Finding free certification courses online to earn money is no easy task. Oftentimes, decent courses from reputable institutions come at a fee.
Most of the free ones are either not worth your time or don’t come with a certificate.
If you’re here because you want to learn a skill but can’t afford to enroll for a paid course, you’re in the right place.
The article will discuss some of the best certification courses that you can learn for free and start reaping off your new skill straightaway.
Let’s dive in!
Free Certification Courses Online To Earn Money
1.) HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification
HubSpot Academy is a world leader in inbound marketing.
Their Inbound Marketing Certification is probably the most famous such course on the internet, and it’s not hard to see why.
Firstly, it is short. The entire program comprises seven lessons and takes just over five hours to complete.
It is also a tried-and-tested offering. Its online reviews are mostly positive.
HubSpot seems to be doing a great job updating the course to keep it in line with the changing dynamics of marketing.
By the end of the course, you should have a comprehensive understanding of inbound marketing strategies.
You should also be able to understand your way around search engine optimization, content creation, email marketing, social media promotion, and lead nurturing.
2.) Fundamentals Of Digital Marketing Certification
Fundamentals of Digital Marketing Certification is an online course offered by Google through its nonprofit program Google Digital Garage.
The course covers various aspects of digital marketing and is delivered via a combination of reading materials, video tutorials, and quizzes.
You will take an exam at the end, after which you will receive your certification.
These are some of the things you will learn:
- Establishing an online presence
- Search engine optimization
- Social media marketing
- Display advertisement
- Search engine marketing
- Video marketing
- E-commerce
It is an inclusive course that you would greatly benefit from whether you’re a marketing beginner or a fairly clued-up marketer.
3.) The Complete iOS 10 Developer
Udemy’s The Complete iOS 10 Developer course will equip you with developer skills and teach you how to use the skills to make money. That’s what makes it special.
In approximately 49 hours of on-demand video, you will learn how to develop iOS apps and get into Swift programming.
You will also be introduced to Firebase, JSON, and RESTful apps and be shown how to create calculator apps, transcription apps, and converter apps.
Towards the end, there is an entire section on raising capital and setting up a startup.
This will come in handy if you plan to get into self-employment once you complete the course.
4.) The Science Of Well-Being
If you are not a fan of IT stuff, Yale University’s The Science of Well-Being is a highly-rated course that is available for free on Coursera.
The course talks about increasing one’s inner happiness and adopting healthy and productive habits.
It also introduces learners to features of the mind, misconceptions about happiness, and a range of other topics that often act as a gateway to the broader subject of human psychology and behavior.
By now you’re probably wondering how you can make money out of this.
Well, if you have a knack to judge people’s behavior, you will now have the scientific backing to give pro advice at a fee.
This could be through a YouTube channel, a blog, or perhaps in-person in formal office settings.
You might not see it, but people are becoming more self-aware. Mental well-being is no longer subordinate to physical and financial fitness.
You could make a lot of money helping people understand and improve themselves.
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5.) CS50’s Introduction To Computer Science
The CS50x is a Harvard University offering that seeks to introduce you to algorithmic thinking and efficient problem solving in the intellectual domain of computer science.
It covers topics like algorithms, abstraction, data structures, security, web development, software engineering, resource management, and encapsulation.
Over the 12 months that you will be doing the course, you will be subjected to 9 programming assignments.
If you attain a satisfactory score, you will be given a certificate, with which you can become a:
- Software Developer
- Web or mobile app developer
- Data scientist
- Data analyst
- Entrepreneur
- Freelancer working on sites like Upwork and Toptal
6.) SQL 101: Databases For Beginners
SQL 101: Databases for Beginners is a beginner-level course on Skillshare developed and taught by renowned web development teacher Kalob Taulien.
It seeks to introduce you to data management and schemas. It is a short one with only 16 lessons and a combined 44 minutes long.
You don’t need special software to take the course either—just a computer and an internet connection.
By the end of it, you should be able to select, update, insert, and delete data, as well as create and delete tables in an SQL database.
That’s about all you need to start earning money as a database administrator.
Legit And Free Certification Courses Online To Earn Money
7.) Business Foundations
Business Foundations has a 4.6-star rating on Coursera.
It’s offered by Wharton University of Pennsylvania and taught by Christian Terwiesch, department chair and professor in Wharton’s Operations, Information and Decisions department.
The course will take you five weeks to complete, after which you will receive a certificate of completion.
The school even offers opportunities in affiliate companies like SnapDeal and Shazam to exceptional performers.
Generally, the course will give you basic literacy in the landscape of business and help you start or grow your own business, or transition to a business career.
You will leave with theoretical understanding and working knowledge in accounting, marketing, finance, operations, and other fundamental business topics.
8.) Introductory Photography Course
Are you into photography and everything cameras? Chris Bray’s Introductory Photography Course might be worth a shot.
