The Best Content Marketing Courses in 2023

It’s 2023, and you can learn whatever you want online.

Hip-hop dance? Check. Yoga? Absolutely.

So of course, if you’d like to learn to become a better content marketer, there are many content marketing courses for that as well.

Whether you’re totally new to content marketing and want to jump-start your career or have years of experience and want to sharpen the sword, there’s a content marketing class on this list for you.

SiegeLearn

SiegeLearn is the content marketing course that will teach you the SEO, content marketing, and link-building strategies used by the Siege Media team to drive results for some of the biggest brands in the world today (and tomorrow).

Instructors Ross Hudgens, Caroline Gilbert, and Vince Nero—all titans of the content marketing industry in their own regard—unveil the methods they’ve used to achieve repeatable and sustainable growth for hundreds of clients over the last decade.

That’s a lot of expertise and experience in one “room.”

SiegeLearn covers everything from ideation to execution of various content types, best practices for outreach to ranking and optimization strategies, and more. This course, paired with our content strategy course, will set you up to succeed in content marketing for yourself, your site, or your clients.

SEO That Works by Brian Dean

SEO That Works by Brian Dean is one of my favorite beginner to intermediate courses on the *content* side of SEO.

In this course, Brian covers fascinating frameworks such as the “linkreators” (the people who can give you links), why they are often your core audience for content, and how to inject certain features into your content to make it more shareable and linkable.

If you’re looking for a crash course in efficient and effective blogging, this is it. There may be no one better suited to teach high-leverage SEO than Brian, who gets probably hundreds of thousands to millions of visitors a month with a couple of dozen blog posts.

What I like about this course is it’s focused (really covers SEO from the content side deeply, instead of trying to cover technical SEO and advanced keyword research too). I also like that it’s engaging and easy for the beginner to follow along with. Brian is excellent at developing frameworks and names to easily explain complex ideas (e.g. Skyscraper Technique).

Traffic Think Tank

Traffic Think Tank is a combination of a private community and courses and training on SEO and content marketing.

One thing I’ve learned in my years working in digital marketing: none of the exciting conversations happen on blogs, on stage, or in courses.

They happen at the conference bar.

This is true across fields (for reference, I’ve attended or helped organize dozens of conferences in the A/B testing and CRO space, and also attended dozens of content and SEO conferences).

So joining a community means you’re much likelier to get unfiltered feedback, cutting-edge tactics, and raw and honest discussions.

That alone is worth the price of admission. Then you get access to all of the existing training materials from some of the biggest names in SEO, as well as ad hoc webinars and interviews. This is a great program.

CXL Institute’s Link Building Course

Link building is a massive component of SEO and is entirely underrated in the content marketing world.

Many companies that teach content marketing do so from the vantage point of a) starting very early b) having a large content creation budget and c) having a super high domain authority.

Most companies don’t have those benefits.

Most companies, rather, are dealing with limited resources and low or middling domain authority. This means they can’t functionally just produce content at a high pace and hope it ranks. They have to do some link-building, both manual and organic.

HubSpot Academy’s Inbound Marketing Certificate

Hubspot Academy is often the gateway drug for marketers entering their careers. It’s user-friendly, ubiquitous, and teaches the foundations well.

The foundations include things like buyer personas, social media marketing, and social media management, content marketing formats (such as webinars, podcasts, blog posts, etc.), and measuring your results from content marketing.

I think this is a good introduction, though you’ll likely ‘graduate’ from this material rather quickly.

Use HubSpot’s Academy to train new or junior employees, or get your jumpstart into content marketing. Then start executing and gaining experience, and you can pick up some other courses from this list as well.

Grow & Convert’s Top Content Marketer

Grow & Convert’s Top Content Marketer program is a comprehensive content marketing course as well as a curated expert community with bonus materials.

The course itself is in-depth, covering content strategy (with case studies from my different types of business and business models), content production, promotion, and conversion optimization.

The cool thing is the community, though. It includes an ongoing discussion and the ability to get your questions answered, but also live bonus Q&As with marketing celebrities like Dave Gerhardt and Brian Dean.

Blogging for Business by Ahrefs

I’m an Ahrefs fanboy, and I love the way they do marketing and content.

Of course, anything they put, I trust as being high quality. This course is no different.

Though it’s definitely a beginner course, I like how they frame their lessons.

It’s all about predictable growth, not just spikes of traffic or fluffy stuff like building BS buyer personas. Another cool thing is it shows you how to do everything using Ahrefs itself (well unless you use a competitor to Ahrefs like SEMRush).

Anyway, for beginners to SEO-driven content marketing and for those hoping to learn the Ahrefs platform better, check out this free course. It’s pretty good.

Must-Know Content Marketing Terms And Definitions

Did you, while researching online about gardening, chance upon a blog on plants for small spaces, got interested, visited the website and Instagram pages of the company, and ended up buying potted plants from them? Great — you have just witnessed a successful content marketing strategy!

So, what is content marketing? It is a type of marketing wherein businesses create and share relevant content that resonates with the target audience, with the ultimate goal of nurturing brand image and converting leads into loyal customers.

