Learning Basic Web Design Skills
We do not have to emphasize how much web design knowledge is significant in today’s economy. However, one of the major difficulties in preparing the web designers of the future for their changing work environment is the fact that web design is actually a very broad field that includes a lot of closely connected areas, software, and skills.
Are you talking about IT skills? What about actual programming language? Which of the dozens of programming languages do you need? Then there were your hardware specialists. If you think about Adobe Photoshop or online marketing, those two are different skills from the other sections of web design.
The good thing is that there are many different options available when it comes to learning different web design skills that are useful to a wide array of companies and individuals in the future.
Formal College Training & Technical School Courses
Colleges, universities, and technical schools are still not sharing knowledge levels that can be practically used. Whether or not an individual student is better off going to a formal college program for web design or diving into a technical school that focuses on the skills depends on a variety of factors including the quality of the school and instruction.
If you’re not the full-time college student type don’t worry, you can attend other types of learning options to fill the free time you have.
Special Online Courses
There are a lot of different reputable websites that specialize in a variety of online courses where you can pay one time and get access to all the videos and online tutorials from any niche you can imagine. Udemy is the most powerful of these websites where you can find thousands of online courses. There are web design courses from basics to very professional for those who live in web designing.
Udemy isn’t the only website with online classes. There are tons of these similar websites to Udemy, and as long as they are being taught by someone who actually works with web design, you are getting a firsthand education often for a fraction of what even a single college class will cost. This is a great value on the dollar.
YouTube & Free Tutorials
Another popular method is to look at all the free resources that are online. You can Google for free courses on virtually any type of web design skill whether you are looking for programming, HTML design, photo manipulation, or any other aspect of building a website.
Even better, with the rise of YouTube, you can almost always find video tutorials that allow you to not only learn to code but to actually see what the person is talking about in teaching. This visualization makes it much easier for most people to learn and pick up a new skill, and when you’re dealing with something that can be as complex as designing on the World Wide Web you want to be able to actually see your instruction.
This helps you to pick up all the skills you need without having to drop an enormous amount of money. Many people love going this route since it allows them to dip their toes in, so to speak, and get a basic idea of whether or not that particular skill is right for them before spending a lot of money and diving in head first.
This generally isn’t the best route for a complete start-to-finish education on web design, but it remains a fair starting point.
Salterra does not recommend using website builders. Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly are very tempting for business owners. The biggest challenge with these sites is when you go to optimize it for search engines. These sites do not give you the same opportunity as a CMS like WordPress.
Find The Right Option For You
As you can see there are many different options when it comes to learning all about web design and its many different facets. Starting out with free tutorials, blog posts, and YouTube videos is always a great start but don’t be afraid to step up and buy an online course or two during a sale, and get a little bit deeper into developing those skills.
These courses can often be as little as $30 and yet sometimes are enough to pick up the full skill set that you’re looking for or at the very least get you prepared for that all-important next step towards web design greatness!
Most of the clients that come to us have attempted to build their own websites. Salterra can remove the burden of this so you can focus on growing your business. Contact us today. 480-273-2273
About Salterra Digital Services
Salterra was started in 2011 by Terry and Elisabeth Samuels; nothing fancy and nothing pretentious. Quality work at a fair price. Starting with a web design focus, they both quickly learned that while having an amazing website to highlight your business is a great start, marketing is intrinsically foundational for our clients. When several clients were not seeing results through the search efforts of other companies, Terry took it to the next level. While digging into SEO and marketing, he found something he was very passionate about. His inner geek pushed him to focus solely on the data and analytics side of the business while Elisabeth built on her creative and visual strength and expanded the design side. In the industry, it is not always common to have both designers and digital marketing so closely connected, but to them it made perfect sense. Salterra’s World Headquarters is in Tempe Arizona
Terry and Elisabeth are the Hosts of Roundtable SEO Mastermind Series and SEO Spring Training Conference.
