused months — for less than the cost of a couple of months of one tool subscription. The marketers who struggle are not the ones who picked the “wrong” academy; they are the ones who never moved from watching tutorials to shipping a real, measurable result. Treat the free training as the on-ramp, not the destination, and build something you can point a UK employer to.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Semrush Academy and Ahrefs Academy really free?
Yes — the training and certificates are free for both. What costs money is the underlying tool subscription (~£108–£120/month), which you only need once you move from learning to doing real work.
Which has the better free SEO course?
For pure practical SEO and link-building craft, most practitioners rate Ahrefs Academy higher. For breadth across SEO, PPC, and content with formal certificates, Semrush Academy wins.
Do these certificates actually help on a UK CV?
They signal initiative and baseline fluency, which helps for junior roles, but they are not decisive. Demonstrable ranking results matter far more to UK hiring managers than the badges themselves.
Should I learn both?
If you have the time, yes — both are free, and knowing both tools makes you more employable since agencies standardise on one or the other. Then pay for whichever tool your target employers use.
Is a paid course like CXL worth it after these?
Once you have driven real traffic, yes. CXL-style mini-degrees deepen conversion and growth skills that free tool academies barely touch, and they help you move from junior to senior.
Which tool should I actually pay for?
Ahrefs if your work is content and links; Semrush if you need PPC and competitive research alongside SEO. Check which one your target employers or clients already run before subscribing.