Should You Outsource Web Development? 9 Factors to Consider

We think you should definitely outsource web development. And it’s not because we’re a freelance marketplace. (You could say that the opposite is true, in fact — FreeUp was built because outsourcing is awesome, whether web development or other work.)

That said, you should outsource web development because it gives you and your business at least a dozen benefits that you wouldn’t be able to enjoy otherwise. Here are our favorites:

1.  Time

Are you doing everything in your business? Or at least a lot of tasks that you really shouldn’t be doing as the business owner?

Working in the business instead of on it is a major problem for most business owners. It like a paradox because the business can’t continue to run if those tasks don’t get done, but you can’t actually build much of a business if you’re stuck doing those tasks. They are essential, but they stop you from growing into a successful company that you can actually enjoy.

Time is one of the most valuable assets of every business owner.

Without time, all your passion, skills, intelligence — everything you are dedicating to your business efforts — are useless. The best way to get some time back on your hands is to outsource web development.

It’s not just about being able to throw up a storefront so you can list products. It’s a lot of work going beyond the actual store building phase. If you rush it and don’t have time to maintain it or improve it, you’re going to face a lot of issues down the line. You won’t sell as much as you’d like, and eventually maybe nothing at all when it crashes.

When you free up your days to re-focus on the core aspects of your business, the sky is the limit.

2.  Money

Are you looking for a discounted rate on development work in comparison to the area where you’re living? Of course you are.

Development work is expensive, especially if you’re in the western hemisphere and you’re looking at local prices.

What you need to do to save money is to outsource web development. When you tap into the growing freelance economy, your development budget suddenly looks a lot bigger. You can get more done than you imagined at first, and have it done better than you were willing to settle for.

There are numerous experienced web developers from outside the US who have strong English skills and who specialize in all web development platforms. With professional freelancers at your fingertips, and available for hire from $9 to $75 per hour, outsourcing web development work makes a lot of sense.

3. Trusted Expertise

When you are selling a product online, it’s essential that the quality of your merchandise is outstanding. But selling it is even more important. This begins with an attractive store. An online presence is only half the battle, however.

Without a strong online presence, your products will go unnoticed.

In less than an hour, today’s digital nomad can set up a website for the world to see. But will it reach the masses? Probably not.

With professional web development, your business has the potential to reach millions of web surfers across the globe. Not only does web development help widen the range of potential customers, it also makes your company accessible to the global population.

But web development is tricky — unless you outsource through a professional marketplace that pre-vets all freelancers before introducing them to you. This takes the risk out of outsourcing web development so you can enjoy only the top 1% of freelancers to code up your store.

4. Speed

A person’s output will always be limited by the number of hours of good work they can put into a day. And if you’re doing it locally or in-house, you most likely can’t afford to hire more than one developer.

When you outsource web development outside your local area, however, you can speed things up considerably.

You can afford to hire more than one developer to work on your project at the same.

And you can hire freelancer with niche experience, which means they’ll work faster. They can come in as needed to do their parts at the optimal times. Any complex project can be much more easily streamlined when you outsource web development to several experts who are used to jumping from one project to another.

5.  No In-House Talent

If you’re like most businesses, there’s not going to be much of a chance that anyone you’ve hired in-house has a good deal of web development talent and experience. And even if a couple do have some knowledge in the area, it’s not likely that they can build you a stellar store.

Unless you have an actual professional web developer on staff who just happened to take whatever other job you offered for kicks, you need a real one. You need someone who is experienced and updated on the technology needed to build a optimized storefront and keep it operating to its full potential.

Web development technology is evolving so quickly in today’s world.

With the different kinds of specific tasks involved from mobile development to WordPress blogs and Amazon EBC, you really want to have a specialist in the particular development work you need done.

6.  Workload Management

Does your company build websites, software or other programs and applications for customers? If so, then you certainly have in-house talent. But as an agency, the flow of client projects is not likely to be stable. As with any business, there are peak and slow seasons. How do you cope with that?

You basically have two choices with in-house talent:

1. You can hire enough people to cover peak season work then fire them or allow them to sit idle during slow periods. This is bad for you either way because it can cause very damaging legal issues, turnover, and spending, to name the biggest risk factors.
2. You can take on only what you can handle with your basic, slow-season staff, and turn away everyone else. That isn’t good for business either, since we all know the busy season is when we make the money we need to get through the lean times.

The solution is to outsource web development. You don’t have to replace all your in-house geniuses with freelancers. You can, however, hire freelancers to take on extra workload when everyone is up to their necks in projects.

Hiring experienced web developers to ensure high quality output for your clients is paramount. And it’s a breeze finding the perfect web developers when using a marketplace like FreeUp. FreeUp gives you the opportunity to find freelancers, spend time on new projects and optimize your earnings.

7.  Flexibility

You can’t really expect much flexibility unless you outsource web development.

What happens with a full-time hire if you need to pause the project? What happens if you change your mind about what you want or it turns out that the first idea isn’t actually going to work for your business?

You start over, that’s what.

The guy’s not going to hang around waiting for you to start paying him again. And chances are, he can’t do what you now need done. Either way, that means going on a long and arduous hunt once again. And it can be really rough.

The scope of development is just so broad. You can’t expect the few options you have near you to be able to handle absolutely every aspect of what you need done, even collectively. And of course, you want it done expertly, so your chances of getting the right fit are slim.

When you outsource web development, you are opening up a whole world of opportunity — literally.

You don’t need to settle for what’s available around you.

You can find and hire the perfect developer, no matter where they live. You can, within reason, get whatever project you want done for the budget that you have, too.

If you run an agency, this flexibility opens up additional opportunities. You can expand and scale your business much more easily because you can hire freelancers to do work that the in-house people aren’t experienced in. It’s an awesome way to take on whatever business you can and make the absolute most out of available client projects.

8.  Communication

If you’ve outsourced before or know someone who has, then you’re probably thinking that communication with freelancers is difficult. Sure, it can be like that, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, if you hire freelancers with professionalism, communication is even better than with someone a few desks over.

The best freelancers have better communication than most regular workers who are used to sitting in offices.

They communicate better simply because they have to.

• They can’t just pop by to see you because they forgot to ask you something.
• They have to keep everything organized because they know how time zone differences and email and chat can easily mess things up.
• Nothing can be left to chance because their livelihood depends on their performance. There’s nothing to protect them from getting fired on the spot if they aren’t stellar performers.

You know that professionalism is a must when running a business. Career freelancers are business owners, and professional ones at that. By outsourcing web development, your company will gain additional professional profiles to boost your image.

On the practical side, communication difficulty is a myth because nowadays, there are so many collaboration tools that actually make it easier to get projects done online versus getting together at the conference table. Here’s a list from Workable and another from The Digital Project Manager.

9. Working relationships

The physical distance between you and any freelancers you hire does not immediately mean that you can’t have a good working relationship with them. In any case, company culture is not limited by workspaces. When working with freelancers, it is easy to maintain a close-knit work environment with instant messaging, regular check ins via email and Skype video, and transparent communication.

As long as you are able to communicate your company culture and working style to them upfront, you should have no problems whatsoever. As with any hire, the main thing is to make sure you’re on the same page at all times.

Final Thoughts