Top 3 Free Online Learning Resources for PPC Advertising

Last week, we shared what we believe are the top 3 free online learning resources for SEO.

While none of these resources (or any other for that matter) will turn you into an SEO expert overnight, they’ll certainly help lay a solid foundation of knowledge and awareness. And just as valuably, they’ll help you steer clear of shady SEO consultants who try and sell you what we call “Google Magic Beans” – which not only fail to take you to the Promised Land (a.k.a. the top of page 1 for your keywords), but actually harm your website rankings.

Today, we’re continuing our overview of useful education sources by sharing what we believe are the top 3 free online resources for PPC advertising.

1. HubSpot’s PPC-related Blogs

HubSpot regularly publishes great PPC advertising blogs that are accessible, practical and contain helpful tips and insights. There are also some great infographics that are very helpful for marketing professionals who need to convince their boss to invest in PPC or other marketing techniques and strategies.

You’ll find HubSpot’s PPC advertising blogs here: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/topic/ppc

2. Wordstream’s PPC University

We debated putting Wordstream’s PPC university in our list, because there’s stuff we love about this free online learning resource — and some stuff we aren’t so thrilled about. But in the end, love won out and so Wordstream made our list.

Let’s start with the love: the PPC advertising information in this course is solid, clear and virtually jargon-free. Plus, it starts our very basic, and gradually works up into more sophisticated concepts and techniques. It can take a while to get through each of the tracks (there is PPC 101, PPC 101 and Advanced PPC), but it’s not like they have to be done in one sitting. In fact, we don’t recommend that anyway.

Now for the stuff we don’t love: Wordstream is not a non-profit educational organization. As such, they do integrate their PPC advertising products into the learning experience. This isn’t done in an aggressive “salesy” way (if it were, they wouldn’t be on our list!). Rather, they use their products as part of the teaching experience, such as to explain how to choose certain keywords based on their scores, and so on.

Ultimately, we don’t feel that this aspect gets in the way of the learning experience, and on balance the material offered is valuable and credible. You can check it all out at: http://www.wordstream.com/learn#.

3. Google AdWords Help Center

While Google AdWords aren’t the only PPC advertising game in town, they’re by far the biggest — and therefore learning about them is more of a necessity than a preference.

A great place to start or deepen your AdWords understanding is via Google’s own AdWords Help Center. There are well structured sections that cover various PPC advertising topics. You can zoom in to the one that is the most interesting or relevant, or start at the beginning and work your way through.

Keep in mind that the information you come across is going to be specific to AdWords, and so there won’t be any mention of Bing, Yahoo! or anything else. What’s more, since you aren’t planning to become an SEO expert or consultant, some of the content will not be applicable. Yet with this being said, the information will give you a solid foundation in PPC advertising concepts, which is the goal. And of course, it’s all offered completely free, which is always a nice bonus!

You’ll fine Google’s AdWords Help Center here: https://support.google.com/adwords/?hl=en&page=examstudy.cs&ctx=go#topic=3119071.

You’ll also find some helpful videos in Google’s AdWords YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/learnwithgoogle