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Digital marketing is becoming a core part of many business’ marketing strategy.

If you’re starting to add more digital elements to your marketing strategy, it can feel like a lot to take in. There are a lot of different channels and platforms to get to grips with.

But, what’s great about this is that you have the chance to reach a wider audience and connect with them in places they’re spending their time, whether that’s via their emails, the questions they type into Google search, or when they’re spending time on social media.

Whether you are the owner of a fledgling startup or the CEO of a successful business, digital marketing will be an essential part of the advertising strategy you or your employees undertake to improve brand awareness and increase sales.

Companies are reliant on successful digital marketing campaigns to gain visibility and sales via their online portals.

In the words of Chris Brogan, CEO of Owner Media Group,

Marketers need to build digital relationships and reputation before closing a sale.”

The traditional forms of one-way advertising no longer work, and you’ll need to engage your online customers in a two-way conversation in order to convert them. That’s where effective digital marketing campaigns come in.

Even if you think that digital marketing is not an essential part of your day-to-day tasks, you might be surprised to realize that, in actual fact, it is. Every time you tweet, post, share or comment on social media, you are marketing yourself and building your own personal brand online.

If you tweak the wording of an email campaign, amend the imagery for a banner campaign or reach out to a potential online advertising partner, you are actively engaging in digital marketing.

By learning how to be an effective digital marketer, you can ensure you’re delivering the message you intend to — both personally and professionally — and seeing the desired results. Developing these skills will also help you better monitor the work your employees are putting out so you can understand whether the campaigns your company implements are optimised for success, as well as identify areas of improvement.

Which Skills Do You Need for Digital Marketing Success?

There are many different facets to digital marketing, and providing yourself with a general education in all of these different areas — from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and social media to email marketing — is essential if you are to understand how different disciplines work together to drive success.

When recruiting digital marketing professionals to join your team, you should look for those who possess this general grounding and also excel in one to two specialist areas. Rand Fishkin, of leading search engine marketing site Moz, calls an individual with this basic understanding of multiple digital marketing disciplines and specialism in one or two areas a “T-Shaped Web Marketer”, and says that candidates like this are valuable assets to companies because they understand how different disciplines fit together and can step in to support in different areas where necessary.

So start thinking like a T-Shape if you want to be able to spot and recruit the best for your business going forward!

How to Learn Digital Marketing at Home for Free: A Step-By-Step Guide

The good news is that learning the skills you need for digital marketing is often possible at home, in your spare time, thanks to the wealth of free online resources available. We discuss our favourite resources below and give our advice on how to get started.

Here are our six steps to digital marketing success:

Step 1 – Study

Acquire the necessary knowledge to become a successful digital marketer by reading free guides online — everything from blog posts to eBooks and course materials created by experienced marketers, marketing agencies and universities.

Step 2 – Practice, Practice, Practice

The best form of education is actively putting into practice what you’ve learned. Create test campaigns, monitor the results, optimise the campaigns and learn from your mistakes. You’ll be following the instructions provided by the study materials you’re using and there’s no risk involved as you aren’t yet dealing with digital advertising budgets for real businesses.

Step 3 – Get Certified and Qualified

Now that you’re confident with the study materials, take the associated certifications and qualifications to test your knowledge.

Step 4 – Start Your Own Digital Marketing Blog

Having your own digital marketing blog will help you practice what you’ve learned and demonstrate your expertise. It will also help you start to make connections in the industry as you seek out guest writers, invite opinions on your posts and offer to write for other publications.

Step 5 – Seek Out Training and Support from Experienced Digital Marketers

Put those new contacts you’ve made to good use. To progress as a digital marketer, you will need support and guidance from experienced professionals who can point you in the right direction.

Step 6 – Keep Learning and Improving

Digital marketing is an ever-changing and evolving field that requires its practitioners to be constantly evolving too. Never stop seeking out new learning materials and opportunities to improve your skills.

Which Certification Is Best for Digital Marketing?

Google Ads certification is a professional accreditation awarded to digital marketers who show proficiency in basic and advanced aspects of Google Ads. It is vital for anyone looking to get started in digital advertising and work in the search, display, mobile, video or shopping advertising space. It is particularly important for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) professionals, who constantly use Google Ads to implement, monitor and track campaigns. Becoming Google Ads certified will require you to pass two certification exams — the Google Ads Fundamentals exam, which covers basic concepts, the benefits of paid advertising and best practices for managing paid advertising campaigns, and any one of its diverse digital advertising courses on offer — you can choose from search, display, mobile, video and shopping advertising.

The Digital Marketing Institute offers perhaps the definitive digital marketing certification, providing those who successfully pass the examinations and complete the course material with Certified Digital Marketing Professional status. There are three distinct tiers of qualification; Professional, Leader and Master. Investing in a DMI certification will set you back around $1,990 per level of qualification, but the accolade will truly make an impression on potential business partners and investors.

Google Digital Garage teaches you the fundamentals of digital marketing and provides a general certification covering building your online presence, analysing performance, setting your website and business goals and much more. It’s a vital first step into digital strategy, analytics and display advertising that provides certification you’ll definitely want.

What Are the Best Free Online Digital Marketing Courses?

There are many free digital marketing courses available online, ranging from general introductory courses to specific qualifications for different digital marketing disciplines. We’ve listed the qualifications and courses that we feel will be most valuable to you as a business owner looking to optimise the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns.

5 Free Digital Marketing Courses

When it comes to digital marketing its essential to enhance your wider inbound marketing skills and ensure that you are familiar with the principles of effective online advertising. We’ve listed a diverse range of courses below to help you round out your skillset and enhance your understanding of digital marketing.

The Unbounce landing page conversion course is a free online course spanning multiple topics, all designed to help you understand how to get higher conversions from your landing pages; an essential skill in your digital marketing toolkit.

You can also check out our video on how to create landing pages that convert at 43%.