10 Free Online Courses for Entrepreneurs

Video transcript: One of the hardest things about starting a business is that you need to learn everything yourself. You need to become a digital marketer, a web designer, a product researcher, and an accountant even though you've had no experience doing any of that before. And you need to do all of these things while doing one of the most rewarding, challenging, life-changing thing, and that is starting a business. 

Now, I can't make starting a business easier for you. Either you'll put in the work or you won't. But I will make it easier to learn the business skills that you need. That's because today I'm going to share ten free online courses for entrepreneurs. 

Whether you need to get smart on Facebook ads, master email marketing, or use your time more effectively, you will find ten free online courses for entrepreneurs that you're going to want to sign up for today.

Hey, everyone. It's Jessica from Oberlo. If you're new here, we talk a lot about entrepreneurship, marketing, and how to handle this new COVID-19 economy. If you're one of the black sheep that's using this time to learn new skills, build a business, and otherwise change your life, then you belong to this community. 

Enough of the intro stuff. Let's launch right into our list of free online courses for entrepreneurs. 

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1. Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

I wanna start this list of online courses for entrepreneurs by talking about digital marketing courses because I know a lot of you have told us how hard it is to master digital marketing. So the first course that I recommend is Google's Fundamentals of Digital Marketing. 

Google created this course specifically to help people grow their business or jumpstart their career, and it's perfect for both. It's one of the best free courses around because, well, Google, and you can dive into the course at any point in the course or take it from beginning to end. 

There are a lot of lessons within the course that are valuable in their own right, and since the course is free, there's nothing to lose to sign up and then cherry-pick the actual lessons that you want.

The other really cool thing about Google's Fundamentals of Digital Marketing is that you get a certificate after you've completed the whole course and you can add that certificate to your resume or to your LinkedIn profile. 

And having a certificate from Google is never a bad thing. If you're looking for a way to boost your digital marketing skills, start with Google's Fundamentals of Digital Marketing.

2. Facebook’s Blueprint

Of course, we can't talk about online marketing without talking about Facebook. That's why next on the list is Facebook's Blueprint. 

Facebook is a powerful asset for anyone who's selling online. 

There's really no other ad platform as powerful as Facebook, and there's probably no other ad platform as confusing and frustrating as Facebook. The Facebook Blueprint demystifies a lot of what's confusing about this platform. It teaches you how to get started with advertising, target the right audience, convert leads, and more. 

Essentially, you'll find all the information you need to get started with Facebook at your fingertips and for free. All you need to get started is a Facebook account, and then you can simply log in and select the broad topic that's most interesting to you, or start exploring all of the topics.

3. Buffer’s Introduction to Social Media Strategy

If you don't yet have the budget for Facebook ads then a great way to start marketing right now is through organic social media. However, if you're new to social media, that too can be a really complex world to dive into. 

That's why I love this third course on our list of free online courses for entrepreneurs. It's Buffer's Social Media Strategy course. Now, I love Buffer and I've used it personally. They are one of the top brands when it comes to mastering social media. 

I just wanna note, however, that Buffer's Social Media Strategy course is definitely for people who are just beginning. 

That makes this course perfect for you if you're just starting to get into social media for your own company or for another brand. With this course, you'll be able to develop your brand voice on social media and create content that your audience wants to see. 

This is a free course, kind of. It's hosted on Skillshare. Right now, if you sign up for Skillshare, you get your first two months for free, and that's plenty of time to take Buffer's Social Media Strategy course. Just make sure that unless you wanna poke around Skillshare you cancel before that free two-month trial is over. Otherwise, you will get charged.

4. Wishpond’s Email Marketing Masterclass For Beginners

The next free online course you need to know about, especially if you're beefing up your marketing skills, is Wishpond's Email Marketing Masterclass. 

Email marketing is such a powerful tool, but it overwhelms lots of entrepreneurs. They get really hung up on what they should automate and what campaigns and flows they should use. Luckily, this course simplifies all of that and breaks it down for the beginner. 

In this course, you learn how to avoid common email marketing mistakes, build your email lists, and then create funnels that will make those email lists convert into customers. Whether you need to get started on email marketing for your day job or for your own brand, this is an excellent free online course to start with.

5. Oberlo 101

Let's move on from marketing courses to more all-encompassing entrepreneurship courses. And if you'll forgive me for a little minute of vanity here, I want to mention Oberlo 101. 

Oberlo 101 is great for people who want to start an online business but don't want to risk a lot of money on the upfront investment inventory. 

That's because Oberlo 101 takes you through all the steps to start and scale your very own dropshipping business. 

