In the world of digital marketing, the learning process never ends & competition is only heating up, so if you want to compete (and stand-out) in this game you'll want to stack the deck in your favor as much as possible.
Getting your hands on some digital marketing certifications can help you land clients, a job, or just sharpen your skillset.
If any of those questions hit home for you, then you have arrived at the right place.
We have rounded up a list of the best digital marketing certifications that you can get to boost your game.
Whether you want to grow your clients’ business or your own, these digital marketing certifications will help you get it done. Plus, many of these are totally free - so your success only depends on your determination and hustle.
This is how I started my marketing journey, and being able to professionally showcase my certifications helped me land my first couple clients, which turned SERP Co into what it is today (the world's coolest SEO company on the planet).
SERP University is a blog-esque learning environment with articles written by our agency's marketing experts, who are working "on the battlegrounds" every day.
We aim to make SERP University the best place on the internet to learn digital marketing, and by the time you read this post, it may already be that.
A huge part of digital marketing revolves around getting traffic from Google.
Whether that be organic search (SEO), paid search & display (Google Ads), YouTube, etc. Google is definitely a great starting point to start racking up those certs.
And of course, Google provides a TON of resources to get good at using their tools (go figure... ?)
But the best part is - they are actually good (whew! ?)
Google Partner certifications allow agencies & individuals to become a "Google Partner" with an accompanying badge they can prominently display on their website to show potential customers (and jealous peers) that they are the ?when it comes to all thing Google.
Google Analytics Academy helps you learn more about the world's most widely used website measurement tools so that you can grow your website using intelligent data collection & analysis.
Google offers a few courses within Analytics Academy (all of which we recommend you go through if you want to be an internet marketing super-star... or even just an internet marketing regular-star.)
Google Digital Academy (Think With Google) brings together Google education to inspire marketers and business owners to do go further with Google products, providing solutions to business problems & helping more people become digital partners along the way.
Google Digital Garage teaches the basics of digital marketing and is a great place to start if you are brand new.
This 'introduction to digital marketing' course is designed to show you the core concepts of marketing & foundational knowledge in this field.
It is a free course & is accredited by Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe & The Open University.
The course will take about 7 hours for you to complete, and you'll get a sweet looking certification.
If you can power through all of the Google certifications you will end up with an arsenal of certifications & badges that you can use to showcase all the new knowledge you've just picked up.
A great way to get started on your digital marketing certifications journey.
Lynda.com is an online course platform that was acquired by LinkedIn in 2015 (which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 2016). It is now called LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning offers video courses taught by industry experts in business, creative, software, and digital skills, for example:
They have a free trial, after which it's a monthly subscription.
But, if you have a LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscription you can get access to LinkedIn Learning for free.
HubSpot is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales.
You could say they are pretty big:
HubSpot has quite a few certifications, which can not only improve your digital marketing street cred - they are actually very good for teaching you solid marketing skills.
Here is a snapshot of some of the awesome certifications they offer to learn digital marketing:
I have personally taken a lot of HubSpot courses, and am friends with (can I call us friends Ian?) their director of SEO Ian Howells - and I highly recommend the content they put out.
Here are some examples of the certifications you can get from HubSpot:
The Content Marketing Institute's University is a great place to learn content marketing & pick up a certification.
If you do sign up though, you'll definitely get provided with quality information about growing your business through content marketing and get a certification that you can hang on your mantlepiece, or maybe even have a seamstress turn into a sweet flag you can wave around at your next marketing convention.
It looks like this:
YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine on the planet, and video consumption is overtaking everything online.
If you're not using video as part of your marketing strategy you are going to get left behind.
Plain & simple.
YouTube Creator Studio helps you learn how to make videos by watch videos on learning how to make videos. #inception
YouTube creator academy helps you learn:
The certification is totally free and is valid for 18 months.
Here what it looks like:
Get it, and start marking videos.
Compared to Google, Bing is not that big - but there are still over 12 BILLION searches a month that take place on this "smaller" search engine.
In reality, Bing can still drive a ton of traffic to your website if you can rank (or advertise) well on their search engine.
To give you some perspective, here is a comparison of the size of Google, Bing & Yahoo:
Bing comes installed as the default search engine on a lot of Microsoft (and Microsoft partner) computers - so there is still a huge amount of people using it - and if there's traffic out there you should definitely want your business to be benefiting.
So, to encourage people to use their ad platform Bing also has some training & an available certification, allowing you to become a "Bing Ads Certified Professional"
Facebook is the biggest website on the internet, and pretty much everyone (and their mom, and their dog, and their cat) is on it.
With over a billion and a half users, it's crucial to take advantage of this platform to drive engagement and increase brand awareness.
By completing the Facebook Blueprint Certifications, you'll learn how to use the (always changing) Facebook Ads platform & drive a ton of success to your website.
You will be flying no planes today.
Twitter flight school is simply the name of Twitter's Ad training (because you know, birds and such.)
Twitter flight school courses are designed to help you improve your expertise in video advertising on Twitter so you can grow your business using Twitter ads.
They offered short (~15 minute modules) tailored to teaching you about the various account functionalities & agency roles. You'll learn how to initiate, manage and optimize a campaign for your (or your client's) business.
DigitalMarketer.com is a very well known & respected marketing training website. They have a wide variety of courses, resources & certifications that can help improve your skills.
Copyblogger offers strategic content marketing courses that are taught the founders & industry experts.
Hootsuite Academy is among the most recognized social media management platforms in the world today. There are various courses offered in the field of social media marketing, starting from beginners, all the way to advanced.
There are 15 lessons and assessments in total, with each module testing your concepts and knowledge of social media marketing.
You will receive your certification once you pass the online exam consisting of 60 questions.
Located in Dublin, Ireland, the Digital Marketing Institute was founded way back in 2008, and has the recognition of training, in their own words, "more graduates to a single digital marketing standard than any other certification body."
The courses offered by the DMI have been designed for beginners, all the way to advanced levels.
Taught by very experienced digital marketing professionals, they offer courses in:
These were some of the best digital marketing certification courses you should look into if you are either already in this business or are serious about getting into this field.
Not only will it help to improve your credibility and reputation in the digital marketing ecosystem; it will also give you the confidence and skills to get the results your clients (and teammates) expect.
