Top 8 Content Marketing Training Courses in 2026

The best content marketing course for you depends on your level and your budget. For a free, recognized certification, start with HubSpot Academy’s Content Marketing Certification. If you want to grow traffic from Google with content, Ahrefs’ free Blogging for Business course is the most practical. For content strategy, take The Strategy of Content Marketing from UC Davis on Coursera, and for a step-by-step course on creating and promoting content for your own business, our Content Marketing Course is part of our 21-course bundle for $127.

We use content marketing to grow our own website and courses, and we checked every course on this list on its provider’s own page for its cost, length and certificate.

The 8 Best Content Marketing Courses In 2026

1. HubSpot Content Marketing Certification
2. Semrush Advanced Content Marketing
3. Ahrefs Blogging for Business
4. Google Promote a Business With Content
5. Reliablesoft Content Marketing Course
6. The Strategy of Content Marketing (Coursera)
7. Udemy Content Marketing Masterclass
8. AMA Content Marketing Certification

Content Marketing Courses At a Glance

Course	Best For	Cost	Duration	Certificate
HubSpot Content Marketing Certification	A free, recognized certification	Free	8h 23m	Yes, free
Semrush Advanced Content Marketing	Growing a blog with advanced tactics	Free	About 4 hours	Yes, free
Ahrefs Blogging for Business	SEO-driven content	Free	About 5 hours	No
Google Promote a Business With Content	Small business owners new to content	Free	3 hours	No
Reliablesoft Content Marketing Course	A practical course for your own business	$127 with all 21 Reliablesoft courses	7 lessons, self-paced	Yes
The Strategy of Content Marketing (Coursera)	Content strategy (intermediate)	Coursera subscription (7-day free trial)	About 9 hours	Yes, with a subscription
Udemy Content Marketing Masterclass	A low-cost, all-round course	Varies with Udemy sales	3h 46m	Certificate of completion
AMA Content Marketing Certification	A recognized professional certification	$1,395 (exam only: $349)	15 hours plus exam	Yes, PCM® Content Marketing

Below you will find what each course covers, who it suits, and where it falls short, followed by how to choose the right one.

How To Choose A Content Marketing Course

Start with two questions:

Are you a beginner or an experienced marketer?

• Beginner: start with HubSpot’s free certification, Google’s short course, or our Content Marketing Course.
• Experienced: go deeper with Ahrefs’ Blogging for Business, Semrush’s Advanced Content Marketing, or The Strategy of Content Marketing on Coursera. For a recognized professional credential, look at the AMA certification.

Do you want a free or a paid course?

• Free: HubSpot, Semrush, Ahrefs and Google cover the essentials, and HubSpot and Semrush give you a free certificate.
• Paid: pay when you want a structured path with a certificate (Coursera, AMA) or a course built around growing your own business (Reliablesoft).

Who Should Take A Content Marketing Course?

Content is behind almost every digital marketing channel: SEO, social media, email, and even paid ads all depend on it. A content marketing course is useful if you are:

• A beginner who wants to get into content marketing or content writing.
• A marketer or SEO who wants to plan content that ranks and converts, not just publish more of it.
• A business owner who wants to attract customers with a blog, videos, or a newsletter.

Are Content Marketing Courses Worth It?

Yes, if you pick the right one and put it into practice. A good course saves you from piecing together advice from scattered blog posts and gives you a framework to follow.

That said, you don’t need an expensive course to start. The free courses from HubSpot, Semrush and Ahrefs cover most of what beginners need. What makes the difference is publishing: a course teaches you the process, but you only get good at content marketing by creating content, measuring the results, and improving it.

Pay for a course when you want a certificate that employers recognize, or a structured program that shows you how to apply content marketing to your own business.

Free Content Marketing Courses

1. Content Marketing Certification Course By HubSpot Academy

• Best For: A free, recognized certification
• Cost: Free
• Duration: 8 hours 23 minutes (14 lessons)
• Certificate: Yes, free

HubSpot Academy’s Content Marketing Certification Course: Grow Better with Content is a free course on creating content that attracts and converts an audience. It’s led by HubSpot Academy’s Justin Champion, with lessons from more than a dozen HubSpot instructors and guest experts.

