Free copywriting courses with certificate are available in various places. Can you believe that? These are actually special. The course is usually designed by professionals who are actually in the industry, they are usually easy to understand, come with bonus included inside them and you will also get a certificate after completing the course. And these free courses are definitely helpful for beginners who have no knowledge on copywriting at all.
At the time of writing this article, there are about two dozens websites offering free copywriting courses, but unfortunately some of them are not so good. I have listed only the best 4-5 websites for finding free copywriting courses with certificate or free copywriting course for beginners.
Whether you’re hoping to work for a specific company or become a freelancer, there are lots of ways you can become a great copywriter. The best way to enhance your copywriting skills is to practice as much as possible, though doing things like reading books on copywriting or participating in online copywriting courses helps as well. Create a strong portfolio that showcases your copywriting skills, and be open to any job that comes your way.
Gary Halbert: The Boron Letters
The first resource is also the weirdest.
Gary Halbert was like the OG internet infomarketer in his day. And he’s got a rap sheet to prove it.
His ads were excellent. The products in his ads? Not so much.
One thing leads to another (as they usually do) and he winds up in jail. Apparently, though, prison is an excellent productivity hack (no free Wi-Fi).
While there, Gary decided to make the most of his incarceration by writing to his son. You know, passing down his fatherly wisdom and all that.
And thus, The Boron Letters came to be.
It’s not always PC. But it is entertaining. Vastly interesting lessons that range from life to business to copywriting.
See, here’s the trick with this copywriting thing. Don’t watch what people say. Watch what they do: The storytelling. The sentence structure (or lack thereof). The conversational tone.
It’s all there inside The Boron Letters. You’ll get distracted while reading it. You’ll question what the hell you’re wasting your time doing. But then you’ll get to the good stuff. And it’ll all be worth it.
The Boron Letters also appear alongside Gary’s other, similarly personal letters on direct-response copywriting. Here’s one example. They were originally packaged as part of a high-dollar subscription thing (you know, those infomarketing guru’s gotta hype something).
But now it’s available for free for all to read. (Gotta love internet piracy.)
CopyHackers: The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting
Many of these resources are going to look like blog posts. (We are shooting for free here, aren’t we?) But in reality they’re so much more.
The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting by the always excellent CopyHackers is a perfect example.
Sure. It’s technically a blog post. But it also clocks in at a 59-minute reading time! So it’s one you’ll want to bookmark, favorite, Someday/Maybe, and come back to reference in the future.
Once again, you can also learn by watching (and not just reading).
Look at that first line:
“Because only rookies write from scratch…”
It’s short and bold. But it also introduces the hook from the get-go. “Rookies”. “Write from Scratch”. Formulas. The entire introduction is a lesson unto itself.
The hook is: zen. The promise of a simpler, easier life.
And then the meat goes through almost every single formula, including old-school class ones, for almost every circumstance imaginable.
Take testimonials for instance.
People are installing ad blockers faster than you can blink. Instead, they choose to rely on recommendations from other individuals (9 out of 10 people trust them more than brand-sponsored messages).
KlientBoost: The Landing Page Copywriting Blueprint
Ad copy is only as good as its landing page at the end of the day. Which means even if you come up with a great 10-word hook, you gotta stretch that out a bit for the page itself.
The Landing Page Copywriting Blueprint from KlientBoost can help. There’s a gifographic for starters (yay, no reading!). But more importantly it unveils the subtle nuances of copywriting for online ad campaigns.
For example, what has the largest bearing on your campaign conversions?
Simple: The offer.
The reason is because different offers (with different hooks for different levels of commitment) will appeal to different groups of people.
That’s why pushing your salesy Facebook campaign to ice cold traffic fails miserably. You gotta warm those peeps up first with infographics, interest them with eBooks, and build trust with case studies before going in for the kill.
These considerations also dictate other things. For example, long or short landing page?
Shorter is better for interested parties who just want the facts, while longer is preferable for brand new visitors.
Point is: You can’t copy-and-paste a copywriting formula and use it at random (no matter how good or timeless it might be). You have to exercise some judgment, consider the circumstances and context. Then you write.
Jon Morrow: His Posts. All of them.
Confession time. Sometimes I cry.
It’s not pretty. A grown, balding man crying. Cringe-worthy. Embarrassing even.
But you can’t blame me. I dare you to read this or this and not tear up a little bit. Go on. Try it.
Half a decade ago, when I was a slave to the man in-house marketer, I would re-write those two posts to internalize the writing. (Because I had a lot of free time. See: Being an employee.)
Hey. If it was good enough for Ben Franklin, it’s good enough for us.
There’s a lot that goes into this copywriting thing.
There’s storytelling arcs from classic movies (we’ll get to that in a bit). Like the “Reluctant Hero” which pops up across Hollywood every quarter or so. There’s the stylistic elements like sentence fragments or line repetition. The twist turns, “open loops,” and unexpected details that force readers to keep, well, reading.
Oh. And did I mention Jon writes with his voice?
ConversionXL: Quick Course on Effective Website Copywriting
180 degrees in the opposite direction we have ConversionXL’s dry, technical, in-depth Quick Course on Effective Website Copywriting (I mean that as a compliment).
Their point of view, unsurprisingly given the name, is a focus on copy that converts. That gets people to take action and give you their info or whip out a credit card.
Most of these other resources listed provide tips, tricks, and formulas. All good and helpful. But ConversionXL takes it one step further, presenting a framework or process for actually sitting down (or standing up – sitting is the new smoking apparently) and writing copy.
It kicks off by walking you through how to perform basic research on the customer, product, and competition. This prep work, truthfully, is where the gold lies.
It’s like that old repairman story. Takes them about five minutes to perform a task and bill a couple hundred bucks. The customer is appalled at the total. So the plumber writes out an itemized version, explaining:
- $0.25 cents for wear and tear on the hammer,
- And $75.00 for knowing where to hit the pipe.
See. The writing stuff is hard. No doubt. But you have absolutely no idea what to write in the first place without the research. (Even old Ogilvy knew this!)
Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about writing a long-form landing page, writing a blog post like this, or a measly five words in a headline. You gotta do the work before you do the work.
Conclusion:
For every good copywriting course there are some bad, expensive copywriting courses. But it is not necessary to become a victim of the opposite. A copywriting course with certificate is reasonable if you know what to look for. A free copywriting training course is obviously more desirable especially if it includes an exam.