Top Free Digital Marketing Courses Online for Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, Covid 19 has put all our plans and projections for a toss. Many businesses have to pivot and adopt. With many businesses becoming digital first, this is also a great time to start learning digital marketing.

Digital media marketing does encompasses all that falls under the umbrella of the digital world. This includes the ads you see and hear, the content you consume, and the platforms that serve as a medium for all these elements. There is a lot at play behind the scenes of this everyday interaction, from digital marketing solutions like campaigns and metrics to targeting, creation, and constant optimization. India has close to 55 crore internet users and currently stands second in the number of Internet users in the world, and it is estimated that by 2023 this number will reach 66 crore active users. These numbers should tell you the importance of online marketing and the potential of leveraging digital to market your business effectively and efficiently.

Any business that is in their nascent stage, or is yet to gain recognition in the market, must think about placing their product or services wisely and for that, they need to leverage digital marketing as a part of their marketing strategy. They need to make their audience aware of what is available and why their business offering - be it a product, service, or app - is useful for them.  Gone are the days for traditional marketing, when you want to scale up your business quickly. The importance of digital marketing in today’s scenario, when your Internet consumers are more than ~ 54%, is more than ever. Which is why it is ideal that you restructure your marketing budget and shift your mind to digital marketing. 

There’s a large number of ways for you to learn digital marketing online, which can be a little confusing, especially if you’re new to the terminology, or if your business is in the early stages of growth. Which is why it can be helpful to understand the types of digital marketing courses that are out there - this will help you understand what’s out there for you, and what it has to offer. 

This can be best understood by exploring the course components most digital marketing experts and schools of digital marketing offer, which cover the basic digital marketing solutions that brands focus on. Based on this, the types of marketing courses include: 

• Social Media Marketing 
• Google Ads
• Search Engine Marketing & Optimization
• Content Marketing
• Creative and design
• Web development 

Each of these components is unique from one another, yet, each of them also works to support every other component. Social media marketing would be nothing without creating content and creatives, nor would it be as effective without ads and campaigns. Similarly, a website can have the perfect UX and UI, with flawless pieces of content - but to have Google recognize its value, you need to work at the search engine optimization to have it rank.

The next few chapters will cover these types of digital marketing courses in more depth, exploring the importance and role of each one.  There are also many free digital marketing webinars by companies like DigiGrad too.

Marketing courses by Google and Facebook

Google and Facebook are notable giants in the digital arena, with Google commanding the ranking and authority of your page, and Facebook owning a good handful of the social media channels your audiences are all on. 

With this being a known fact, it only makes sense that you can learn digital marketing with Google and Facebook, with a special focus on digital marketing basics that walk you through their tools and products.

Illuminate and enlighten your mind with the list below for the top free digital marketing courses in India.

GOOGLE

Any list of free marketing courses is incomplete without Google. The search engine is the largest in the world, helping brands increase their discoverability and exposure to relevant audiences. The Google fundamentals of digital marketing cover their tools and services that any seasoned marketer should be well-versed with. 

Google Ads

All in One Google Ads Course (Search, Display, Video, Shopping)

Grow your skills using Google Ads to advertise your business online, and get Google Ads Certified. Google Ads benefit a brand in many ways. It allows you to target relevant audiences to reach goals, use keywords for better reach, measure performance for insights and optimization, and more. Moreover, this can all be done across different platforms and you only have to pay for results.

The learnings from this online marketing class will help you optimize your campaigns and yield better performing campaigns.

Google Analytics

Grow your business through intelligent data collection and analysis by Google's measurement tools by Analytics Academy. This digital marketing workshop has Google Analytics for beginners, advanced, power users, and Google Analytics 360. You will also be introduced to the Data Studio and Google tag manager fundamentals.

Google Marketing Platform

DV360, Search Ads  360, Campaign Manager, Creatives, Google Web Designer

This course will help you achieve your marketing objectives and get certified in Google Marketing Platforms.

FACEBOOK

Facebook changed the digital landscape with its arrival, revolutionizing how we analyse metrics and data to target audiences. Being the biggest social media network in the world, Facebook climbed to the top of the digital landscape by becoming the one-stop-shop for the availability of data users provided voluntarily. 

With so many different tools, from groups and pages to events and Facebook Marketplace, the social media platform is also a great space for all kinds of businesses. For example, Facebook marketing for small businesses is a popular way to grow an up and coming brand. Here’s a look at some of the free Facebook digital marketing courses you can avail online.

