Whether you’re on the job hunt, looking to expand your skills in your current job, or doing contract based work, there are so many learning opportunities out there to help you in your career. I can save you some time Googling, especially if you are a digital marketer, social media manager or communications professional looking for free or affordable resources to help boost your marketing career. Keep reading for my curated list of certifications and learning resources! Certifications are a great way to show off that you can walk the talk AND they may even help you secure your bag! (Or maybe just a bigger one.) XOXO
Howdy friends, fellow marketers, social media managers, curious communicators and learners. 🤓
Enjoy this curated list of certifications and resources I’ve put together in my quest to learn new things. Before starting EVRYDAY, I was looking for new jobs to apply for, but felt discouraged by the job descriptions I was reading. I felt like I lacked some of the qualifications and experience for the roles that most interested me. Even though I have a lot of transferable skills and previous experience in certain areas, I believe new opportunities are a great chance to learn something, but I don’t want to wait around for a reason to try new things.
So, I set out to find ways not only to learn more and develop some skills these companies were looking for. Most importantly, I wanted to have something to show for it when I was done. Below is my list of 15 certification resources to boost your career—many of them are free! I’ve used some of these to obtain certifications for myself, while others are those that I plan to pursue in the future or just felt they were worth mentioning.
Something to note: When researching certifications or courses, here are two guiding principles I use to think about things. First, some certifications will help you gain knowledge about a particular subject (ie. Content Marketing). You’ll likely find a handful of different providers who offer this information. Second, some certifications will help you develop skills and learn how to use a specific product or tool (ie. Canva). These are typically offered by Software as a Service companies, or SaaS companies.
Additionally, certificates are not equivalent to a college degree and not all certifications are accredited. They can still help you expand your skills and knowledge, but don’t mistake them as holding the same value as a two or four-year degree when applying for jobs.
Why you should get certifications: Certifications are a great way to learn about current trends, information and insights about a specific subject matter or just help you to brush up on your skills. Much like a portfolio, certifications can provide tangible proof that you have knowledge or expertise on a subject. Certifications are also great for resume building! You can and should include what certifications you have on your resume, especially if they are relevant to a role you’re applying for.
Finally, I should disclose that I don’t have friends in high places, which is just my way of saying that none of the links below are affiliate links. I genuinely want to share this information to try and help someone. And let’s be honest, we could all use a little help sometimes. Here you go and good luck:
Free Certifications 🏆
Cost: Free
Certifications offered: Marketing, sales, service, operations
When you sign up, you’ll be asked for your company website. In my case, I was no longer at my old company, so I put in my freelance site. I’ve even heard of people using their LinkedIn profiles as their “website” when they didn’t have a personal site to link.
Beyond free learning, Hubspot also offers a variety of free business tools for inbound marketing and sales. The free version is pretty limited, but I use the CRM, marketing (this is where the blog you’re reading is currently built), and sales tools for my freelance work just so I can stay familiar with these systems as these skills are transferable to other businesses and softwares anyway. I also have this thing about organization and operational efficiencies…
Cost: Free
Certifications offered: Platform specific and digital marketing (ie. social media, content marketing, business ops, SEO, sales)
I counted 51 courses total, but only 45 of those have a certification exam at the end. So make sure you read the fine print.
Semrush is a tool that I wish someone had told me about sooner. It’s very robust and insightful for marketers. You can access a variety of features with a free account. But if you’re part of a bigger business, a wise investment for your marketing team would be to have a subscription.
The only money that I’ll allocate from my freelance budget is for the social media tools: content scheduling, reporting data, competitor analysis. I truly think it’s the best bang for your buck when you’re managing multiple profiles except there isn’t a TikTok integration yet. Otherwise, Semrush plans aren’t part of my budget at this time.
Cost: Free*
*I’ve seen other Google certifications offered via a paid Coursera membership, but all of these listed below are offered through Skillshop which is Google’s free training platform to help you learn more about Google workspace tools.
Certifications offered:
Google Analytics Certification
- This has been updated for Google Analytics 4!
- There are also other GA4 learning paths that do not award certificates, but great for additional learning.
- Get certified in any of the following ads topics: Search, Display, Video, Shopping Ads, Apps and Measurement
- There are varying degrees of difficulty from beginner to advanced based on your current knowledge.
Google Fundamentals of Digital Marketing
- This is a really extensive course compared to the others mentioned and projected to take about 40 hrs to complete. But I’m still very impressed by the fact that all of this information and the certification exam is free.
Cost: Free
Certifications offered: Webflow 101, Layout, CMS
Be aware, while you can learn a lot about Webflow, there are only a few certificates currently offered by Webflow University. Though they have plans to roll out more certificates. I completed my Webflow 101 Certification this year and they have already added a few Layout and CMS certifications since then.
Otherwise, Webflow University has a ton of learning topics available if you’re looking to boost your web design knowledge. Their easy-to-follow tutorials about designing and building websites is specific to their platform and tools. Which admittedly may be a lot if you have no previous web design experience (but don’t let that stop you from trying).
5. Later
Cost: Free
Certification offered: Later Product Pro
Later has one of the most interactive certification courses I’ve come across to-date. I really like that each course allocates time for you to work through your own live product demo. This is great if like myself you’re someone who learns best by doing.
