How to Outsource Web Development in 2022

Is an outsourcing firm the answer? Here’s everything you need to know about outsourcing your web development needs.

A strong web presence is essential in 2022. In today’s competitive digital landscape, you need a peak-performing website to stay relevant. Is it better to build an in-house team, or outsource web development? Hiring an external company to design, manage and maintain a website that works for you can reap years of benefits. Here’s how.

What Is Web Development Outsourcing?

Web development outsourcing is the business process of hiring an external agency or contractor to manage website development, launches, updates, migrations, and redesigns. The external company provides the entire workforce needed including web designers, developers, database administrators, and IT support specialists.

What Are the Benefits of Outsourcing Web Development?

You may have a need to upgrade or refresh your website. Perhaps you’re launching a new business. Maybe you have an aggressive sales goal to meet, or you want to improve lead generation funnels. However, unless your business is web development, you and your team may not be the best for the job.

Think of it this way: imagine you’re driving to get a haircut on your way home to cook dinner. You notice your check engine light is on. At this moment in time, you realize you need three services: a haircut, food for dinner, and a checkup for your car. While you may have the ability to do one or some of those things yourself, you could also hire an expert to do the job correctly, more efficiently, and better than you might be able to do it yourself. There are tangible benefits like time saving and quality assurance when you hire an expert to cut your hair, fix your car, or pick up food made by a chef at a restaurant.

Is outsourcing web development any different? One of the most common reasons to outsource anything is simply because we can’t do it all. As such, extensive (and expensive!) web design projects are often outsourced. Here are two major reasons to consider:

✔️ Outsourcing ensures internal business processes aren’t interrupted with extra work.

✔️ Outsourcing ensures your investment is well spent on an expert, high-quality product

What Are the Most Common Outsourced Web Development Services?

The most commonly outsourced web development services include website design, website migrations, and website content. These types of projects require a substantial amount of financial, planning, and time investment over several months – but typically yield the highest return. Here are some specific examples:

• Redesign and relaunch your website to increase usability and conversion rates.
• Migrate your existing website to a new platform without incurring any downtime.
• Gradually increase organic quality leads and search engine result position (SERP) by writing quality, keyword-focused content.
• Translate existing content into a new language version of your website.

Marcel Digital has been along for the ride since the early days of digital marketing. We bring 20 years of experience in web development and digital marketing technique, ensuring your website project is in good hands and yields a high return on investment.

See also: Web Development vs Web Design: Which is Right for You?

Nearshore vs Offshore Web Development

So, you’re ready to outsource your next big web development project. What options are available for you? There are a range of options out there, but one major thing to decide on is whether to hire offshore or nearshore outsourcing for web development.

Nearshore refers to outsourcing either within your own country, or to countries that are in close proximity or in the same time zones. Offshore refers to outsourcing to farther-away countries with considerable time differences.

What are the benefits of nearshore vs offshore web development? Location isn’t as critical as it once was given today’s digital world. However, many practical reasons for hiring a nearshore web development service operating within your business hours remain: Your project manager will be available to take questions, give updates, and collaborate with your team in real time. Additionally, you avoid delays associated with working with someone in an opposite time zone, often amounting to one full business day to implement change requests.

Another factor is language and dialect. You are more likely to experience misunderstandings associated with translation and dialect nuances with offshore outsourcing vs nearshore web development. Simple things like using British spellings over American spellings in web copy can greatly affect organic SEO and overall website performance. Additionally, a nearshore firm is more likely to identify with your customer buyer’s journey – e.g. your website’s target audience.

Marcel Digital is a Chicago based website development service. Our entire team is located in the United States, building peak performing websites on a global scale. We encourage you to learn about our website development services and review our case studies for specific examples of how we can bring measurable results to your website project.

How to Outsource Web Development

Ready to outsource your web development services? Save considerable time, money, and resources by choosing an external web development team. Here’s how.

• Identify your business needs
  • If you haven’t already, make sure you clearly define your business goals and needs. This is the single most important step. Otherwise, you risk wasting time and money on a website that doesn’t meet your needs. Why are you launching a new website? Who is your customer? What measurable goals do you want to reach? Start the discovery phase of your website development process before seeking outsourcing services.
• Choose 3-5 potential outsourcing services
  • When outsourcing web development, there’s a lot of options available to you ranging from large agencies to independent freelance talent. We recommend narrowing your options down to 3-5 partners so you can compare them side by side. Here’s where you can start:
    • Interview potential partners. Tell them about your business goals and ask them how they can help you achieve them. Ask them if they’ve done similar projects.
    • Get references. Review their portfolio of work and look at customer reviews. Ask them if they have a client willing to talk to you about their services.
    • Compare bids. Review pricing, services, and timeframes offered on each bid. Consider secondary services like search engine optimization, web design, and conversion rate optimization that offer long term benefits as part of your package.
• Hire a partner and integrate them into your team
  • It's important to integrate your web development service team into your processes. This ensures they will produce the best work for you by understanding your business first-hand.
    • Before getting started, meet with your web development project manager to ensure you’re on the same page about scope of work and measurable outcomes.
    • Hold regular check-in meetings with your web development project manager.
    • Identify areas for improvement by regularly reviewing performance metrics available Google Analytics (organic traffic, conversion rate, bounce rate).
    • Always communicate changes in business goals with your web development team.
    • Allow visibility and collaboration into business areas who rely on peak-performing websites, like sales and marketing.

Tips for Choosing a Web Development Outsourcing Company

If you’ve read this far, then you know there's a lot to consider when hiring a web development company. Here are some tips for choosing a web development outsourcing company.

✔️ Hire a nearshore outsourcing service to ensure seamless collaboration.

✔️ Consider long-term services to ensure your website maintains peak performance.

✔️ Make sure your outsourcing agency offers a full stack web development team including design, UX, marketing, SEO and customer support.

✔️ Avoid independent contractors or freelancers for large, expensive web development projects.

✔️ Consider freelance talent for small changes or content building around specific areas of expertise.

Hiring an expert to complete your next web project offers many tangible benefits. You will save time and resources that you can allocate to other business areas. If you’ve never completed a web project in-house, or don’t have a development team, outsourcing web development will ensure a best-in-class web project—provided you’ve selected the best outsourcing service for your needs. Clearly identify your business needs first before shopping for web outsourcing services. Then, identify several possibilities, research their services, costs, and client testimonials. Finally, choose one nearshore to your market.

Ready to get started? See our comprehensive guide on how to choose a web development company or click below to get a free quote from Marcel Digital.