Free online marketing courses not to be missed

Interested in the world of online marketing but with nowhere to pick up the knowledge and experience you need? Or do you want to keep pace with the latest trends in the digital world and improve your professional confidence? We have put together tips on free and paid online marketing courses you can work on from the comfort of home — and they will improve your CV into the bargain.

Free online courses

The best-spent time is the time you give to yourself and your own development. And no, it need not be expensive at all. On the contrary, a great many online courses are entirely free! :) Besides knowledge and skills you also get a certificate that can help when looking for a new position. Let us look at them together.

Google Skillshop

Skillshop may also be familiar under its former name, Academy for Ads. Once registered you gain access to a library of free online courses designed by experts on Google services, and they keep being added as those services expand. You can take them at any time, since there is no time limit, and at the end of a course you receive a certificate. So Google Ads, Analytics, My Business and Ad Manager will no longer furrow your brow.

Completing the courses is also a condition of earning Google Partners agency status. That is why our PPC specialists at Invelity take these courses as a matter of course. If you are only starting out in PPC, this is one of those things you certainly cannot go wrong with.

About Google Skillshop

Number of lessons: at least 5 lessons, at least 30 minutes of video

Number of attempts: unlimited

Access to the course: once registered you have access to the library for good

Certificate validity: limited

Price: free courses

Learn2Code

What is Learn2Code's greatest advantage? It is in Slovak, and that is an enormous advantage for anyone not yet quite confident in their English. As the founders write of themselves, "the Learn2Code association arose in response to the limited opportunities for digital education in Slovakia and the need to fit teaching to individual needs."

There really is a varied range of digital education here — mobile apps, building websites, working with WordPress, PPC campaigns and graphics. Learn2Code is close to our hearts. Not only do we look after their campaigns, but our Libor has his own course here. If online marketing for e-shops interests you (Google Ads, price comparison sites, product search engines), do take a look. Every course is accredited, so on completing them you receive a certificate.

About the courses at Learn2Code

Number of lessons: at least 5 lessons, at least 30 minutes of video

Number of attempts: unlimited

Access to the course: once a subscription is bought and while it is valid you have access to every course

Certificate validity: unlimited

Price: from €0

Google Digital Garage

Digital Garage from Google is an excellent helper for getting a basic grounding in digital marketing. You will find advice on getting an online business going and, for instance, on improving your visibility on the web. The whole course is very clearly laid out and well explained. After a short video where you pick up new knowledge, a series of check questions and interactive quizzes awaits. On completing each lesson successfully you earn a badge. Digital Garage is a free course and on completing it successfully you receive an internationally accredited certificate.

About Google Digital Garage

Number of lessons: 23

Number of attempts: unlimited

Access to the course: any time

Certificate validity: unlimited

Price: free

HubSpot Academy

Splendid fact no. 1 is that every course on HubSpot is free. Splendid fact no. 2 is that here too you can earn a certificate. There are courses focused on content marketing, inbound marketing, sales and strategy. If English is no trouble for you, they deserve your attention. Before the test itself you go through several video lessons, and there is the option of downloading the presentation or a written transcript. You can even review the list of questions most likely to appear in the final test and use them to practise your newly acquired knowledge.

About the HubSpot courses

Number of lessons: from 1 lesson

Number of attempts: unlimited

Access to the course: any time

Certificate validity: 1–2 years

Price: free

Udemy.com

Udemy is known to many thanks to its wide scope. A heap of different courses can be found here, in every language (mostly English, though) and at various levels. A complete beginner or a student can take a course here, and so can somebody in a senior position. The quality of the courses is high, which matches some of the prices, climbing into the thousands of euros. Most courses, though, are very affordable, or even free.

A large advantage is that with every course you can review the ratings of people who took it — how many stars they gave it and their comments. On Udemy you can download videos, PDFs, presentations, zip files and audio files. You can talk to the instructors through discussion forums.

About the video courses on Udemy

Number of lessons: at least 5 lessons, at least 30 minutes of video

Number of attempts: unlimited

Access to the course: once bought you have access to the course for good

Certificate validity: unlimited

Price: from €0

Facebook Blueprint

Thanks to more than 90 free courses you will learn to build and report on ads better and to look after Facebook and Instagram pages better too. They are easy to grasp yet go into depth, so they suit beginners and more seasoned professionals wanting to brush up their knowledge alike. All you need to take them is an active Facebook profile. These courses are free of charge.

Courses that carry a certificate end with a test. Certification has 3 levels: the Core Competencies Exam, the Buying Professional Exam and the Planning Professional Exam. These exams are paid, and to earn the badge you have to pass at least two of the three. To pass you need at least 70%.

About Facebook Blueprint certification

Number of lessons: 3 certification levels

Number of attempts: the exam is proctored in the PVproctor application

Certificate validity: 1 year

Price: the courses themselves are free, certification from USD 99

Ahrefs Academy

Many SEO specialists have taken to the popular Ahrefs tool. Besides its use in optimising websites for search engines, monitoring the competition and checking backlinks, Ahrefs also offers several courses within Ahrefs Academy. If you work with Ahrefs you can use a series of tutorial videos on SEO basics, blogging and the basics of working with Ahrefs. You will not walk away with a certificate at the end, but valuable knowledge and experience await, straight from the makers of one of the most popular SEO tools.