Now for some statistics: 84% of businesses in 2020 had a content marketing strategy in place, up from 77% in 2019. In the same year, 37% of businesses spent less than USD 10,000 on content marketing, while 19% spent between USD10,001-USD 25,000.

Now, why are these businesses focusing on content marketing? The key reasons are to generate quality leads, increase website traffic, and improve brand image. SEO-friendly content for Top of the Marketing Funnel (TOFU) is created to achieve these goals, while various analytic tools are used to measure the efficacy of the content.

Well, that’s quite a lot of jargon if you’re new to content marketing. The first step to uncomplicate matters is to familiarize yourself with the content marketing terms and what they mean.

Here are some content marketing terms and definitions that will make it easier for you to navigate the world of content marketing.

A/B Testing or Split Testing

If you attempt to examine two variations of one particular element, say multiple versions of your homepage, keeping everything else constant, then you are Split Testing. This is a metrics-based evaluation, wherein multiple elements, like the headline, content format or layout, etc., may be tested to pinpoint the best results.

Above the Fold

This, as per content marketing terminology, is part of a website that is visible first in the browser window. If a visitor doesn’t find this section appealing enough, then chances are there won’t be any further scrolling through the page by that particular user.

Adaptive/ Dynamic/ Personalized Content

This is unique to a user or user group visiting a website based on locality, buying behavior, or declared interests. The idea behind such content tailoring is to serve the right information to the right user at the right time.

Affiliate Marketing

An affiliate website promotes another site’s product and is paid for every click, sale, or registration generated through the backlinks connecting the product site. This is a performance-based income-generating model through carefully curated content.

Algorithm

In content marketing terms, an algorithm is a complex model that a search engine follows to retrieve, analyze, and rank content for its relevance to the search query.

Analytics

Content marketing is meaningless without analyzing the data derived from users browsing through your website, conversion rate, bounce rate, click-through rates, etc. This understanding and utilizing the insights derived thereof is named analytics in content marketing terminology.

Backlinks

Backlinks display other web pages that link to your posts. Search engine rankings and site traffic tend to skyrocket with appropriate backlinks. Note the word ‘appropriate’ as backlinks from credible sources reflect the quality of your site or content.

Buying Cycle

A consumer goes through a prolonged buying cycle of being aware, considering the product, getting a purchase intent, purchasing, and repurchasing. Understanding this buying behavior is crucial for every content marketer.

CMS

Content Management System or CMS is the software that organizations use to manage their gamut of digital content, including websites and blogs. WordPress is a popular CMS.

Content Marketing Funnel

A system of generating awareness among the target audience, nurturing leads, and converting them into customers. Imagine an actual funnel – the wide top of the funnel (TOFU) aims to grab the attention of a cross-section of potential consumers; the middle of the funnel (MOFU) educates and informs with the intent to generate and nurture leads. In contrast, the narrow bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) concentrates on lead conversion through personalized content.

COPE

Create Once, Publish Everywhere is a content strategy where a piece of content is modified to suit various platforms and different user groups. The modified content is then published in the form of infographics, blogs, white papers, e-books, and videos, among others.

Content Strategy

The foundation of content marketing lies in the strategy formulation of what content to create and how and how to distribute the same to achieve specific results. These content marketing terms form the core of any content marketing exercise or campaign

Contextual Advertising

This is a technique in which advertisements on a given web page are relevant to the primary content on that page. Contextual ads lead to better click-through rates and overall revenue.

Copywriting

A very commonly-used content marketing term, copywriting, refers to the art and science of selling through mere words – words that evoke emotion, drive intent, and compels the user to take action. Examples of Copy would be a carefully drafted social media post to get email signup or an exciting product description that induces the reader to click ‘Add to Cart.

CTA

Call-To-Action is what urges the audience to take a specific action such as a subscription to the newsletter, sign up for the webinar, buy now, etc., that is aligned with the company’s long-term goals. This invitation is inserted within the webpage, social media post, infographic, video, and any form of content that a business may be promoting.

Distribution

The way content is distributed over various media channels can be split into organic and paid. In an organic distribution, content is naturally circulated through search engine results, social media shares, and referrals. In the paid form of distribution, content is published through promoted posts on social media, paid ads on search results, etc.

Engagement

The goal of content marketing is to grab the consumer’s attention and generate enough interest to persuade them to engage in some predefined activity, like sharing your content or giving feedback on the same, participating in a poll, or signing up for updates.

Gamification

Content Marketing is all about adding value and garnering interest. To up the interest quotient and ensure brand loyalty, marketers often integrate gaming mechanics like reward points, leaderboards, badges, etc., into their content.

Gated Content

Exclusivity often generates a different level of interest. Gated content is a concept that does just that, making specific content available to only those visitors who are willing to register with the website or simply share their name and email address.

Hashtag

The visibility of a post can be increased manifold with the use of hashtags. Adding hashtags to your digital content associates it with similar content on the web, so any search with the particular hashtag will throw up your article too in the search results.

Keywords

The keyword is a word or short phrase that users type in to search for content on a specific subject on the web. It is used to identify the content of a web page, specifically text content. Ideally, the keyword is strategically placed in the title, page description, and organically throughout the content to improve search visibility. Keywords can be long-tail or short-tail.