Top 5 Free Actionable Courses For Content Writers
When I was starting my career, I could not afford expensive courses in content writing so for me, free courses were the only way to learn to write content.
As a beginner, I found a lot of free courses on content creation, but only a bunch of them deserve our precious time.
Therefore I decided to write an article on this topic so that you don’t have to face the same situation that I had to face.
How do I determine the quality of these courses?
- I attended all the courses that I am recommending here, they are my all-time favorites.
- I also considered other people’s reviews on these courses.
- Asked if I can apply what I learned in these courses?
- Analyzed the course instructors, do they have the authority to teach you these topics?
To make it easy to understand I have divided the courses into categories. Here’s a glimpse of what you will learn in this article, so without waiting much let’s get started.
Writing
The style of writing taught in schools is different from professional content writing. For instance, in schools, we use long words or sentences whereas in content writing we avoid them.
As a beginner, we have to forget what we learned in school and relearn the new principles of writing.
But how would you know what type of content do industries appreciate?
I also had the same question when my client told me to write content for a website, though I had no prior experience. This is where the following courses saved me.
1. Secret Sauce of Great Writing
Instructor: Shani Raja (Ex Wall Street Journal & The Economist Editor)
Course Level: Beginner
It’s short, simple, to the point, and the most famous free writing course on Udemy.
Here, you will learn the four ingredients of exceptional writing (simplicity, clarity, elegance, and evocativeness). These ingredients will help you to look at your writing from a reader’s viewpoint.
This course is easy and practical. I still edit my content based on what I learned from this course. Here’s what you will learn in this course:
- How to use simplicity, clarity, elegance, and evocativeness to make your writing irresistible.
- Exercises to practice these components in your writing.
- A PDF workbook so that you do not forget the lessons learned in this course.
In short, this course gives you a simple recipe to captivate your readers with your content.
2. Sell Using Your Words: 2020 Copywriting Mini Masterclass
Instructor: Eric John Campbell
Course Level: Beginner & Intermediate
When I took this course, this is the review that I gave.
“I am writing this review in the middle of this course. I couldn’t resist myself from dropping this review. The guy is so awesome, the methods that he mentioned in the video are so practical, that I can claim that I have never come across such a detailed and knowledgeable course. If you are reading this, thanks, thanks, thanks a lot. I was having serious trouble coming up with ideas for my content but this course is a lifesaver to me.”
My Review on this course.
This course may look normal but the tactics explained in this course are very powerful. Follow these steps to get this course for free:
- Go to the SkillShare website by clicking here.
- Sign up for skillshare, using your email id, or sign up with Google.
- It will take you to the page where you’ll be asked to register for a seven-day free trial, close this page.
- Now click on this link to go to the course page directly.
If you are planning to kick start your career in Copywriting then this course can be a great starting point. Here’s what you will learn in this course:
- The concept of Customer Development.
- How to listen to your Target Audience and use it in your content.
- Listening to your target audience using the “Online Observer” technique.
- How to Take Your Copywriting Skills to a Higher Level.
- Use Customer Avatars to make your content more personalized.
- Compel your audience to take a specific action you desire.
Both of the above courses will help you to get a fair understanding of how to research and write your content in an effective way. In the next section, we will learn how to create content that pulls more customers to our website.
Content Marketing
Have you ever wondered why we trust one brand over another? We have never seen how Nike manufactures their shoes, still, we accept that they are the best. What is that one thing that convinces us into believing this?
It’s the content that they create and share.
Millions of brands use content to build a positive image in the minds of their audience. Brands like Nike use videos, Amul use graphics, and Hubspot use blog posts to build trust in their audience.
The art of creating content that enables brands to build meaningful relationships with their audience is content marketing.
No matter you are an agency owner, content writer, or a start-up, these courses will help you equally well.
3. Content Marketing Certification by HubSpot
Instructors: Justin Champion, Lindsay Thibeault, Abigael Donahue, AJ Beltis, Guillaume Delloue, Matthew Howells-Barby, and Corey Braccialini.
Course Level: Beginner to Advanced
HubSpot uses content marketing to attract customers to its website. No doubt, they are the best resource to learn about content marketing.
In this course you will discover various concepts of content ideation, creation, and distribution containing a variety of topics covered by well-known experts from Hubspot. Here’s a short summary of what you will learn in this course:
- Basic introduction of Content Marketing.
- How you can use storytelling in your content to make it more authentic.
- Building a Content Creation Framework
- Planning a Long-Term Content Strategy
- Creating Quality Blog Content Your Audience Loves to Read and Share
- How you can use blogs to rank number one on Google.
- Repurposing your content into different forms like social media posts, videos, etc.
- Creating Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages
- How to Create a Successful Video Marketing Strategy
- Building a Guest Blogging Strategy Powered by SEO
- How to Effectively Promote Content
In this course, you’ll get a workbook that enables you to practice the concepts of this course.
It also provides a certificate when you pass a short exam containing 45 questions from this course. If you have understood the concepts explained in this course then you will pass this exam without much effort.
4. Inbound Marketing Course by HubSpot
Instructors: Jorie Munroe, Justin Champion, Lindsay Thibeault, Crystal King, and Courtney Sembler
Course Level: Beginner to Advanced
Inbound marketing is the process in which you create valuable content that helps you to attract, engage, and delight your customer.
Here you answer the problems of your customers through your content which builds trust.
This course gives you a better insight into why digital marketers do what they do. In the future, you’ll have to work with marketers and entrepreneurs that’s why you should have knowledge of inbound marketing. Here’s what you can learn through this course:
- The fundamentals of Inbound Marketing.
- How can you plan a long-term content strategy for your business?
- How to create a proper blog post.
- Creating Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages
- Utilize social media to gain customer traction.
- Developing a Conversational Growth Strategy.
- How to nurture leads and turn them into customers.
- Aligning Your Marketing With Sales
This course will inform you about the prospect’s buying journey and how you can be present at every step to guide them to become your customer.
This course gives you an analysis of how HubSpot attracts its customers through inbound marketing and how you can do it as well.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is an essential part of your content writing career. It helps you to optimize your content for search engines like Google so that they index your content for the right search queries.
It is a vast topic and takes time to learn its concepts. There are billions of resources available on this topic, and you cannot read all of them.
But here’s a course that covers almost all aspects of SEO for content writers. If you take this course, then you’ll have all the information that you need to know.
5. Blogging for business by Ahrefs
Before the Coronavirus pandemic, the price of this course was $799 which is roughly ₹60,000, so by doing this course, you are getting something premium.
In this course, Tim Soulo the CMO at Ahrefs explains the complete process they used to get more customers from their blog. The course is power-packed with practical information on blogging, SEO, and content marketing.
There are very few courses on SEO that talk about the importance of great content and this course is one of those. The idea of our Content Bliss blog came after attending this course, so what to say of others. This course is perfect for people who are planning to scale their business through blogs.
Conclusion
“Life is too short to learn everything from your own experience, so it’s better to learn from people who have it. Besides we can try to improve upon their mistakes and find out what works best for us.”
A slight modification in the quote of Elanor Roosevelt.
No course can make you a content writer, but they can give you the skills and tools to become a great content writer. Now it’s up to you whether you want to become a great content writer or not.
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