The course covers the following topics:

• The power of storytelling
• Building a content creation framework
• Planning a long-term content strategy
• Generating content ideas
• Creating quality blog content
• How HubSpot uses blogging to rank on Google
• Repurposing content
• Topic clusters and pillar pages
• Video marketing strategy
• Guest blogging
• Promoting and measuring your content

Why Enroll In This Course?

It’s the most complete free content marketing course, with 14 lessons, 54 videos and 11 quizzes, and the certification is free. The lessons on topic clusters and pillar pages show how HubSpot plans content to rank for competitive keywords.

Where it falls short: it’s long, and some lessons show HubSpot’s own tools, although the strategy works with any platform.

2. Advanced Content Marketing By Semrush Academy

• Best For: Growing a blog with advanced tactics
• Cost: Free
• Duration: About 4 hours (20 lessons)
• Certificate: Yes, free after an exam

Semrush Academy’s Advanced Content Marketing course is taught by Brian Dean and shows you how to grow a blog with content marketing.

Some of the topics covered in the course include:

• Content campaigns
• Blog campaigns
• Writing long-form posts
• Choosing content formats
• Promoting your content
• Optimizing your blog for conversions

Why Enroll In This Course?

It goes beyond typical blogging advice, with step-by-step processes, worksheets and short video lessons. You can take an exam at the end and earn a free Semrush Academy certificate.

Where it falls short: it focuses on growing a blog, so it says little about social media, video, or email content.

3. Blogging for Business By Ahrefs

• Best For: SEO-driven content
• Cost: Free
• Duration: About 5 hours (40 lessons)
• Certificate: No

Blogging for Business is a free course from Ahrefs, taught by its CMO, Tim Soulo. It shows you how to grow a blog with search traffic and turn readers into customers.

The course has 11 modules that cover:

• Why content marketing compounds over time
• Analyzing the traffic potential and ranking difficulty of a keyword
• Finding content ideas with high business value
• Optimizing an article for a target keyword
• Creating content that promotes itself and earns links
• Promoting content and building backlinks through outreach

Why Enroll In This Course?

It’s the most practical free course on SEO-driven content marketing, and it teaches you to choose topics by their business value, not just their search volume. Ahrefs also has a free Content Marketing Course, a set of 9 shorter videos (about 2 hours) by Sam Oh, if you want a quick overview first.

Where it falls short: there’s no certificate, and the examples use Ahrefs’ own tools.

4. Promote a Business With Content By Google

• Best For: Small business owners new to content
• Cost: Free
• Duration: 3 hours (2 modules)
• Certificate: No

Promote a business with content is a free beginner course from Google on Skillshop, Google’s training platform.

It has two modules:

• Make the most of video
• Get started with content marketing

Why Enroll In This Course?

It’s a short, clear introduction to promoting a business with content and video, with quizzes to check what you learned. You can sign up for free with your Google account.

Where it falls short: it covers the basics only and doesn’t come with a certificate.

Paid Content Marketing Courses

5. Content Marketing Course By Reliablesoft

• Best For: A practical course for your own business
• Cost: $127, as part of a bundle of 21 digital marketing courses
• Duration: 7 lessons, self-paced
• Certificate: Yes

Our Content Marketing Course is a beginner course that shows you, step by step, how to plan, create and promote content that drives traffic and sales. It’s taught by Alex Chris, who has more than 20 years of digital marketing experience.

The course covers the following topics:

• Introduction to content marketing
• Creating effective content
• Pillar pages and topic clusters
• Content publishing and promotion
• Essential content marketing tools
• A content marketing checklist to follow

Why Enroll In This Course?

It’s based on the same process we use to drive traffic from Google to our own website and our clients’ sites, and it was updated in September 2026.

The course is part of the Digital Marketing Full Course, so for $127 you get all 21 of our courses, including SEO, keyword research, email marketing, and Google Ads. The courses have 5-star reviews, come with a 60-day money-back guarantee, and let you earn an SEO certification and a digital marketing certificate.