Learn with Later exclusively has courses and videos to help social media managers and marketers learn how to use their platform. It’s definitely a popular choice among marketers and for good reason: It’s one of the most robust tools I’ve used on the market. Sadly, the free version is very limited—but used to be SO good. They really push you to have a paid account if you want to use their publishing tools, but that’s a topic for another post.
Cost: Free*
*With library access or a free 1 month trial. After that it costs $20-$40.
Certifications offered: Professional Certificates, Continuing Education, Academic Credit
I remember when LinkedIn Learning was Lynda.com and here’s the thing I had to hack back then: Getting certifications for free. This will take a little more research depending where you live, and I would recommend reading some of these other blogs with more information about using LinkedIn Learning for free:
- How to Use LinkedIn Learning for Free From Your Local Library
- How to access the free LinkedIn Learning for Libraries
The short of it is: You may be able to access LinkedIn Learning for free with a public library account. These are free to sign up for! Your tax dollars at work. The catch is, not every public library offers the service, which is why you should do a little research or reach out to your local library.
If your library does offer LinkedIn Learning as a free resource, you just need to login with your library card.
Paid Certifications 🤑
Cost: $100-$300
Certifications offered: Slack Certified Consultant, Slack Certified Admin, Slack Certified Developer
If you didn’t already know, AIM walked so Slack could run. 🏃🏻♀️🏃🏼 But instead of only messaging your friends, Slack primarily helps professional organizations with their internal communications. Even though Slack is owned by Salesforce, I find it’s a lot more user friendly than the Salesforce platform—just in case the term Salesforce is triggering to anyone reading this. If you can navigate Reddit, Slack isn’t really a big leap, but the audience will be very niche for obvious reasons.
Keep scrolling if you want some Slack street cred but don’t want to spend any money.
Cost: $250 per certification
Certifications offered: Jira and project management specific (various levels)
If you’re unfamiliar with the Atlassian name, you might be more familiar with Trello, which is a web-based application owned by Atlassian. However, certifications offered by Atlassian are mostly for one of their other products called Jira, which is really a more advanced version of Trello used by dev teams and project managers. So most marketing and communications professionals likely don’t spend a lot of time, if any, using Jira.
Regarding certifications, you may be able to convince your employer to sponsor or pay for your certification.
Trello learning and free resources are listed at the end of this post. I got you! 👇🏼
Cost: $49/month on Coursera after a 7-day free trial
Certifications offered: Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, Digital Marketing & E-commerce, IT Support, Project Management, UX Design
I don’t have any Google Career Certificates, but the biggest thing to note besides the fact that these are not free, is the time commitment to complete these certificates. While they can be done at your own pace, you can expect to take anywhere from 3-6 months to complete a career certificate if you dedicate ~10 hours a week to learning. Even so, I have to say it certainly seems like a fair investment if you really want to prioritize getting one of these certificates.
10. Actionable Marketing Institute by CoSchedule
Cost: $99 per course or $250 per year to access any course
Certifications offered: Marketing Strategy, Social Media Strategy, Public Relations Strategy
While there are only three certifications available, there are a number of marketing courses that you can purchase ranging from beginner to advanced levels.
There are a few free courses on their platform, which seem to mostly be CoSchedule product tutorials. These are great even if you have a free plan. Just be mindful as with any platform, free plans will have certain feature limits.
11. Meta Blueprint Certifications
Cost: $99-$150 per certification
Certifications offered: Digital marketing
If you’re looking to show off how advanced you are using Meta or Facebook apps, there are a handful of associate and professional certifications you can get. You only have to pay to take the exam itself, which means you can work through the free courses to learn the same information as someone with a certification. They are all specific to using Meta products, not general marketing information.
However, the “courses” basically require that you read through a series of blog posts related to a topic. I didn’t see many video tutorials, which seems to be the standard for pretty much all other courses I’ve mentioned up to this point. 👩🏻💻
For more reading on Meta Blueprint, check out this blog post from Revealbot.
Other Free Learning Resources (and honorable mentions) 🏅
12. Slack Badges
If you need some Slack street cred without taking your wallet out, you may want to consider earning a skills badge from Slack instead! These beginner-friendly courses only take 1-2 hours to complete. Earn a digital badge for your LinkedIn profile and big bonus points—Slack badges don’t expire! 💯
13. Atlassian Badges
In addition to the paid certifications previously covered, Atlassian does have free badges you can earn in lieu of a certification. My personal favorite is the Trello Fundamentals Badge that you can earn at the end of the learning path.
14. Grow with Google
This Skillshop catalog caught my eye because even though it doesn’t contain a lot of certifications, there are many short, free skills courses that anyone can benefit from. I especially wish I’d had this available to me when I was very green in my early career and didn’t have a lot of work experience yet. 🌱
I wouldn’t be a marketer if I wrapped up this post without mentioning Canva! Hold your reservations if you’re a hardcore designer, this probably isn’t for you. But for those of us without any formal design training, Canva design school offers a library full of courses to help you learn more about design and how to use Canva. The only downside to these courses is you won’t get a badge or certificate, but you can share when you’ve completed a course to your LinkedIn profile.
And that’s a wrap! I know there was a lot of information shared and you might need some time to digest all of this, so make sure you bookmark this post if you need to come back to it again! If you end up taking any of these courses or receiving a certification, I’d love to hear your thoughts or recommendations.
Finally, I hope this list even inspires you to seek out other learning resources offered on the interwebs. Maybe I’ll include it in a future iteration of this list. 😉 Good luck and happy learning!
