Learning the Ecommerce Web Site Design Trade

A Home Business Article Contributed by Sharon Hill

Ecommerce Web Site Design Schools

Ecommerce Web Site Design is one of the fastest growing business opportunities available, and schools are clamoring to offer this training.

Let's compare a few of the available educational facilities.

Trade and Technical Schools Offering Ecommerce Web Site Design

Many schools are designed for you to learn on the web at an accelerated pace. AIU (American Intercontinental University) online, for instance, offers a Bachelor's degree in Visual Communications - possibly as soon as as 13 months from inception of training. You learn various design software such as PhotoShop, Dreamweaver and PageMaker.

The International Academy of Design offers 4 different locations - Tampa and Orlando Florida, Chicago and Montreal Canada. Their Associate Degree in Ecommerce Web Site Design teaches computer animation and screen design, storyboards, scripts, video production and soundtracks.

Border Institute of Technology in El Paso TX offers a certificate in Web Site Design. You will train for Certified Internet Webmaster Certification. They teach ecommerce web site design students to use Pagemaker, Illustrator, Macromedia Flash and others.

The Chubb Institute, with locations in Georgia, New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois, offers a Multimedia Design diploma. Students learn QuarkXpress, HTML, Macromedia Flash, Photoshop, DreamWeaver and Illustrator.

Colleges Offering Ecommerce Web Site Design Training

Berkeley College, with New York City and New Jersey campuses, offers an associates degree in web design that teaches courses in graphic development, and ecommerce as well as web design. Bowie Maryland's Bowie State University offers both a Bachelor's and Masters degree in computer science with web site design training. Harvard University shares web site design courses with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)

Northwestern Business College of Chicago offers an Information Technology Institute. Courses include Presentation Graphics as well as web site design. The University of Advancing Technology's Web Design program includes both associate and bachelor's degrees.

Northern Michigan University offers an Electronic Imaging Program that besides web design courses, teaches multimedia design for CD-ROM production, digital illustration and photo manipulation, prepress production, animation and special effects.

In all, there are almost 300 U.S. colleges and universities offering web site design , either as certificate programs, or bachelor or master's degrees.

There is a lot of disagreement and just plain variation on what you can earn as a web site designer. Of course, it depends on experience and location. One designer earned $38k as an intern, another started at $50k. Several note that $60-$80k annually is common mid-level earnings.

It also depends on whether you work as an employee for a firm or freelance. freelancing, of course, depends not only on our training and experience, but also on your ability to market your skills and your firm. a freelancer can charge at least $35 an hour for the basic web site design, but considerably more if they can offer flash, database connectivity, action scripting, or sql and major scripting.

If you wish to further expand your value and thus your income it would behoove you to learn tech support and hardware maintenance functions.