If you're not already familiar with the dropshipping model, it's a really popular business model that retailers around the world use. Instead of worrying about inventory management, you spend more of your time focused on marketing, building your website, and converting browsers into buyers.

There's no time like the present. Sign up for Oberlo 101 if you want way more of me talking to you about how to build a business.

6. Shopify Compass

The next of ten free online courses for entrepreneurs you should be aware of is Shopify Compass. Well, okay, so, Shopify Compass isn't actually a single course. It's even better than that. It's a platform of all kinds of courses that you, the entrepreneur, need to grow and scale your business. 

What's cool is these courses are offered at different skill levels, so if you're not a total beginner, head to Shopify Compass. You'll find intermediate and advanced courses there too. If you are a total beginner, head to Shopify Compass. You'll also find courses that are geared toward students who are completely new to this online entrepreneurship stuff. 

And even better, once you sign up for Shopify Compass, you get access to a community of entrepreneurs, and there's nothing better than being able to bounce ideas with other people who are also starting their own business. And you even get invitations to special events. So, Shopify's really throwing all they've got at you. If you sign up for Shopify Compass, there's a ton of value, and it's free.

7. Photography Course

The next few free online courses for entrepreneurs that I wanna mention in our list of free online courses have to do with design. 

Customers are visual creatures. When they see it, they like it and they wanna buy it. 

But if what they see is a bad product photo or a poorly-designed website, they're not gonna buy, so you need to improve these skills so you can convert your browsers into buyers.

That's why the next free course on our list is Photography Course. No marketing gimmicks here. It's the most straightforward course name you could possibly imagine.

Photography has always been a valuable skill for entrepreneurs to have, but in the past, photography required so much upfront investment in time and so much upfront investment in money for all that gear that very few entrepreneurs bothered to learn it. 

You do not have that excuse anymore. Anyone with an iPhone can take stunning photos that they can then use on their website as product photos and as social media content.

Now, of course, anyone with an iPhone is not currently taking those stunning product photos, and that's because you still need to learn a few skills in order to get the most out of the equipment that you have. 

Enter photographycourse.net. Photography Course offers a range of courses so that whether you're a beginner or a more intermediate or advanced photographer, you'll find something there to help you up your skill level.

8. Canva’s Design School

The other free online design course that I wanna mention is Canva's Design School. I love Canva. I think it's a shortcut to make any graphic look 100 times better. 

And what I love about Canva's Design School is that they have a whole range of classes to help you take your images from blah to wow. These are great courses for anyone who wants to know how they can better use the elements of design in their marketing materials, in social media, and on their website. 

Guys, I have never started a dropshipping business without using Canva to create my social media posts. It's just such an easy tool to use that I strongly recommend you go take Canva courses. Check out the Canva tool because you're short-changing yourself and your business if you don't take advantage of free online courses for entrepreneurs and free tools like this.

9. Highbrow’s Productivity Course

The last two courses are a little something different. These are skills that a lot of entrepreneurs don't even think about, and then they get burned out, and then they quit while the other entrepreneurs go on to make five, six, seven figures. 

The skills I'm talking about are productivity skills. Guys, if you don't learn how to manage your time smart, your new business will run you into the ground. Luckily, there are a few free online courses for entrepreneurs to help you develop your productivity skills so that you can get more done more efficiently.

The first that I wanna mention is Highbrow's Productivity Course.

Now, unlike the other courses, this is actually a course that's set up as a series of emails that you receive. 

How it works is you receive ten emails over ten days, and each of those emails has about five minutes worth of reading material in it. 

One of the reasons that I love this format is that it allows you to learn and then implement small changes to make yourself more productive on a day-by-day basis.

Another cool thing about this particular course is that you'll get productivity tips from the likes of Angela Merkel, Oprah Winfrey, and Elon Musk. An all-star cast like that will almost definitely get you all-star results, so sign up for this free online course because you have nothing to lose and so many productivity insights to gain.

10. Asana Academy

Finally on our list of free online courses is Asana Academy. This is another productivity course, but this course is a little different. That's because the Asana course focuses on the Kanban methodology of structuring your work. 

I personally love having a visual representation of the projects that I need to get done, and I love being able to break those projects into smaller, more manageable chunks. That makes these big projects feel a lot less intimidating and I'm more likely to see progress on them throughout the time that I'm working on them. That's why I think Asana Academy is one of the best free online courses for entrepreneurs in 2020 and I highly recommend you check it out. 

And like the Google course that we talked about in the beginning, you can also earn a certificate with this Asana course that you can put on your resume and on LinkedIn.

Now it's over to you. Which of these free online courses for entrepreneurs are you going to enroll in next? And did we leave any free online courses off of this list? Let me know in the comments below because I read them and I respond to them. 

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