About the Ahrefs Academy courses

Number of courses: 3

Course length: from 2 to 5 hours

Access to the course: after signing into an Ahrefs account

Price: free

Copyblogger

And now something for copywriters and content marketers. The free Copyblogger course walks you through the world of content marketing in a 20-part email series. The regular newsletters focus on 4 important pillars of online marketing: relationships with your audience, copywriting, content marketing and the quality of your offer. You will learn how and why it matters to build and maintain solid relationships with your audience, how to build a good content marketing strategy, and effective copywriting and email marketing techniques.

Copyblogger also offers a certified content marketing course, which suits above all those for whom the world of online marketing is no longer entirely new. The course is not open all year round, though, so we recommend joining the waiting list. That way you get the most current information about the course and the next start date.

LinkedIn

If you want to grow in the world of LinkedIn, these courses should certainly not pass you by. Besides professionally focused lessons there are interest-based and personal development courses of various lengths that you will put to use in online marketing too. Each course holds several shorter video lessons and there really is something for everyone: you can choose from subjects such as online marketing, professional development, finance and accounting, programming languages, web design, UX (user experience) and a great many others.

The splendid news is that you can try the courses free of charge for the first month. After that a monthly or annual subscription is required, which includes worthwhile exercises and quizzes for testing what you have learned. At the end of each course you receive a certificate you can add to your LinkedIn profile.

About the courses on LinkedIn

Number of courses: over 16,700

Access to the course: 30 days free, then on a monthly or annual subscription

Certificate validity: unlimited

Price: free, later from USD 19.99 a month

Alison

You will gain a comprehensive overview of the world of eBusiness through Alison's course. It walks you through every important aspect of electronic business — from building an online marketing strategy, through optimising a site for search engines and building advertising that catches attention, to working with tools such as Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Google AdSense and Google Webmaster. You will also learn various techniques for tracking and measuring your site's success.

You can take this course entirely free of charge. There is only one catch — if you want to finish the course with official certification, you will have to pay extra for the diploma at the end. Official certification is not compulsory, though. If you decide to take the course without the diploma, you receive a free statement of completion once you pass all three tests.

About Alison's Diploma in E-Business certification

Number of lessons: 15 modules, 6–10 hours

Marking: at least 80% is needed in each of the three tests

Price: free; if you want the diploma, from €65

Paid online courses

If you fancy investing some savings as well as your time in your own knowledge, with these courses it is certainly worth it.

Vita.sk

VITA Academy offers a wide range of paid certified courses. There are 202 online courses on offer in total, through which you can learn to code, work with spreadsheets, do marketing on Google and social media, or master some graphics programs. You can earn either a certificate of completion or, on passing a test, a qualification accredited by the Ministry of Education, and there is the option of buying an international certification exam which, once passed, is rewarded with an internationally valid certificate.

About the VITA Academy courses

Number of lessons: from 1 lesson

Number of attempts: unlimited

Access to the course: any time

Certificate validity: 1–2 years

Price: an annual subscription to every course currently costs €299

Digitálna univerzita

If you want to become an expert in digital marketing, studying at Digitálna univerzita is certainly worth it. It is an innovative project focused on educating students, business owners and professional marketers across various areas of digital marketing. You will gain a broad overview of the latest trends in online marketing and can choose from 9 different specialisations, among them courses on SEO, building websites and e-shops, PPC campaigns, graphic design and content marketing. You can attend Digitálna univerzita in person or online.

The programme holds a great many full-day lectures and video manuals led by seasoned experts and owners of digital agencies. You will try the theory you learn on a real project. After completing the project successfully under a mentor and passing the final test you receive a certificate that will open the door to the digital world.

About studying at Digitálna univerzita

Number of lessons: up to 110 hours of teaching

Length of study: six months

Price: €690

Moz Academy

Moz is a familiar brand to SEO specialists. What you may not have known is that within Moz Academy Moz also offers a series of courses, two of which are certified. Through them you can become a certified SEO specialist or an expert in technical SEO. Besides the certified courses, Moz Academy also offers courses on link building, local SEO and keyword research. Taking them does not end in certification, but you will walk away with a great deal of knowledge and new experience.

About the Moz Academy courses

Number of lessons: the certified courses have 5 and 6 lessons

Course length: from 40 minutes to 6 hours

Price: from USD 49, certification from USD 295

Mergado

If you are no longer a complete newcomer to the digital world, you have probably heard of the product feed management tool Mergado. What you may not have known is that Mergado also runs a series of expert training sessions, for marketing professionals and complete beginners alike. You can choose, for instance, a course on the basics of the Heureka and Zboží.cz comparison sites, or one of the workshops where you will learn to work with Mergado effectively and find out how to raise your sales through various ad systems.

There are many other online marketing courses we could have filled this list with, but we picked the most interesting ones. If you have taken an interesting course, do share it with us and we will extend the article.