15 Certifications For Content Marketers
- Growth & Learning
Mainstream Contributor- 0
- 19 minutes read
Learning new skills is vital to keep yourself up-to-date with the quickly transforming trends in today’s digital marketing world. Content marketing courses and certifications help keep marketers aligned with current trends and even come up with new changes to the age-old strategies.
To become a successful candidate for your next marketing job, these certifications help keep you on top of the list when potential clients and businesses search for your profile. These certifications also pave the way for you to be updated to the ever-changing dynamics of the marketing world. To make sure you don’t fall behind on your knowledge, we’ve compiled a list of 15 of the best certifications for content marketers
Free Courses:
The following list comprises all the free courses that are available if you want to gain content marketing certifications. They’re more suitable for freelancers and beginner level marketing professionals who need to gain knowledge on the digital marketing platform without having to pay a fee. Being free does not mean they are a waste of time, rather they are all essential to educate you and to make your profile authentic, without you having to go out of your way and pay to gain the respective certification.
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1. Google AdWords Certification
Google AdWords is an effective tool for digital marketers looking to expand their ROI. The AdWords Certificate is a course designed to give people thorough know-how of how Google AdWords works. To become certified, you need to pass two AdWords tests including the AdWords fundamental exam and any one of either Search Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Shopping Advertising, Display Advertising, or Video Advertising.
Google recommends you have a knowledge of how the tool works before attempting the course but it’s not mandatory. You can learn the course material and attempt the exam. If you fail, you can attempt it again after 7 days. The certification is free of cost and remains valid for one year after you receive it.
2. Google Analytics Certification
Google Analytics is an important tool for content marketers to measure the growth of their content traffic. It is easy for beginners and powerful for advanced users. Google Analytics has become essential for content marketers to use as part of their toolkit. But it’s not easy becoming an expert given the comprehensiveness of the tool.
The certification is free of cost and can prove to help give you the knowledge of accessing the tool for your content marketing assignments and to also help others in using it. To become certified, you need to take an analytics exam. Google suggests having hands-on experience of the tool before attempting the exam but reviewing the study material can get the job done for you. If you fail it once, you can attempt it again after seven days.
3. HubSpot Content Marketing Certification
Content is the center of all your marketing strategies in today’s digital world. Hence, a HubSpot Content Marketing Certificate will prove to be essential for you and your business to succeed.
All content marketers should possess writing and communication skills to build repeatable processes to execute on their marketing strategies and HubSpot provides a free 3 and a half hour course to make you knowledgeable on the basics. The course includes different content marketing aspects: storytelling content creation framework, content repurposing, content ideation, content promotion, and analysis.
4. Hubspot: Inbound Marketing Certification
Another certification that will be useful to you is this certification from HubSpot that will help you better understand the best inbound marketing tactics. The course is beneficial to content marketers as it discusses the practices of inbound marketing such as how to attract potential leads, gain customers, and delight them into becoming promoters of your content. This course contains 11 classes that teach you how to run successful inbound businesses
5. YouTube Certification
Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world with an average of 3 billion searches per month. As video becomes a much-preferred means to view content, content marketers need to have a well-defined strategy for making videos.
A YouTube certification will teach you the basics of how to create, grow, optimize, and monetize a YouTube channel. The certification is valid for at least 18 months from the time you pass it. YouTube also has company certifications to make your company recognized as YouTube certified. For this, you’ll need 75% of YouTube focused employees (i.e. those who have to manage YouTube channels as part of their job descriptions) to be certified on any one of the four YouTube certifications mentioned above.
6. SEMrush: Content Marketing Toolkit Course
Content marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand. And this course teaches you exactly how you can use content marketing to boost your SEO. The course teaches content analysis and optimization, content research and ideation, content distribution, content performance, and management.
After taking this course you will learn how to perform content audits, find new ideas through keyword searches, monitor the performance of your content, and create a content marketing calendar.
Paid Courses:
The difference between the free courses and the ones mentioned in this list isn’t just money, but the amount of knowledge being imparted as a result. These courses are much suited to experienced marketing professionals and high-level brands and companies that need to maximize on their content marketing strategies and skills to establish an authority in this field.
1. LinkedIn Learning: Social Media Content Marketing
A course that explores how you can come up with different types of content and how you can determine the value of each content you generate. 4 key ways to distribute content are discussed in detail, while also mentioning the ways for you to analyse your results. Tips for improving your social media marketing content are also shared as part of the course.
