What are the best web design certificate courses you can take to enhance your hourly rate? It’s actually a more difficult decision than you might think because the market is swamped with mini-classes, tutorials, stand-alone classes, long-term certificate programs, and other variations on the same theme.
The decision-making process can be maddening for people who already have some experience or have both experience and a fully operational company that offers digital services like web design. In the most basic sense, you want to learn worthwhile skills and be able to prove that you’ve gone through a reputable training course.
Once you’re done, it’s easy enough to display your new credentials on your website so potential clients can clearly see what your skills are.
Select Carefully
Ironically, sometimes the hardest part turns out not only to be the coursework itself but selecting a certificate curriculum the delivers valuable knowledge and has a better than average reputation in the industry.
The following 10 web design certificate classes get the job done but be sure to choose one that focuses on the particular niche that interests you, and your customers, the most.
Before reviewing the below list of the top ten web design certificate programs, remember to get the financial part taken care of to your satisfaction. Here’s more about that challenge.
Paying for Fees and Tuition
As soon as you begin checking out the various training opportunities, one thing will become apparent. Some of the coursework costs nothing, but other training programs can be quite pricey, reaching into the thousands of dollars for tuition.
The good news is that you can take out a personal loan from a private lender to cover all costs associated with learning new technical skills to further your career.
So, once you decide on a learning path, tally up the impact it will have on your wallet, and then apply for a private lender loan if necessary. That way, once the learning begins, there’ll be no need to fret about how to cover the associated expenses.
10 Web Design Courses for Career Enhancement
The ten are not listed in any specific order, so don’t assume any ranking based on which ones are listed first and last.
Skillshare’s Web Design Classes
You’ll get plenty of choices from Skillshare because the company offers more than 55 courses relevant for anyone interested in learning to ramp up their design-related skills. You’ll interact with the instructors via multiple online contents, including quizzes, special projects, HD videos, hands-on skill-building exercises.
No matter how many different tutorials you select, you’ll get a certified badge for each successful final exam. The entire Skillshare platform offers all kinds of learning opportunities.
For the specific coursework you’ll be interested in, some of the choices are free, but others come with a reasonable fee.
Alison’s Diploma in Web-Design
Former Alison students rave about the fact that even beginners can get a lot out of their main web design training because it starts from scratch. After a thorough review and reinforcement of basics, you’re on to creating actual websites that are not only intuitive but gorgeous and fully responsive.
Expect to become accustomed to using JavaScript, CSS, and HTML for the purpose of building sites. However, if you consider yourself an advanced site designer already, this course might not challenge you enough because it’s geared for intermediate and beginner level learners that are starting out.
Web Design for Beginners on Udemy
This is one of Udemy’s gems for anyone interested in building a professional practice. The full title of it is Web Design for Beginners: Real World Coding in HTML & CSS, and it was created by a renowned expert in the field, Brad Schiff.
At $109 for the entire program, you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck because the tutorial moves from basic concepts through intermediate level work, and then delves into several high-level techniques that teach how to take full control of any site you work on.
Blueprint Certification by Facebook
The most famous social media platform’s creators have come up with an educational set of courses that teach various aspects of building Facebook sites that harness the platform’s incredible target-marketing muscle. You’ll earn a certificate the gives you the right to call yourself an expert in Facebook advertising techniques.
There are multiple pieces of training within the curriculum, but note that each individual certification requires taking two separate tests. The total price tag for a single certification (or two exams) is $300.
Mobile Web Specialist by Google
Google’s team of educators came up with a unique selection because the course is general in one way (based on web creation skills it teaches) and very specific in another (the focus is on mobile applications).
You’ll be challenged by case study tasks and learn important techniques in the areas of performance optimizing, making mobile web forms, accessibility, progressive apps, and much more. The total cost is $99, which includes a class-specific study guide and three attempts to pass the examination.
Unlike most other items on this list, this Google offering not only earns you a badge to post on all your social and professional pages but also places your name into Google’s official list of trained developers who have passed the coursework.
Bootcamp Curriculum from General Assembly
General Assembly charges the highest prices but offers the prestige and in-depth learning that you will not find anywhere else. Actually, their training is more like a college curriculum. Not only does each option take about 300 hours to complete, but the pricing ranges from no cost to $4,000, depending on which of their many classes you choose.
What do you get for all that money and time? First, expect all your instructors to be experts in their particular areas. Next, because you’ll be immediately applying your newfound skills to real-world tasks and projects, the speed of learning is amazingly fast. It’s truly a learn-by-doing educational environment. Plus, you have the chance to attend in person or online.
General Assembly has more than 20 physical campuses and hundreds of instructors. All the online options are self-paced, which is ideal for working people who have to juggle schedules. Most of the company’s intro-level offerings are either free or come with nominal costs. It’s the intermediate and advanced coursework that tends to get pricey.
Certified Expert by Adobe
There has always been a high demand for people who have verifiable, relevant Adobe certifications, and that fact is more true today as the company continues to expand. Exams cost $180 each, are all multiple choice, and can be taken at a special testing center or in person.
Your badges will never expire once you earn them, and Adobe offers a comprehensive test prep book for you to use before sitting for any exam.
Certifications from freeCodeCamp
If you like the idea of live study groups in your neighborhood, thousands of lessons and videos, and 100 percent free training in just about every aspect of web design, then you’ll want to explore what freeCodeCamp has to offer.
They offer six main certificates, each one of which will have you working hard for up to 300 hours. And, if you do all six successfully, the company awards you a full-stack badge signifying completion of all their core development programs.
Hubspot Academy
This training comes with no cost and will teach you not only about design but also digital marketing concepts. They offer several different badge eligible training and are one of the only such courses to include extensive material on marketing techniques and systems. Some people love the fact that Hubspot had divided all the lessons into very small pieces, each one of which should take you about three hours to complete.
The Hubspot name is well known in the industry and you’ll notice many professionals who display these badges on their LinkedIn and other professional pages.
Analytics IQ by Google
The prestigious Google name is behind this data-heavy lesson that covers topics like conversion, tracking, dashboards, and site performance. If you lack an analytics-oriented badge, this is a good one to start with. Not only is it recognized everywhere, but it costs nothing.
One catch is that you’ll need to re-take the exams every 18 months to stay current on your badges, but there’s still no cost, so it’s hard to find fault with Google’s “Analytics Individual Qualification,” which is the official name of the lesson. Thousands of freelancers display the Google IQ badge on social and professional pages.
Pros and Cons
If you have trouble making a decision about which training to take, create a simple list of pros and cons for each candidate on your shortlist.
Pay attention to factors like total price, how long the program takes to complete, who issues the certificate, how relatively prestigious the issuer’s name is in the industry and among your potential clients, whether there’s a need to purchase any extras like digital texts, and what happens if you don’t pass the test on the first attempt.
