Within the last few years, I have noticed more and more people popping up with a Google Marketing Certificate. I was intrigued, but also a little intimidated. After all, it’s Google- the end all be all of multinational tech companies today! However, I decided to take the plunge and go for it recently. Once I completed the certification, I thought it might be helpful to share some tips for anyone looking to expand their knowledge with Google. 

 

How does someone go about learning with Google?

 

If you want to expand your professional digital skills, here are three platforms you can check out to assist you: 

 

There are self-paced courses you can enroll in for a fee through Coursera. This online learning platform partners with companies and universities so individuals can easily enroll in a course and expand their skills without the effort needed to enroll in a traditional class offered by a university.  In my opinion, these offerings look best for someone hoping to launch or revamp their career. Some of the courses include Google Tech Support or Google Project Management.  

 

A second option is to check out free offerings with Google Skillshop. Skillshop is very product specific and can help you learn how to use Google products commonly used for digital advertising. 

 

The third option is Google Digital Garage. On this platform, there are all types of courses useful to just about anyone. There are courses on general topics such as public speaking, and  networking, and more tech oriented courses on topics like coding and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is also where you can find their one free certificate offered, the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing. 

 

Who is Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing Certificate best suited for?

 

As I worked through the course material for the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, I was surprised to see how much I already knew. There was no reason at all for me to be intimidated to complete this course. This was the stuff I do every day! If you work as a digital marketer, you may also be a little disappointed to learn there isn’t much to the course that is new to you. I did learn about some Google products I was unaware of, so I am looking forward to seeing how I can implement them into our client’s marketing strategies. 

 

 If you work in marketing but you started your marketing career without a recently earned marketing degree or you started your career over ten years ago, there are topics within this course you may not be familiar with as so much has changed in the digital world in the last decade. Anyone who owns or is thinking of starting a business without marketing experience could also benefit. 

 

What are some tips for completing the course? 

 

The course work for the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course is broken down into many modules. You can complete them in any order you choose. The course is designed to require around 40 hours for completion if you go into the course with very little prior knowledge of digital marketing. 

 

If you have marketing experience, there are some tricks I found to help me breeze through the parts of the course I knew very well much faster. Google has nicely designed this learning platform so that you may test out of the modules you feel confident about. I also discovered for me it was faster to read the script provided with the learning videos in each module as opposed to watching the videos. What was supposed to take 40 hours then was easily completed by me in a couple evenings. 

 

How do you receive your certificate of completion for the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing Course?

 

At the end of the course, there is a 40 question multiple choice test. I will say, some of the questions were challenging. They were not just regurgitated from the practice quizzes at the end of each learning module. Upon completion, Google generates a digital certificate with your name you can download to save and/or print. 

 

Overall, I felt the learning process for the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course was easy to follow. I liked Google’s learning platform. As someone who has a degree in education I can say the course was well thought out and conducive to learning.  I would have enjoyed learning more challenging information for me personally, but there is a lot someone less experienced in digital marketing could learn from this course to advance their career or business.

Happy Marketing! -Heather Murr, Light Alive Content Manager