2. Coursera: The Strategy of Content Marketing
One of the renowned websites on content marketing is copy blogger and this Coursera certification is a combined course from copyblogger and UC Davis University. It’s not for beginners rather those who know the basics of content marketing and want to add to their knowledge to make better strategies.
The course is long, approx. 17 hours. And it includes the following topics: the content marketing ecosystem, managing your content, mapping the journey of crafting a content marketing strategy, the strategic context, strategic types of content.
3. Skillshare: Copywriting for Beginners
The course has a bigger title i.e. Copywriting for Beginners: How to write web copies without making them sound cheesy?
The course author is a veteran in the industry whose main focus is to teach you to write copies that grab people’s attention. The course is short with a duration of only one hour and covers topics like how to write headlines, turn boring features into irresistible benefits, ways to overcome writer’s block, etc.
4. LinkedIn Learning: Becoming a Content Strategist
While this course covers some of the same modules as the one mentioned above “Becoming a Content Marketer”, it takes you on a higher level of marketing. It contains 13 courses to help explore the composite aspects of content marketing.
It covers the basics of social media, business storytelling, SEO, online marketing, and Google Analytics. The course also takes into focus the responsibilities of a content strategist to mind and emphasizes on how to develop an editorial calendar and draft content guidelines from the UX perspective for the organization’s digital properties.
5. Skillshare: Content Marketing – Blogging for Growth
This is a 90-minute course that gives you a concise overview of the blogging process; it can be your perfect refresher on blogging if you think you need one.
The course begins by giving 3 different styles and tips for brainstorming blogging content. The author also provides insights on how to outline your blog posts, add key information, and write great headlines that outperform your competition. You’ll also learn five tips to succeed in your blogging efforts.
6. Facebook Blueprint Certification
Facebook advertising is an effective way to reach your target audience and make your business get recognized by more people. The Blueprint Certification will not only make you stand out in the field of digital marketing it will also give you an advanced level proficiency when it comes to using the platform’s products and services.
When you get the Facebook Blueprint Certified badge, you will have unspoken proof of your advanced-level competency in the digital world. The badge serves as a signal for companies to know that you can improve their leads with your knowledge and skills. The fee for the course depends from country to country, and you will know yours at check-out.
7. LinkedIn Learning: Online Video Content Strategy
While brands are prioritizing video content, getting it done daily is still a huge challenge. In this course, you will learn how to maximize your video content strategy. The course teaches the technical aspects of video content creation such as the video creation process, pre-production, recording equipment, video editing, etc. and also explains the difference between live and recorded videos, and social network and content platforms.
You won’t only learn how to optimize your videos for SEO and social media, but also on how to attract an audience from scratch.
8. LinkedIn Learning: Producing Podcasts
Similar to the video content certification, this course from LinkedIn teaches the podcast planning process like ideating shows, creating SEO friendly titles, and choosing a content format, etc.
The course will teach you how to record, mix, and master podcast episodes, and the tools and applications you need to use. It will also guide you to pick podcast hosting services, directories, RSS Feeds, and measure results.
9. Coursera: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialization
SEO is an essential aspect of content marketing that requires mandatory attention due to the consistent changes in search engine algorithms. This specialization consists of 5 different courses to teach how to increase SEO ranking.
The first 2 courses cover basics about SEO, the third and fourth dig into keyword search tactics, optimizing content for local searches, and how to use content, influence, and social media marketing to reinforce SEO activities and boost the website’s authenticity. The fifth course helps you practically apply the SEO tactics you learned, from picking a website to determining its optimizing opportunities, and developing an SEO solution for it.
Content marketing is a vital process for every digital marketing step taken to ensure brand success. The influence of every SEO tactic, social media post, copies, ads, and emails are all determined by content marketing.
The stronger your content, the more leads it will generate for your business, and the more credibility and success you will get as a result. Content marketing is what helps you decide the needs of your brand as well as your audience, and lead you to a path where you get to maximize on meeting both those needs.
The more you learn about content marketing, the better you will recognize how to initiate a response from your audience and make your brand travel forward. And the best way to learn about optimizing your content is by investing your time (and maybe money) at acquiring the courses you think would be best for you and your company.