Rated 4.6 stars on Udemy, the course is tailored for beginners and keen-enthusiast photographers trying to up their camera game.
All you need to get started is just a camera. It doesn’t matter which one, either.
The full range of cameras is covered, as the course touches on the fundamentals that are across the board in photography.
9.) Modern Web Design
Modern Web Design is a free course on The Gymnasium built for aspiring front-end developers, designers, and creatives.
The instructor, Aaron Gustafson, will introduce you to HTML and how to structure HTML content.
Then, he will take you through CSS and later show you how to use JavaScript to make your web pages more interactive.
All you need to get started is familiarity with the internet and experience with a text editor, like Atom, Visual Code Studio, or Sublime Text.
10.) IBM Data Science Professional Certificate
The IBM Data Science Professional Certificate is a comprehensive online program offered for free on Coursera.
It is developed by IBM and covers a range of topics in data science, including machine learning, data visualization, data analysis, and Python programming.
The course will take approximately 10 months to complete and will be delivered through video lectures and hands-on exercises on the IBM cloud.
Upon completion, learners receive both certification and a digital badge from IBM.
A digital badge, especially from a reputable company such as IBM and Microsoft, can make your profile stand out on job sites like Indeed and LinkedIn.
You can enroll for the course anytime. It not entirely self-paced, but it is not exactly rigid if you have 3-4 hours to spare per week.
11.) The Machine Learning Specialization
The Machine Learning Specialization is a certification program offered as a 3-course package on Coursera.
It is an offering of Stanford Online and DeepLearning.AI and is designed for beginners trying to deep their toes into machine learning.
The course covers topics such as logistic regression, neural networks, decision trees, and multiple linear regression (all covered under supervised learning), as well as recommender systems and clustering, and dimensionality reduction (covered under unsupervised learning).
You will also be familiarized with the best practices in Silicon Valley for ML and AI innovation.
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12.) Excel Skills For Business Specialization
Excel Skills for Business Specialization is a decent program for anyone trying to advance their Excel Skills.
It is offered on Coursera by Macquarie University in a series of courses that home in on various aspects and functions of the software Microsoft Excel.
You will learn how to design sophisticated spreadsheets, execute shortcuts, perform calculations, manage large data sets, extract information from large datasets, and present data.
The course will take 6 months to complete. Coursera suggests a commitment of about four hours a week.
A certificate is issued upon completion of the course, and not necessarily after passing a test.
There will be quizzes throughout the program, though, and you will need to adhere to deadlines to remain enrolled.
13.) edX Entrepreneurship In Emerging Economies program
Emerging economies are usually full of market gaps that anyone with an entrepreneurial mind can exploit.
The problem comes in when it’s time to identify those market gaps.
The Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies program is designed to help you get around that conundrum.
Taught by Harvard professor Tarun Khanna, the course focuses on common problems across a range of sectors.
This include healthcare and infrastructure, and how to spot and solve them.
It also touches on financing, branding, property rights management, scaling up operations, etc.
By the end of the course, you should know how to set up a business, finance it, scale existing operations, and venture into new operations in various markets across South Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
You should be able to compete favorably in foreign jurisdictions without stepping outside legal and ethical bounds.
The program is self-paced and comes with an option to upgrade. Committing 3‒5 hours a week, it should take you no more than 6 weeks to complete.
14.) Google Ads Search Certification
Google Ads Search Certification is basically about building and optimizing Google Search campaigns.
It begins with a superficial knowledge-check assessment, which is optional, followed by a Google Ads Search assessment.
You can take the assessment and receive certification without attending a single lesson. The exam consists of 50 questions that must be answered in 75 minutes.
If you have no Google Ads experience, you will need to take the nine lessons.
They are all brief (the longest is 32 minutes long) but the topics may prove foreign to a beginner.
You will learn how to grow your business with Google Ads, boost performance with Optimization Score, increase performance with Performance Planner, etc.
It is clearly something you can do in a single day, but you want to spread out the lessons to absorb the concepts better and get ready for the assessment.
15.) Supervision Skills – Managing Groups And Employee Interaction
Supervision Skills is a free certification course on Alison that targets team leaders and supervisors.
It comes in three modules, broken down into 14 topics, and is meant to be completed in 3‒4 hours.
The first module covers group and team management and takes up the bulk of the course.
The second one is about taking corrective action as a leader and dealing with grievance.
It also touches on changes in the workplace and how to embrace and adjust to it as a supervisor.
The last module is a comprehensive assessment to test your understanding of the course and determine whether or not you deserve a certificate.
The course may be beneficial if you are eyeing a supervisor role or are in one and simply want to improve your leadership skills.
Conclusion: Free Certification Courses Online To Earn Money
If you were looking for free certification courses online to earn money, I hope you found this article helpful.
As you have seen, most of the courses are short and won’t require you to invest in costly equipment upfront. So don’t shy away from attempting your favorite one.