Where it falls short: the course isn’t sold on its own, only as part of the bundle.

6. The Strategy of Content Marketing By UC Davis (Coursera)

• Best For: Content strategy (intermediate)
• Cost: Coursera subscription (7-day free trial)
• Duration: About 9 hours (4 modules)
• Certificate: Yes, with a subscription

The Strategy of Content Marketing is offered by the University of California, Davis, on Coursera and taught by Rebekah May. It’s an intermediate course on building a content marketing strategy.

It has four modules:

• What is content marketing?
• Getting started with a content marketing strategy
• Planning a content strategy
• Competitive analysis

Why Enroll In This Course?

It’s one of the most popular content marketing courses online, with more than 690,000 learners and a 4.5 rating from over 5,300 reviews. It suits marketers who want to plan content strategically, and it’s included in Coursera Plus, which gives you access to thousands of other Coursera courses and certificates.

Where it falls short: it focuses on strategy rather than hands-on content creation or SEO, and you need a paid subscription for the certificate.

7. Content Marketing Masterclass By Udemy

• Best For: A low-cost, all-round course
• Cost: Varies with Udemy’s regular sales
• Duration: 3 hours 46 minutes (95 lectures)
• Certificate: Certificate of completion

The Content Marketing Masterclass: Create Content That Sells by Brad Merrill is one of Udemy’s most popular content marketing courses, with more than 25,000 learners and a 4.5 rating from over 5,600 ratings.

It covers the following topics:

• Classic marketing fundamentals
• Content marketing essentials
• Generating content ideas
• Copywriting
• Types of content, formats and repurposing
• SEO content
• Content promotion
• Email marketing
• Measuring your results

Why Enroll In This Course?

It covers the whole process, from ideas and writing to SEO, promotion and email, in under four hours, and it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Where it falls short: it was last updated in July 2023, so it doesn’t cover AI tools or recent changes to search and social media.

8. Content Marketing Certification By AMA

• Best For: A recognized professional certification
• Cost: $1,395 ($1,295 for AMA members); the exam alone is $349
• Duration: 15 hours of self-paced learning, plus the exam
• Certificate: Yes, the AMA Professional Certified Marketer® (PCM®) in Content Marketing

The Content Marketing Certification by the American Marketing Association prepares you for the PCM® Content Marketing exam. The training is delivered by its partner, the Content Marketing Institute.

To get certified, you pass an online exam of 100 multiple-choice questions in two hours, with a score of 80% or higher. There are no formal eligibility requirements, but the AMA recommends a degree and several years of marketing experience. You renew the certification every three years with continuing education.

The lessons cover the following topics:

• Modern content marketing
• Building your team
• Operations and content modeling
• Standards and guidelines
• Audience
• Product development
• Storytelling and story mapping
• Measurement

Why Enroll In This Course?

It’s the most recognized professional certification in content marketing, and a good fit if you already work in the field and want a credential that stands out.

Where it falls short: it’s expensive compared with the other courses on this list, and it’s aimed at experienced marketers, not beginners.

FAQ For Content Marketing Courses

Can I learn content marketing for free?

Yes. HubSpot, Semrush, Ahrefs and Google all offer free content marketing courses, and HubSpot and Semrush include a free certificate.

How long does it take to learn content marketing?

You can learn the basics in a few days with a course of 3 to 8 hours. Getting good at it takes months of practice, because you learn most by publishing content and improving it based on the results.

How do you become a content marketer?

Learn the fundamentals with a course, practice by writing for your own blog or social media, build a portfolio of published work, and then apply for content writing or content marketing roles. Our guide on how to get into content marketing explains each step.

How We Chose These Courses

We looked for content marketing courses that teach practical skills, from providers with a track record: HubSpot, Semrush, Ahrefs, Google, UC Davis on Coursera, Udemy and the AMA, plus our own course.

We checked every course on the provider’s own page for its cost, length and certificate, and we removed courses that are no longer available. We included free and paid options, and courses for beginners as well as experienced marketers. For courses on other topics, see our list of the best online courses.

The review was done by a digital marketer with more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing.

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