Outsourcing your web development

Verve Team Mark Hambley Technical Director Written By Mark - Technical Director at Verve
outsourcing web development overseas - yes or no? outsourcing web development overseas - yes or no?

Choosing to build a website for your new company, or update an existing one can be a big decision for a business of any size. It can be costly, take up valuable time and resource and there are no absolute guarantees that it will improve your takings. However, a website gives you the ability to connect with a huge audience and give a positive first impression. As with anything, it can often be tempting to hand everything over and let someone else do it, especially if it is less expensive. We take a look a look at why you might consider outsourcing your web development overseas, and why you may want to reconsider.

 

The Good

outsouring development overseas

 

Get us online- quick!

We need to be online, now! What could be better than a quick fix? A website up and running as fast as buying my domain. It’ll need to look half decent and have certain pages and information but as long as it’s on brand, great.

What attracts you to make a purchase or an enquiry on a website? Think about the key things that attract you to a site: great design, quick page loading and easy to find information. You’ll need to consider if these can be achieved in a possibly, unrealistic timeframe.

 

It’s cheap

‘Save 70% when you hire us to build your website’. The Internet is a competitive place.

How many businesses are offering the same service as me? I’m not making as much money as I used to. I need to save costs somewhere and this option means I can get a cheaper website and it won’t affect my profits so much.

So, why do you want to build your website? Unless your business is a hobby, you want to build it to, ultimately, increase your profits. Will the cheap option give the pay off you are looking for in the long term?

 

Buy the dream

‘Build a cheap website’ ‘make a cheap website successful in 5 easy steps’. Everyone is selling the dream! I can make a Google search and I can find at least 10 articles telling me how easy it is to get a website up and running and get some money coming in.

What do you associate with the word ‘cheap’? Perhaps, quality, long lasting or even successful? Hmm, maybe not. Does your website need to be a ‘quick fix’ or should you consider that business is about playing the long game?

 


 

As a business, you need to see money coming in and having to pay out or wait a while for results can be painful. There’s absolutely no reason you cannot outsource your web development overseas however, it requires plenty of research and careful selection. It’s important to remember, if it sounds too good to be true- it probably is!

 

The Bad

 

should i employ overseas for web development

 

Time difference

As you move further away from the UK, in any direction, the time difference increases. From Amsterdam who are just an hour ahead to South America who are four hours behind and India who are five and half hours ahead. This can drag out small issues you need sorting and create an incredibly disjointed conversation.

 

Language barrier

English is the third most common language and over 375 million people can speak English around the world. However, English, learnt as a second language can be incredibly difficult to use with different rules for the same word, slang and grammatical subtlety. Most of your communication will be via email so consider whether you are confident with giving full, clear explanations for your work.

 

Impersonal

Do you have complete trust in your overseas web development team? Do you know who exactly is working on your project? Do they understand your business objectives? In order to deliver a website that both designed and developed to achieve conversion, it is important to have a full understanding of the business and getting to know your develops builds a trusting relationship. This can be difficult to achieve when meetings in person are out of the question.

 


 

These issues can create serious road blocks in the pursuit of your perfect website. There are of course solutions to combat some of the issues such as Skype for video call meetings and tools to create a full brief but unfortunately, time zones and the lack of a handshake cannot be resolved.

 

The Ugly

 

outsourcing your development overseas

 

Poor SEO

Your website is complete! And it doesn’t actually look too bad. Next check, has your website been search engine optimised? Was there a migration from your existing website to ensure a minimal loss of rankings? Did you discuss an SEO strategy? If you launched a new website and these steps weren’t considered, it could become a costly exercise to find another company to help you with this.

 

No CMS

Did you tell your web development team that you needed to be able to manage your website after launch? Or did you presume that was just part and parcel? It is not uncommon for many companies who outsource to have to pay out post-launch of their new website as what they received was in fact static! A trusted agency will always discuss the difference with you and ensure you choose the best option for your business.

 

Template/ bad coding

Behind every good website is a lot of hard work, and a lot of code! Much like the way a house is built, a good website needs strong foundations. If you try to extend/evolve the website later down the line and your site has messy code, it’s likely things will fall apart. Purchased templates and inexperienced developers will cause you all sorts of problems so put your trust in a company for whom you know will dedicate time to writing clean code.

 

A website you cannot do anything with, and one that no developer will touch is going to leave you with a negative online presence and a hole in your pocket, as you spend more time and money, trying to fix or even purchasing a whole new website.

 


 

Your new website does not need to cost the earth and when carefully researched, there is no reason you should not outsource overseas, however, you should remember that good investment is more likely to deliver results. Planning to decide what you want to achieve and choosing a team you can trust is just as important as the result itself. At Verve, we can tailor your proposal based on what you need and work as the design and marketing extension of your business to achieve great results. Contact us today to discuss what you’re looking for in your new website.