The way learning used to happen has revolutionized with the advent of free online courses. The Internet is cheaply available and mobile phones have reached every corner of the world.
In this age of the internet, digital marketing has evolved exceptionally. The demand for digital marketing professionals is increasing and there is a demand-supply gap.
A lot of people get attracted to “digital marketing” and have a desire to make a career in it. Many of them join some institute to pursue a digital marketing course and many ends up paying money to online course providers with a desire to learn.
But if one is really passionate about it, one can learn it for free.
This article will equip you with 10 free digital marketing courses that you can pursue online for free and move a step ahead in your digital marketing journey. There are hundreds of free digital marketing courses. But I am adding only those courses to the list which offers certification for free too.
The free digital marketing courses listed below are numbered for the purpose of counting & the numbers in front of the courses do not indicate rankings.
List of free digital marketing courses
#1. Fundamentals of Digital Marketing – Google Digital Garage
This is one of the most basic and essential course if you are beginning your digital marketing journey.
The course content is of high quality and amazing. As the course is offered by Google itself, you do not need to think twice before enrolling for this course.
The course is of 40 hours and is meant for Beginners. It is absolutely free and you also get a certificate on completing the course.
It is comprised of 26 modules.
The free digital marketing course begins by letting you know about how you can take a business online. It then covers various aspects of digital marketing like how you can make it easy for people to find a business on the internet, social media marketing, advertising, traffic and measuring the traffic, etc.
You can enroll for the free digital marketing course here –
learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/course/digital-marketing
#2. Inbound Marketing – HubSpot Academy
HubSpot is known for it’s wonderful marketing tools and preaching the inbound marketing methodology to the world.
HubSpot Academy has a lot of free resources which can help you learn digital marketing.
One of the free digital marketing courses offered by HubSpot Academy is Inbound Marketing.
This is one of my favorite courses. It is well-designed and even if you are new to digital marketing, you must not worry. The course helps you learn inbound marketing
The course is made up of 10 lessons, 34 videos and 9 quizzes. It takes around 4 hours to complete the entire course.
The course is comprised of lessons on Inbound Marketing Fundamentals, SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing and much more.
You get a certificate on clearing the course exam and also a beautiful badge by HubSpot Academy which you can showcase on your resume and social profiles.
The badge looks like this:
You can access the course on HubSpot Academy for free – http://hubs.to/NgpF7
(If you ever purchase from HubSpot, I might get a commission)
#3. Digital Skills: Digital Marketing (Accenture & Future Learn)
Not many of you might be knowing about Future Learn. Future Learn is an amazing online learning platform that hosts a lot of courses.
Digital Skills are a must in today’s world and in order to help you gain the right digital skills, Accenture has created a series of beautifully designed digital skills free courses on Future Learn.
One of the free digital marketing course is “Digital Skills: Digital Marketing”.
The course content is of around 4 hours. The course is divided into 2 parts – Week 1 and Week 2.
Week 1 introduces you to digital marketing, display and PPC advertising. Week 2 covers techniques like SEO, Email Marketing and how to integrate these techniques for your marketing campaigns.
The course is FREE and you also get a PDF Certificate on successful completion of the course.
If you are new to digital marketing or want to brush your digital marketing skills, I highly recommend this course for you.
You can access this free digital marketing course here –
futurelearn.com/courses/digital-skills-digital-marketing
#4. Google Analytics Academy Courses
Digital Marketing is incomplete without Digital Analytics. When talking about Analytics, how can we not talk about Google Analytics?
Google Analytics Academy has several free courses:
- Google Analytics for Beginners
- Advanced Google Analytics
- Google Analytics for Power Users
- Getting Started with Google Analytics 360
- Introduction to Data Studio
- Google Tag Manager Fundamentals
I recommend you to pursue at least Google Analytics for Beginners and Advanced Google Analytics initially.
After understanding about Google Analytics over here, you can go and take Google Analytics Certification Exam. It is free too.
Access to the free digital marketing courses on Google Analytics academy here –
analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/
#5. Twitter Flight School Courses
Twitter is a very important social media platform and is widely used across the world. Twitter Flight School is a platform by Twitter itself.
There are various courses about Twitter Advertising on this platform. If you are planning to master the social media platform twitter than take the courses.
As of now, you don’t get any certification on completing the courses but you earn badges on successfully completing the assessments. Badges can be displayed in your resume and added to your social media profiles too.
The various concepts covered are Advertising on Twitter, Introduction to Twitter Ads Manager, Managing Creatives, Finding your audience, setting up a campaign, Twitter Video Formats, etc.
