As a company, we've heard horror story after horror story from clients and prospects alike, about how they thought they could save money and get better results cutting out a professional website development firm, and just hiring a freelancer.
Very, very rarely is this ever the case. You might hit the jackpot and find a freelancer that gives you the website of your dreams, but I highly doubt it’s going to happen.
It’s also important that I tell you I’m, for the most part, referring to foreign freelancers, though I would still have to say I highly recommend a professional company over hiring a local freelancer any day. Here are a few reasons why:
Barriers – If you’re hiring a freelancer overseas, like a lot of companies try to do to save money, you’re going to really want to count the cost before hand. By counting the cost, I am not referring at all to the money. I am referring to the many barriers that can be in place due to the distance between yourself and the freelancer.
Barriers such as the following, and not limited to the following, can result in a project that never comes to an end:
- Time zone difference between you and the freelancer – a lot of times your morning is their night and visa versa.
- Language and dialect differences between you and the freelancer.
- Excessive Time spent explaining the nature and culture of your project to someone who everything about what you do is foreign.
- Trust between both parties is not easily established and its very easy for someone overseas to take your money and run, leaving you helpless.
Experience and Knowledge – Many freelancers are experienced and good at what they do, but you can’t at all compare the experience and knowledge of a freelancer, compared to a team of professionals. Even if the freelancer has been doing what he does (covering all the bases himself) for 10 years, that’s 10 years of experience.
If a web development company has 5 employees (FYI - We are a team of 30 strong), and each of them averages 5 years of experience, there is now 25 years of experience behind your project.
When using a professional company, on your project alone, you might have a designer with 4 years, developer with 5, and project manager with 3 – leaving you with 12 years of experience behind your project. That’s not even including the experience and knowledge of the team members that are surrounding the team on your project.
Also, many people fail to realize that it’s not just a pretty front end that makes a website successful, which generally speaking, most freelancers are able to excel at ( putting together a good LOOKING website). What makes a website valuable and successful is the logic and strategy executed to make your website convert into dollars, and a powerful, custom back-end that lets you not only have a secure site, but a easy and convenient way to manage and maintain your content.
It takes years of experience, and tons of both failures and successes to get the knowledge and logic it takes to truly know what website visitors are looking for, and to know how to turn those visitors into dollars. Given that most freelancers simply turn over a project and walk away from the client when done, it’s a lot less likely that a freelancer will have the knowledge that can make you see a great ROI.
All in One – Just like one size fits all vs. custom fitted, a lot of time you’re going to get better quality when multiples aren’t grouped together – especially in a case like this. A lot of freelancers will handle every aspect of the project – designing the site, developing the site, managing the project, etc.
I firmly believe, and this is my professional opinion, that more time should be focused developing specialties in one area than trying to spread yourself thin and cover every aspect.
If you’re going to get a website that really knocks the socks off of your visitors, you want a website built by:
- A designer who does nothing but study up on new design practices and focuses on being the best designer he can be
- A developer who is on the absolute top of his game and constantly learning about new techniques and coding technologies, including security, and accessibility factors
- A project manager who is easily accessible to you to communicate what is going on with the project and what needs to be done on your end to ensure that when your website is complete, it is the best it can be.
- It also doesn’t hurt to have other team members in the office that the team embers working on your project can bounce ideas off of, to ensure that what you are getting is truly innovative and of the best quality it can be.
Disclaimer: I personally know freelancers that are great at what they do, and I respect them a lot, so if any freelancers are reading this and are thinking that I’m at all talking or looking down to you, I’m not at all – I’m simply stating that a brand or professional company is going to get a better website from a professional company/team than an individual.
Bottom line, it's always important to keep in mind that you pay for what you get, and its always worse to pay too little!
Basch Solutions, LLC is a Rochester NY website design and website development company hat also specializes in search engine optimization and social media strategy. With our team of 30 strong, you can be sure that your project will get the attention it deserves. Shoot us a message or give us a call today to setup a consultation.
