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In this list, you’ll discover our top 10 recommended courses covering modern marketing. Because of how quickly online marketing evolves, it’s difficult for authors to keep up in printed guides. That’s why we recommend these courses as the best source for advanced, tactical, practical information.
Many businesses share with us that they would like to market their business better online, but they’re not sure where to start. Each piece of information they find seems to lead to another piece and another. Even after reading dozens of articles, they’re still not sure where to begin, what to do, or how to do it.
Rather than create our own series of high-ticket courses, we’ve looked online to find you the best existing courses. Each course is:
- video based, so you can easily share with your team
- taught by a professional online marketer
- step-by-step, over-the-shoulder training
- taught using mainstream affordable platforms
- accompanied by free instructor support (for Udemy courses)
- backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee (for Udemy courses)
Best Online Course for Web Development
Squarespace Web Development Course
Course Name: “Squarespace Tutorial for Beginners (2020 Full Tutorial)”
Course Author: Santrel Media
Squarespace is a page builder that will help you build a simple yet effective website. In this tutorial, Santrel Media shows you how to build a Squarespace website step by step.
The main reason businesses choose Squarespace is to take advantage of the drag-and-drop page builder, which allows you to easily design webpages without worrying about formatting. In addition, Squarespace takes care of maintenance and security for you and provides blogging and SEO tools.
The downside to Squarespace is that you have limited design choices, and the functionality of your website will also be limited to the functionality built into Squarespace. If you need more flexibility, WordPress will be a better option for you.
Squarespace charges $12-40 per month, depending on whether you choose a personal or business plan and whether you pay annually or month-to-month.
WordPress Web Development Course
Course Name: “How To Make a WordPress Website – 2020”
Course Author: Tyler Moore
WordPress will give you more control and flexibility with your website compared to a page builder like Squarespace or Wix. You can install plugins to expand the functionality, and you can create the exact layouts you want for each type of device (desktop, table, or phone).
In his tutorial, Tyler Moore shows how to build a WordPress website using the popular webpage builder Elementor, the popular theme Astra, and the popular hosting platform Host Gator. All of them are intuitive and easy-to-use, and they lead the web development industry with best-in-class features and pricing. While you could try dozens of alternatives, you’ll likely be very happy with the tools Tyler recommends.
WordPress doesn’t charge any monthly fees. You will have to pay about $15/year for your own domain (“.com” address) and $10/month for your own hosting (storage service). You’ll likely also choose to pay $50 per year to upgrade to Elementor Pro.
For more information on choosing the right platform for you, check out this detailed comparison.
Best Online Course for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Course Name: “SEO Training: Get Free Traffic to Your Website With SEO”
Course Author: Daragh Walsh
At only 2.5 hours, this is the course that we would recommend to any business looking to quickly attain knowledge and skills needed to increase their exposure on the Internet.
Daragh Walsh is an SEO freelancer who’s worked with hundreds of businesses to optimize their websites. Daragh covers what SEO is, how it works, keyword research, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization. He also covers 8 techniques you can use to earn quality backlinks (links from other websites to your webpages) and teaches how local businesses can rank on Google without content marketing.
Daragh demonstrates how to use free tools like Keywords Everywhere, MozBar and the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin, so you won’t need to purchase any tools in order to efficiently design and implement an effective SEO strategy.
If you’d like to improve your business’s online marketing, SEO is a great long-term solution, and this course will thoroughly prepare you and your team to begin.
Daragh doesn’t cover one key aspect of SEO, which is how to set up Google My Business (GMB). Fortunately, there are a number of short free tutorials on YouTube. We recommend this tutorial by Ranking Academy.
Best Online Course for Email Marketing and Sales Funnels
Course Name: “Complete Email Marketing Strategy Made Easy with MailerLite”
Course Author: David Lee
David Lee is a copywriter, marketer, and course instructor. He says, “My passion is helping home business owners control their own sources of income, and grow their business by attracting their dream customers.”
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to do just that, since it allows you to build an audience, build relationships with them using a platform you control (email), and market your products and services to them directly.
The course covers how to:
- group your subscribers
- create effective campaigns
- embed pop-up forms
- customize landing pages for capturing leads
- pre-write and automate email sequences
David uses MailerLite, the most affordable email marketing tool. While costing a fraction of the price of competitors like MailChimp and ConvertKit, MailerLite offers advanced functionality for building landing pages, designing funnels, and managing subscribers. In fact, many longtime MailChimp users are switching over to MailChimp to take advantage of its great features and low monthly pricing.
Best Online Course for Blogging and Content Marketing
Course Name: “Digital Marketing Masterclass: Get Your First 1,000 Customers”
Course Author: Evan Kimbrell
Content marketing is content (written, audio, visual, or video) that entertains and informs your customers and future prospects.
It’s not necessary to master all kinds of content production, but you should find a couple types of content that your audience responds to and then focus on growing your audience and building relationships with them through that content.
This course breaks down the best strategies for each phase of your journey as you build your audience. It’s broken into sections on how to get your first 10, first 100, first 500, and first 1,00 followers.
