So, you have decided to expand your knowledge about digital marketing and want to know more about its technical aspects and implementations.
That’s a great idea!
But you might ask yourself where should I start from? And what are the resources that I can go to?
In this article I will be listing all the main digital marketing areas that you should cover with reliable and free resources in order to understand how digital marking works in the real world.
Remember it is a learning journey, so have a look now and then start digging more in each subject’s advancement and start practicing its implementations.
Here are the areas that you need to know about:
Inbound Marketing
Social media marketing
Google advertising and analysis
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Email marketing
1- Inbound marketing
This is literally the concept behind all organic digital marketing activities and understanding it is a MUST!
Inbound marketing is about the customer journey starting from attracting customers to your website through relevant and helpful content to engaging with them once they arrive in order to buy from you.
Learning source: I highly recommend learning more about this via HubSpot Inbound Certification Free Course:
6 lessons - 15 videos - 4 quizzes - 1 hr 54 minutes completion time
2- Social Media Marketing
The most effective tool to build brand awareness and a community around your brand.
What you need to understand is how can it be part of your digital marketing plan to grow your business instead of just posting artistic images on Instagram and waiting for people to follow you and visit your website or store.
There are many aspects for social media marketing, but what I think you should focus on first is content creation, social advertising and performance measurement.
Learning Source: The best way to learn anything about social media, specifically Facebook and Instagram, is to learn it from Facebook Blueprint courses
17 lessons - 112 videos
Don’t worry, you don’t need to finish all the listed courses to understand social media. Just start by picking the courses that matter to your needs such as Advertising or Instagram Stories.
3- Google PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising
One of the most important tools to drive traffic to your website or to your store using different channels, including Google Search Network, Google Display network, Google Maps and YouTube.
Learning source: Google Academy offers a series of friendly and simple learning courses that cover all what you need to know about Google PPC advertising and so much more
4- SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Yes.. you can do a lot about it without coding or technical skills.
I’m sure you know that making your website search engine optimized, AKA getting better ranking on Google, is so important to increase your website traffic. And most of the job can be done from a content perspective, not only a technical one.
Learning source: I can’t find anyone that is able to explain SEO and its advancement in a simpler and easier way than Neil Patel
Here you will find a series of short videos that demonstrate very helpful and simple tips to get better ranking on Google.
5- Email marketing
Again, yes! It is still working and it is one of the best ways to engage with your current audience and increase your conversion rate.
What you need to understand is how to use email campaigns as part of your customer journey communication and not only as a regular email newsletter.
Learning source: Once again HubSpot Email Marketing Certification Free Course has a very structured and easy to consume video content about email marketing fundamentals and best practices.
9 lessons - 27 videos - 9 quizzes - 3 hr 15 minutes completion time.
Hope this article is a good reference to your digital marketing education journey and it will mean so much to me if you share it with anyone that you think needs this.
And remember, "expanding your digital presence is simpler than what you think".
Best of luck!
Hazem Karkoutly