This article was updated on November 14, 2022.

Launching a new business website is exciting – you’re on the Internet! But now isn’t the time to sit back and wait for your website to make magic happen. If you want your website to show up in search results, earn clicks, and convert those visitors, you need a digital marketing strategy.

You don’t have to master every aspect of digital marketing to help your website succeed. The most important things to understand are:

• How to analyze your website’s performance and visitor engagement
• What types of content will engage your audience and how to produce them
• How to use the social media platforms your audience favours
• How to keep your website optimized for search engines

With so many free online courses available, it’s easy to learn the basics of digital marketing. Then you can decide if you have the time and resources to take the helm, or if you want to outsource some work to a freelancer or agency.

Here are 26 awesome and totally free digital marketing courses to help you reach more people, drive more traffic, and get the most out of your new website.

Free Digital Marketing 101 Courses

What even is digital marketing? In plain words, it’s marketing that uses digital technologies to reach people. More importantly, it’s an advanced branch of marketing that allows for finely tuned targeting, elevated customer service, and straightforward means to gather customer data.

The best thing about digital marketing is that so much of it is free – so there’s no excuse not to use it. These four sources offer multiple free courses in the basics of digital marketing.

Google Digital Garage

If you’re going to learn from someone, learn from search engine giant Google. Their course catalogue offers all kinds of online courses ranging from one hour to a full day.

HubSpot Academy

You name it, you can find it in the HubSpot Academy digital marketing course catalogue. Their offering is fantastic because it has courses in blogging, branding, buyer personas, CTAs, and other skills that will really improve your website.

LinkedIn Learning

Only the first month is free, so you’ll want to enroll with LinkedIn Learning when you have time to focus. Their courses are short and have a great variety of topics.

Quick Sprout University

QuickSprout offers insights into tons of aspects of digital marketing. The difference is that their ‘courses’ are thorough articles rather than videos. But it’s a great single place to find the resources you need.

Content Marketing Courses

Content marketing is used to share articles, videos, and other materials that position your company as experts in what you do.

With free content, such as blog posts or YouTube videos, you offer tips and tutorials that help your target audience with a problem. The person might solve their problem from reading that article, but they’ll remember you when they need something beyond their capabilities. With gated content, you offer exceptional material like an eBook or paper, for which the person gives you their email address and becomes a lead.

These four digital marketing courses will teach you the basics of content marketing, including writing and video creation.

Learn What Content Marketing is and How to Do It

This HubSpot Academy course will teach you how to build a content strategy, create and publish content, and hone your skills in content marketing.

Content Marketing Toolkit

This course from SEO SAAS company SEMRush teaches you all kinds of tactics like research, distribution, and how to assess the performance of your content.

Become a Better Blogger: Content Planning

This Skillshare course will improve your content strategy skills – how you plan, produce, promote, and manage content as a true business asset.

Going Viral: Write, Film & Make Content People Share

This Skillshare course is all about making awesome videos for your business. Videos are effective, engaging, and you can use them everywhere: social media, on your website, in emails, and more.

Social Media Marketing Courses

Social media is way too often overlooked by businesses, especially B2B companies! It’s not just about sharing cute animal photos – although that works for lots of niches. Social media allows you to share humanizing content, increase your reach, and have real conversations with your customers.

Did you know that social media plays a key role in SEO? With the rise in social search (using social platforms as search engines), your social profiles are often the first place a customer encounters your business. Most platforms now offer quality courses on their own products, which is why most of these six digital marketing courses come straight from the source.

Social Marketing Certification

Hootsuite is a powerful social media management platform. Their introductory social media course is a great way to get to know the basics.

Learn Social Media Marketing in 2 Minutes a Day

Buffer is another favourite social media management tool, with an extremely user-friendly interface. Their social media 101 email course gives you “7 emails, 7 days, 7 short lessons about all the basics of social media marketing.”

Facebook Blueprint

Facebook is still a popular platform for Boomer, Gen X, and older Millennial audiences. Their courses cover all digital marketing aspects of Facebook Business and Instagram Business (which Facebook owns).

Instagram Training

Later is THE authority on all things Instagram. If you want to master Instagram content, hashtags, ads, and strategies, this is the place to go – and we highly recommend subscribing to their blog.

YouTube Creator Academy

Video is a great type of content that resonates with most audiences. YouTube offers tutorials in strategy, production, optimization, and monetization.

Pinterest Academy

Pinterest is unique because Pins have the longest ‘shelf life’ of any type of social media content. Pinterest Academy offers courses in strategy, content creation, and ads.

SEO and Analytics Courses

Search engine optimization is how you prime your website to rank well in search results. SEO basics help you understand what search engines want, where you rank, and how to improve your position.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool to assess website health, performance, and engagement. It can tell you fascinating details about your site’s visitors, and help you understand what’s working and what isn’t.

These four digital marketing courses will give you a solid understanding of Google Analytics and basic website SEO.

Google Analytics Academy

We can’t say enough good things about getting a beginner’s certification from Google. This way you can quickly assess your website’s performance and make adjustments.

Moz SEO Learning Centre

Moz is the leading source on all things SEO. Their courses will teach you the most essential basics of SEO (and more advanced techniques if you’re interested!).

SEO Fundamentals

This is a super in-depth course that gives you all of the SEO fundamentals, including technical SEO, on-page SEO, and link building.

Beginner Local SEO

This Udemy course gives you a solid introduction to local SEO. If you have a brick-and-mortar business and want to appear on the map for those ‘near me’ searches, this is for you.

Email Marketing Courses

Emails have the most impressive results of any type of digital marketing – for every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. If a customer has given you their email address, you’re already closer to them than with an easily ignored ad.

These four digital marketing courses are geared towards helping new businesses understand email, and launch their own email marketing campaigns.

Email Marketing Masterclass for Beginners

Wishpond’s comprehensive email marketing class covers everything you need to know to get started with email marketing, including A/B testing and mistakes to avoid.

Email Marketing Certification

Another great course from HubSpot Academy, this one gives you all of the fundamentals to manage your subscribers, analyze your emails, and improve your strategy.

Email & Affiliate Marketing Mastermind

This Udemy course teaches you the basics, from how to build your subscriber list to remarketing and driving profitable leads from your company emails.

MailChimp’s Email Marketing Courses

MailChimp is an industry leader in all things email marketing, and they have tons of helpful online courses you can watch in anywhere from three hours to under 30 minutes.

Online Advertising Courses

Digital ads are everywhere, and many platforms are more affordable than you might expect. Machine learning has enabled impressive audience targeting that helps businesses reach exactly the right people who would be interested in your product.

From Google’s search and display ads to social media platforms, these four online advertising courses are designed to help you confidently launch your first ad campaigns.

Google Ads

Google is the world’s most popular search engine, and your ads can appear above the regular search results. Learn all about the different types of Google Ads and how to use them with their courses.

PPC University

Pay-per-click (PPC) is the most common type of advertising and includes search engine ads. These WordStream courses are articles (not videos), and can teach you the basics all the way up to advanced PPC skills.

Facebook Ads Training

Facebook offers courses on ads within its own training platform, Blueprint, but you can also pick up great strategic skills in this short course from the pros at HubSpot.

Instagram Ads

Speaking of Facebook – Blueprint has several courses dedicated to Instagram Ads that include basics for businesses, plus a course on how to use Facebook and Instagram Ads together for stronger results.

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There are tons of other free digital marketing courses available through simple searches. Figure out which areas you want to study, which format you prefer, and have fun! We also recommend subscribing to industry experts’ newsletters, so that each morning or even once a week you can familiarize yourself with the latest trends in digital marketing.