Know more at Twitter Flight School –
twitterflightschool.com
#6. Email Marketing – HubSpot Academy
Email Marketing is not dead. It is still one of the most cost-effective marketing tool.
Learning email marketing can help you a lot in your digital marketing journey.
HubSpot Academy offers a free certification course on Email Marketing.
This is the 2nd course which I am recommending on HubSpot Academy. The quality of the content which they provide is amazing.
The course consists of 9 lessons, 27 videos, 9 quizzes and it takes around 3 hours 20 minutes to finish the course.
This free digital marketing course on Email Marketing helps you understand the basics of email marketing, content management strategy. how to send the right message to the right audience and much more.
Find the free course here –
http://hubs.to/NgpF9
(If you ever purchase from HubSpot, I might get a commission)
#7. Google’s Academy for Ads
Google’s Academy for Ads is now available under Google Skillshop. Google Ads is an important tool in the digital marketing space and learning it can be helpful for anyone who aspires to be a good digital marketer.
It offers various Google Ads Certifications like:
- Google Ads Display Certification
- Google Ads Search Certification
- Google Ads – Measurement Certification
- Google Ads Video Certification
- Shopping Ads Certification
I would recommend you to begin with Display and Search Certifications initially.
All the certifications are FREE.
Also, Google has designed the certifications in a manner that even beginners can understand the various concepts and learn smoothly.
Access the Academy for Ads Certifications here –
bit.ly/2X4cBaJ
#8. eMarketing Institute
eMarketing Institute is an online portal that hosts a lot of free digital marketing courses along with free certifications.
The institute was founded by Thomas Jaskov with a mission to give everyone the chance to learn and get certified.
A few of the various courses offered on this platform are:
- Online Marketing Certification Course
- SEO Certification Course
- Social Media Marketing Certification Course
- Blogging Certification Course
And the list goes on.
The website also has a lot of free ebooks too.
You can access to the free digital marketing certification courses on eMarketing Institute here –
emarketinginstitute.org
#9. Microsoft Advertising Certification
Not many of you might have used it, Bing is also a search engine (like Google). It is owned and operated Microsoft.
Most of the search engine marketers just focus on Google as it is used mostly by everyone. But, one cannot ignore the potential of Bing too. There are several people who use Bing too and learning about Bing Ads can make you different and a step ahead of the people who just know about Google Ads.
Imagine yourself in an interview where all the candidates have Google Ads skills, certifications and have experience in managing Google Ads. But you have an additional skill & certification – Bing Ads. This will definitely help you in the interview.
The certification is called Microsoft Advertising Certification (Bing Ads Certification). It is completely free.
You can download the Bing Ads Accreditation Study Guide and study from Bing Ads Training Course Page.
Once you have studied for the exam, you can take the certification exam here –
about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/training/get-certified
#10. Instagram For Business – Facebook Blueprint
Instagram is one of the most widely used social media platform and it’s use is much beyond connecting with friends, sharing memes or going live from a club.
Businesses are using this powerful social media platform to connect with people and engage with them by sharing powerful content relevant to their audience.
Not only businesses, even Individuals like comedians, consultants, coach, etc are using Instagram for Business.
Facebook Blueprint have designed a short and sweet course on “Instagram for Business”. The course is very simple and FREE. It will hardly take maximum 30 minutes to complete it.
You get a certificate when you complete the course.
Access the free digital marketing course on Instagram for Business here –
facebookblueprint.com/student/path/187016-instagram-for-business
Facebook Blueprint has several other free digital marketing courses too that can help you in learning more about Facebook and Instagram Advertising. Explore facebook.com/business/learn for more details.
Conclusion
These were few free digital marketing courses which I recommend. The list is just of 10 courses as of now. I think that it is good to start with any of these courses depending on your interest.
Do not rush to complete all 10 of them together. Identify what do you want to do in digital marketing. The field is vast and you need to become a T-shaped digital marketer. You cannot do and excel in all aspects of digital marketing easily.
So first, identify the career option which you would like to take in digital marketing.
I have written a blog that can help you in doing so – “10 Amazing Career Options In Digital Marketing“
Read it. It might help you.
Besides, you can always reach out to me on my social media or email or in the comments below if you have any further queries or need any assistance. Ready to help.
Also, feel free to let me know if you are aware of any other FREE useful digital marketing course (with FREE certification). I can expand this list by adding it here.
When you stop learning, you stop growing. So keep learning something new everyday and keep growing.
Thank you for reading!
(Do not hesitate in sharing this article with your friends, family and colleagues. It might help them)
Happy Learning!
wow… I’m so happy to read this. just a piece of awesomeness. Now I can upgrade from google’s free digital marketing course.