Facebook Blueprint -

To cover digital marketing basics on Facebook and Instagram, the Blueprint platform offers a variety of Facebook digital marketing courses that can help you become thorough with their resources and provide certifications as well. This can add value to both your career and brand, as well as boost knowledge of these tools. 

• Digital Marketing Associate - This will test how much you know and understand the value of the social media giant. It will also test you on the fundamentals of advertising and building a strong presence online on platforms
• Planning - This will assess how much you know about applying insights to planning a campaign, including how you recommend different types of media. The test will also check how well you are able to monitor the performance of a campaign and how well you understand different business goals
• Buying - This test will help you determine your knowledge of campaign planning, setup, optimization and measurement.

SEO marketing courses

Search Engine Optimization is integral to your brand’s success because utilizing this component is what helps your brand rank on Google’s first page. Users trust these search results, which means your rankings will either command authority or will be dismissed for another brand to take your place.

What search engine optimization marketing does is use a combination of factors to increase your brand’s visibility above your competitor’s, as well as help Google analyse the quality of your webpage. These factors include keyword usage and density, user intent, site speed, content, and links, among many others. Of course, keywords are likely the most important factor since this research will tell you exactly what your customers are searching for, enabling you to add the same to your site to help you appear for those same keywords. 

SEO marketing courses can teach you and cover a wide base of knowledge, beyond just the scope of keyword research and tools. An online SEO certification will also inform you of what comes after SEO has been implemented - from tracking results, to further optimizing campaigns again and again to further the success of your goals. Here’s a look at some of the best SEO marketing courses online.

SEO by SEMrush

Overview Course

In this SEO marketing course, you’ll learn how to run and track campaigns, with designated lessons on each type of tool to help you understand the fundamentals.

SEO Fundamentals Course with Greg Gifford

Learn the basics of SEO in depth which offers an online SEO certification as well. With this SEO marketing course, you’ll be able to develop a much stronger foundation to get you started on all the learning that’s to come.

Competitive Analysis and Keyword Research 

With the help of SEMrush tools, you will be able to learn how you can carry out competitive analysis and perform keyword research, which are crucial steps in your SEO. Once you complete the course, you will be able to take and pass the test and move forward by continuing to study SEMrush SEO toolkit.

SEO Toolkit Course

This course will help you perform competitive research and to find the gaps in your competitors’ strategies. You will be able to use this knowledge to create a better campaign and outperform your competition.

Advertising Toolkit Course

The advertising toolkit is your one-stop-shop for planning a Google Ads campaign. Here you can access all of the tools that are going to benefit you while you set up and run your advertising campaigns.

Learn all there is to know about PPC advertising toolkit.

Content marketing courses

The content you put out for your audiences is what will build engagement, trust, and connections, making it an important part of your digital marketing strategy. Moreover, content is what will educate your audiences on your products and services.

It’s important to understand the relationship between content and other key elements of digital media marketing. For example, strategic content marketing should ideally also help drive search engine optimization for your brand. Without content, SEO would not work the same. Similarly, your social media strategy should leverage existing content to raise and promote it for increased traffic, leads, and eventually conversions. 

A good content marketing course will help you cover the bases on creating strong pieces of content to achieve the same. Content strategy courses will also help you understand the different types of content there are, from blogs and webpages to emails and social media posts. Here is a list of some of the best free content marketing courses available online:

Hubspot Content Marketing

This content marketing certification will help you create effective content, repurpose content that not only your audience will love but it will help the search engines rank your content higher. You will become a stronger learner and a strategic content marketer.

SkillShare - Humor and Creative Writing

From this course, you'll learn how humour can function in different kinds of texts, including short stories, novels, personal essays, and the pieces found on sites like McSweeney’s and The Onion. If you are a fresher in this field you can definitely learn a lot.

SkillShare - Write, Film & Make Content People Share

This course will help you learn how to create hit online content that people read, watch, follow and share! It will help you build the frameworks, process advice, examples, and tips, including balancing originality and relatability in your work, developing your Internet voice, writing "lists" that reach the right audience for you, tweeting better tweets, creating successful videos, prompts for getting to your best ideas, secrets to writing effective headlines and much more!

Udemy - Creative Writing

This course will help you continue the stories from the example beginnings and make your writing stronger from the tips that will be shared in the lessons.

