Online Marketing Courses to Boost Your Business

When you’re doing business online there are essential skills you need to start and build your online presence so it’s thriving and profitable.

Just like any business, online or offline, you need to figure out the right products and services to sell to your target market. But to do that, and make a great living as an online entrepreneur, you need the right marketing strategy and tactics.

If you’re new to business or don’t know much about reaching customers on the Internet, it will help to go through a few online marketing courses that can give you the skills you need to take your approach to the next level.

Some of the skills you'll need to develop include:

• Search engine optimization, which allows you to drive free traffic to your website by placing getting high rankings (first few pages) in the search engines; particularly Google.
• Social media marketing. Everybody is interacting on social networks like Facebook and Twitter these days—and prospects and customers are looking for businesses (like yours) they resonate with on these networks too.
• Pay per click advertising. When you do a Google search there is a list of paid ads that appear directly underneath the search box, above the “organic” results you get with quality SEO. Those paid spots are PPC ads created by marketers. You can run ads here as well.
• Video marketing which has become super important as more and more Internet users consume an ever-increasing amount of online video. Marketing videos can be an essential part of any online business’s marketing efforts.

Luckily, there are plenty of low-cost and even free online marketing courses offered online by reputable organizations to give you a leg up.

Google Digital Workshop

The Google Digital Workshop is an online marketing course offers a comprehensive program with sections covering digital marketing, email marketing, building a web presence, search engine marketing, search advertising, social media, mobile marketing, and more. It’s oriented to the beginner, and it’s completely free. And you can even become certified if you're goal is to do marketing for others.

PPC University

This free online marketing course is offered by WordStream, a PPC-focused marketing company. It’s no surprise that they focus on PPC and digital marketing skills. That’s a benefit to you as PPC is such an integral part of any online marketing strategy for an online business. You’ll learn how to generate leads, test ads, optimize landing pages, optimize conversion rates, and more.

Inbound Digital Marketing Course

With this online marketing course from HubSpot Academy (offered at Udemy), you’ll get 38 sessions on digital marketing—all completely free. Topics covered include nurturing leads, blogging, SEO, and more. When you go through the program you can even take an exam and get an official certification.

Facebook Blueprint Certification

Facebook can be a great low-cost and effective way to get your marketing messages in front of your prospects and customers. They’re following brands and companies they like—and people are very receptive to advertising on Facebook. After all, there are more than two billion users around the world. The Facebook Blueprint Certification online marketing course helps you learn how to plan and optimize campaigns on Facebook, as well as Instagram and other related apps and services.

Social Media Quickstarter Digital Marketing Course

In this online marketing course from Constant Contact, you’ll get all the ins-and-outs on tactics for Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, blogging, and more. And the programs are geared to beginners to Internet marketing—think of it as Social Media 101, with an emphasis on integrating social media with email marketing to get you more leads and sales.

Next Steps

You might feel overwhelmed with all that you have to learn to make the most of this opportunity to market your business online. You really have no choice but to get with the program—that’s where you’ll find your prospective customers. The great news is that there are plenty of free online marketing courses to get you up to speed in no time. You can learn skills and implement them in your business quickly and effectively and then watch your leads, sales, and profits grow.