Advanced Content Marketing with Brian Dean

A course about publishing as a business

The reader Semrush has in mind is someone who already writes a blog and wants it to grow faster and to earn. The first third of the course is about ideas and formats: building a very long list of candidate topics, then six post templates that Dean has found reliably attract readers, from the detailed step-by-step guide to the annual roundup and the content hub. The middle section separates promoting a single piece from promoting the blog as a whole. The final third is the part most courses omit: converting readers without irritating them, designing lead magnets people actually want, using popups sparingly, and running a product launch to an email list.

That last section turns a content course into something closer to a small-publisher playbook. It overlaps with email marketing and with marketing automation, and it is the reason to pick this course over more general alternatives.

The route to the certificate

• Twenty-one lessons, roughly four hours, with worksheets alongside the videos.
• A final exam of the size Semrush uses for its courses, generally ten to fifteen questions; the time limit is displayed before you start.
• One sitting, three attempts, then a month's wait.
• One year's validity from the day you complete it.
• Free, needing only a free Semrush account.

Why we rate it associate rather than foundational

Semrush calls the course advanced, and the content supports that: it assumes you have a blog, an audience, however small, and something to sell. Complete beginners will follow the videos but have nothing to apply them to, and application is the only way this material sticks. The exam, like every Semrush course exam, is short and unproctored, so the certificate itself proves completion more than mastery. What gives it weight is the combination of a demanding syllabus and your own published results.

A caution in the same spirit as for its sister course: this is one successful publisher's method. Some tactics, particularly around popups and launch sequences, suit a personal brand selling its own products better than a company blog serving a sales team. Adapt accordingly.

One practical note: because the course ends in selling, its value depends on having something to sell, even a small digital product. If you do not, the last three lessons will feel abstract, and you might watch them later when a launch is closer. The certificate expires after a year anyway, so there is no penalty for taking the course in two stages and sitting the exam when you have applied most of it. The worksheets are the part to keep: they turn the templates into a planning document you can reuse for every post, long after the certificate has lapsed.