Film Companion - Learn Filmmaking from home during CoronaVirus

This course will teach you different filmmaking techniques so that when you eventually step out, after this pandemic is over, you are armed with more skills than before. In this curated list, there are some of the videos that will help you acquire filmmaking tips to navigate successfully on a film set. 

Creative and design marketing courses

Your creativity and design go hand in hand. The more creative you are with your content, the more your content will flourish. Design also allows you to provide visual components to your audiences, which can breathe new life into your website, blogs, social media, and so much more. In fact, brands that use design perform 211% better than those who don’t, which shows the significant impact design has for a company. 

Because of this, brands now understand the role design has in a marketing strategy, which has led to a rise in online design courses because of the new demand for this skill. Suffice to say, if you have bad design and good content, it may not amount to much, but if your design is equivalent to your content, it will be strong, powerful and shareworthy.

Find below a few free online graphic design courses that will push your creative limits and teach you all there is to know.

Canva - Graphic Design Basics

This online design course will help you create beautiful designs or creatives that you didn’t think you could make. It will help you understand what file formats you can download your design as and what you should be choosing, with a clearer understanding of JPEGs, PNGs and PDFs. Most importantly, this online design course will fast-track your ability to create amazing designs on your own.

Youtube - Photoshop Illustration

Learn graphic design online with this course which will help you create a digital character from a scratch, from the sketch process to the full digitally painted character. The tools used here are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Coursera - Fundamentals of Graphic Design

This free online graphic design course will teach you how to explore and examine visual representation through a range of techniques, helping you interpret the basic principles of working with different elements. This digital marketing and graphic design course will expose you to typography, principles of composition, and visual contrast.

There are a few videos on tips and tricks with the help of which you can design your website - this video will show the importance of web design which carries your brand story and tells why design insights are important for developing a terrific website.

Social media marketing

No one can deny the massive impact a brand’s social media platform can have on its digital marketing strategy. These platforms enable growth in many ways, particularly because it helps you reach a targeted audience that is relevant to your brand. 

Social media also allows you to leverage content in many different ways to reach different audiences with the same message. What you put up on an Instagram page will vary greatly from what goes up on LinkedIn - but that doesn’t mean the content has to necessarily be different. This can increase traffic to your site, driving leads and conversions.

Understanding how to use social media to create brand awareness, user engagement, and captivate new audiences can drive a strong and loyal audience base for your company. With so many new platforms on the rise and the large success of existing platforms, there has been a rise in the number of social media marketing training courses online. Marketers want to understand Facebook and Instagram marketing better to leverage the many tools these popular sites have to offer.

Here is a short list of the best social media marketing courses online.

Social Media Marketing Course

The skills and knowledge that you will develop by studying this course by Shaw Academy will help you build Impactful and successful social media campaigns. This social media marketing training course will help you convert followers into returning customers.

A bonus - Learn how to leverage AR for brands for Facebook and Instagram marketing from this episode of Digital Bytes. 

How to Build a Paid Media Strategy

This social media marketing course by Hubspot will teach you how to maximize your ROI, how to effectively allocate budget on your campaigns and how to plan, buy, and optimize your paid media efforts.

Web development courses

The impact of a well-developed website is often underrated. Design and content work together here to create ease of navigation and usability. And its importance lies in its ability to communicate your brand’s image and product, as well as create opportunities for user engagement. 

Websites are also useful tools in understanding and driving metrics. The traffic a website delivers can help you understand where you need to improve and where you can re-optimize to achieve further growth. It is also where all your elements come together. Your website should have a blog, unique design elements and with a clean layout, and different pages that inform audiences of your brand and product. All of this can also push SEO to help your page rank higher and reach the right audiences. 

A web designing course online can help you understand the basics to get started with building your website optimally for your brand. Other website development courses may be more comprehensive, providing you with a deeper understanding of the tools you need to use to optimize your page for maximum reach and effectiveness. There are also several free web development courses that will teach you how to build your website for the mobile medium as well, which is actually an integral part of any marketing strategy. 

Take a quick look at this list of free website development courses you can take online to grow your skills.

Coursera - HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for Web Developers

This web designing course online will teach you the basic tools that every web page coder needs to know.

LinkedIn Learning - Web Development

With the help of LinkedIn learning courses for Web Development, you will be able to use varied and extensive frameworks to innovate websites and applications that are complete with a chalk-full of interactive features.

Now that you have a better grasp of the different online marketing courses available, you can pick and choose which one you want to make the most of to upskill and grow your career.