Introduction

In the recent past, a significant boom in the web development industry is witnessed. Web development is a broad-based term, used to refer to any activity involved in developing a web site for the World Wide Web or intranet. This can include e-commerce business development, web design, web content development, client-side/server-side coding, and web server configuration. Web design, as a subset of web development, is a process where electronic media content is delivered via Internet in the form of technologies (such as markup language).

In the recent past, the popularity of web development has widely exploded. According to a statistics, in 1998 there were fewer than 2,000 web development companies in the United States alone, but by 2008 there were over 45,000 such companies. This enormous growth owes greatly to the origin of large businesses desiring to sell products and services to their customers using the World Wide Web and also to the emerging small web design and development companies.

 Becoming a Professional Web Designer/ Developer

If you decide to become a professional Web Designer/ Developer, you can either choose to go freelance or work in a corporation. In either case, getting the related certification courses will be great help. In case, where you desire to take up freelance web development, you need to know how to take work, get the job done, manage your business and lastly maintain your site and reputation.

Setting Out on Your Own - Freelancing

In a situation, where you want to take up web development as a freelance business, it is good to have a know how of this field. You need to know how much you can charge for your design work. This becomes easier to analyze if you keep in mind the region where you live, competition you have and the level of design work you can offer.

To start as a freelancer, read about contracts and legal issues involved in the Web design business. Besides this, once the business gets rolling, it is essential to promote your website, make people visit your site and learn tips to make them stay there.

Learning Cycle from Beginning to Advanced

The scope of web design is vast and no matter how much you have learnt, there will always be something more for you to learn and grow.

Beginning with HTML

If you are new to the Web design path, start with learning HTML. Many online courses and tutorials will help you take the first plunge, giving you idea about the basic software you will need to create a page. Once you've got the basics of HTML down, you can move down the path to Advanced HTML. There are more advanced scripting tools available to the advanced HTML programmer.

Once you're an expert of basic HTML and advanced HTML, you'll have a lot of the skills you need to move into Web development as a career. This is the point where you decide if you want to take up designing or programming. You can also acquire both skills.

Professional Web Designers:

Professional Web designers concentrate on the look and feel of the Web Pages. This includes creating attractive layout, writing or managing good catchy content and promoting their sites.

Professional Web Programmers:

Professional Web Programmers, on the other hand, work on the hidden or unseen part of Web pages. Besides this, Web Programmers work on the following core area:

Web Design Courses Available

With the rapid increase in the web development industry, it is common to see a lot of people among us owning a website. At times, it is wondered where these people acquire the skills to develop a website. These skills come from website development training courses. These courses equip you with both technical and business education to create websites with stopping power and to understand the overall business strategies of the companies they represent.

There are many accredited online or conventional design schools that offer dozens of online courses in web design, web development, multimedia, digital design and new media marketing. Training is instructor-led and available whenever you wish to learn. The courses integrate theory, practice and related software applications and is run on a continual basis. The renowned schools are accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) in Washington, DC and may also be licensed by the State of New York Department of Education.

The schools cover prominent areas of web development like SEO Training, Website Marketing Training, Website Development Training, and topics like RSS feeds, installing WordPress, PC maintenance & security, and installing website forms.

Cost and Duration of Courses

Various online and conventional schools offer courses of varying duration to educate on fundamental concepts in design and build foundation software skills. Introductory courses to web design using softwares such as Dream Weaver, Flash, Photoshop, range between $200 to $ 900 and are completed in less than two weeks each. Intermediate courses such as Banner Advertising, Color Theory, Fundamentals of Javascript, XHTML and Web Portfolio Design range between &400 to $ 900 and last up to a month. Advanced courses such as Advanced Flash, Dynamic Development with PHP, Internet marketing, Digital Video Editing, E-commerce and Interface Design range between $800 to $900.

Career Benefits of Web Development

Going professional in the Web industry can be as easy as setting up your own Web design Web site, or as complicated as taking a four year college course in Web maintenance and development. A major career benefit in web development is monetary reward or salary. In the US, the average web designer would get around $60,000 annual salary (from Salary.com). From the salary standpoint, web designers are in the lower to middle strata of the IT salary scale. Web designers usually get lower compensation compared to a Web Developer or IT Security professional.

Large corporations with in-house web teams usually offer a short career ladder for web designers. Usually, you start off as a team member/designer, then move up to senior status, and eventually get the team lead position. However it is a good idea to a move to related fields such as web development, web usability or graphic design to supplement existing skills.

Conclusion

The web development industry combines science with art in a striking manner, thus opening new horizons for designers and developers. It may not be a very rewarding profession but there is plenty of room for growth, learning and discovery of self creativity.