Forum User Group, Rank, Usergroup, Avatar, ...
 

I nee some advice, I have a new forum setup and I am trying to choose the best way to accomplish this. I have users that are professionally certified, say Cert Bronze, Cert Silver, Cert Gold. I would like these users to have that certification status to show up under their name when they make a post, same place as join date, location, number of posts. Ideally would want to show a graphic symbol under their names...

How would I do this? This is what I see my options are...

1. Make predefined avatars?
2. Make a new usergroup? but no really related to registered, moderator, ???
3. Make a group? m does that show up under their name?
4. Make user titles? although not related to numbr of posts someone makes?
5. Other ideas?

Apologize if this is a basic question, VB appears to have so many options and is confusing to understand which method to use? and is preferred...