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.
- Are you lacking the digital marketing skills required for securing that new job?
- Are you losing business to competitors because they can prominently display qualifications they have?
- Or maybe you just want to flex more?
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
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.
Features
- In-depth blog articles written sequentially to teach you about marketing concepts like: Advertising, Content, SEO, Email, etc.
- Video courses to give you (and your team) beginner-to-advanced marketing training on all things digital marketing: Advertising, SEO, Sales, Productivity, Team Management, Email Marketing, etc.
- A Private Slack Community where you can ask us (and the whole community) any questions you have during your learning experience – 24/7.
- Weekly Q/A sessions to help you troubleshoot campaigns, answer questions, and help you with anything you need, live.
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: SERP University
- Link: SERP University Slack Community
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 Partners
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.
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: Google Partner Certifications
Google Analytics Academy
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.)
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: Google Analytics Academy
Google Digital Academy
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.
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: Google Digital Academy
Google Digital Garage
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.
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: Google Digital Garage
Google Certifications & Badges
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.
Google Badges
Google Certifications
Lynda (LinkedIn Learning)
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
Features
LinkedIn Learning offers video courses taught by industry experts in business, creative, software, and digital skills, for example:
Enrollment
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.
- Cost: $29.99/month
- Link: Lynda
HubSpot
HubSpot is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales.
You could say they are pretty big:
Features
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:
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: HubSpot Academy
Content Marketing Institute
The Content Marketing Institute’s University is a great place to learn content marketing & pick up a certification.
Features
- The good: It’s put on by The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) – a very well respected and highly following website that helps people with content marketing.
- The not as good: The university portion is $995/yr
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:
Enrollment
- Cost: $995
- Link: Content Marketing University
YouTube Creator Academy
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
Features
YouTube creator academy helps you learn:
- Video creation strategies
- Best practices to grow your channel
- Techniques to develop your YT channel towards success
- YouTube platform strategies
The certification is totally free and is valid for 18 months.
Here what it looks like:
Get it, and start marking videos.
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: YouTube Creator Academy
Bing
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:
Features
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”
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: Bing Ads Certification
Facebook BluePrint Certification
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.
Features
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.
- Facebook Certified Media Planning Professional
- Facebook Certified Media Buying Professional
- Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer I
- Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer II
- Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer III
Enrollment
- Link: Facebook BluePrint Certification
- Cost: Free; but the exams for certification are $150 each
Twitter Flight School Certification
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.)
Features
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.
Enrollment
- Cost: Free
- Link: Twitter Flight School
Digital Marketer
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.
Features
- Marketing Resources
- Mini-Courses on a lot of digital marketing topics
- Certification: Content Marketing Mastery
- Certification: Paid Traffic Mastery
- Certification: Social Media Mastery
- Certification: Conversion Funnel Mastery
- Certification: Search Marketing Mastery
- Certification: Email Marketing Mastery
- Certification: Analytics & Data Mastery
- Certification: Conversion Rate Optimization
- Certification: Ecommerce Marketing Mastery
- Certification: Copywriting Mastery
- Certification: Community Management Mastery
Enrollment
- Cost: From Free up to $495/certification
- Link: Digital Marketer Certifications
Copyblogger
Copyblogger offers strategic content marketing courses that are taught the founders & industry experts.
Features
- Persuasive Copywriting 101
- Creative Foundations
- Brian Clark’s Build Your Online Training Business the Smarter Way
- The Content Confidence Checklist
Enrollment
- Cost: From $7 – $495 per course
- Link: Coppyblogger
Hootsuite Academy
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.
Features
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.
Enrollment
- Cost: $199 – $999
- Link: Hootsuite Academy
Digital Marketing Institute
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.”
Features
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:
- Digital & Social Media Strategy, Planning and Selling
- Digital Marketing
- Mobile Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing
Enrollment
- Cost: $1,955
- Link: Digital Marketing Institute
Final Thoughts
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.