Most of the course focuses on blogging. You’ll learn the skyscraper technique, how to write for different goals, how to promote your content, how to get guest post opportunities, and how to create a content calendar.
The course instructor, Evan Kimbrell, also covers how you can use video in your content strategy, and he takes you through his complete video production process.
Content marketing includes both production and distribution, so in addition to covering content creation, Evan covers the basics of social media, SEO, and advertising on Google and Facebook. Because of this, after completing this course, you’ll come away with an in-depth understanding of how to connect with your future customers online.
Course Name: “Social Media Marketing For Long-Term Success – 2020”
Course Author: Alex Genadinik
Alex Genadinik teaches practical information on how a professional marketer would approach marketing their business on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. You can easily apply the principles he teaches to other platforms like Instagram and Pinterest if you find a large percentage of your audience is more active on these platforms.
Alex teaches specific actionable advice, including how to:
- set up a Facebook business page
- write effective headlines
- find content to share
- structure posts
- mention people in posts
- increase engagement with images
- use ads to boost virality
Best Online Course for Video Production
Course Name: “Be A Video Production & Video Marketing Master!”
Course Author: Ryan Stone
Ryan Stone, the creative director of Lambda Films, teaches a 7 hour masterclass on how to make videos that will help you build an audience, communicate with them, and market your products.
He starts by introducing the video formats that businesses commonly use including promo videos, corporate videos, viral videos, demo videos, testimonials, event videos, educational videos, and vlog posts.
Next, he recommends video and production tools used to create professional videos. Finally, he shows you his processes for preproduction, production, postproduction, and promotion.
Ryan teaches the course using Premiere Pro editing software, an industry favorite. Premiere Pro requires a $20/month subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud. Depending on your business, you might choose to use an alternative video editing software that offers a lifetime license like Final Cut Pro, Avid, iMovie, Screenflow. Regardless of what editing software you choose, you can easily apply the editing principles Ryan teaches and make use of free YouTube tutorials to learn how to edit on other software packages.
Best Online Course for Google Ads
Course Name: “Ultimate Google Ads Training 2020: Profit with Pay Per Click”
Course Author: Isaac Rudansky
This extensive 25-hour course will prepare you to get your AdWords certification from Google and drive consistent traffic to your website.
The course covers how to:
- set up your AdWords Account
- structure ad groups
- write great copy
- research and organize keywords
- bid in AdWords auctions
- rewind campaigns
- remarket
- keep track of profits
The course is taught by Isaac Rudansky, the owner of AdVenture Media Group, which has managed over $50 million in AdWords campaigns for both boutique companies and publicly traded companies.
Isaac’s goal is to make AdWords “fun, simple, and easy” and his course is currently one of the highest-rated Udemy.
Best Online Course for Facebook Ads
Course Name: “The Complete Facebook Ads Course: Beginner to Advanced”
Course Author: Daragh Walsh
Running Facebook ads can be expensive and risky, but also potentially very profitable if you are marketing a high-value product or service.
Daragh Walsh divides his 6-hour course into three sections, one for beginners, another for intermediates, and another for advanced users.
In the beginner section of the course, Daragh walks through 7 key principles and shows you example of campaigns that he ran. Next, he’ll show you show to set up your advertising account, design ads, choose placements, set budgets, and view billing summaries.
In the intermediate section, Daragh explains how to install the Facebook Pixel, create custom audiences and lookalike audiences, and create new types of ads like Instagram ads, dyadic ads, collection ads, and canvas ads, and local awareness ads.
Finally, in the advanced section, Daragh shows how to split test ads, manage ads in bulk, and assign roles and permissions to your team.
Best Online Course for LinkedIn Lead Generation
Course Name: “LinkedIn Marketing, Lead Generation, and B2B Sales for LinkedIn”
Course Author: Patrick Dang
Patrick Dang sold to Fortune 500 companies while an account executive at Oracle and Lob in Silicon Valley.
Patrick has put together a straightforward 2.5-hour course that shows you how to generate business leads, build relationships, and close deals in a scalable way using LinkedIn.
Patrick’s course will show you how to:
- optimize your Linkedin profile
- find great prospects
- write messages that get responses
- turn connections into meetings
- talk to clients in person
- close deals
Best All-In-One Course for Online Marketing
Course Name: “The Complete Digital Marketing Course: 12 Courses in 1”
Course Author: Rob Percival and Daragh Walsh
Because online marketing is such an expansive topic, it’s guaranteed that some of our course recommendations will skip some topics that you should learn about.
With 24 hours of material, this course picks up those pieces and can help fill in your learning.
Highlights include:
- 1 hour on how to conduct market research to find hungry buyers
- 1 hour each on Instagram, Pinterest and Quora marketing
- 5 hours on how to create effective Facebook ads
- 2 hours on how to get the most out of Google Analytics
Additional topics that were already covered in our other recommended tutorials will be re-taught in this course, giving you a refresher and an extra perspective on topics like networking on LinkedIn and writing conversational copy that sells.
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Best Online Course for Social Media