Over the past week, I completed two free online courses for digital marketers. My objective in taking both courses is to become well-rounded since my professional experience and expertise is skewed towards digital advertising.
Both courses are framed with a new website owner/managers in mind. Both speak in terms of improving business results using online tools.
The topic of the HubSpot course is broader in nature since it touches on offline aspects like sales calls while the Google course speaks very clearly about using data to improve your website traffic.
Free online course 1: HubSpot Academy Inbound Marketing Certification Course
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| My HubSpot Academy Inbound Marketing Certification |
The course consists of several modules, clearly divided along the "inbound methodology framework used by HubSpot.
The entire course was taught using videos that were divided into an introduction video of roughly 3-5 minutes, the main topic video of roughly 15-20 minutes and a case study/example video of roughly 5-7 minutes. This gave students bite size modules of 20-30 minutes total.
A short 5 question quiz followed each module to hammer in the key points.
After completing all modules, student will then feel comfortable taking the 60 question certification exam. The passing score is 75%.
All in all, it took me two afternoons to complete. I was going at a more leisurely pace to ensure that I got to process all the lessons.
You can access the free Inbound certification course from HubSpot Academy here.
Free online course 2: Google Analytics for Beginners
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| My Google Analytics for Beginners Course Certificate |
The course consists of just four units and touches on just the basics of Google Analytics. After the course, the student will be more familiar with the GA layout and will be more comfortable navigating around and playing around with the many options provided by this rather powerful tool.
The course was taught using a mix of videos, hands-on simulations and additional text readings. The videos were short and sweet. I don't recall any video longer than 7-8 minutes. I thought the hands-on simulations were fantastic. Pre-loaded with sample data, students could really go through the real GA tool and play around without fear of messing up any existing reports/definitions.
A short assessment follows each unit to test the basic understanding of the key concepts discussed.
The course is meant to be taken in conjunction with the Advanced Google Analytics course, after which students can then proceed to take the certification exam to receive their Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ).
You can take the free Google Analytics for Beginners course here. To find out more about the Google Analytics Individual Qualification, go here.
My Next Steps
Personally, I plan to take the GAIQ exam to add the certification to my HubSpot certification above and my existing Google AdWords certification. It's never a bad thing to continue to learn and add knowledge that I can use now and in the future.
I'll continue to look for other courses to take and I will share it with you as I find more. In the meantime, do feel free to reach out to me and share with me if there are other courses you've taken that are worth taking.