The internet is a beautiful thing, it has opened up possibilities for people all over the world to communicate and even engage in trade, and this includes services as well as goods.
One of the most significant areas is hiring creative professionals; you can browse a whole range of possibilities from large companies to single creative freelancers. You will be able to find plenty of overseas designers, coders, and marketing professionals that will work for a much lower rate than you might traditionally have paid.
This can be great, but it's not without its drawbacks; there's no such thing as a free lunch as they say. So what is the advantage of going with a local professional from your home area?
Here are 6 good reasons that you should consider paying that little bit extra and keep the business in the area, and if nothing else, it can make you feel good about helping the local economy.
Availability Of Tech Support When You Need It
So, if you are using a web designer, and host in Singapore and your website goes down mid-afternoon UK time then it's the middle of the night over there, and you may have an issue getting a response if you are using a freelance designer or small company, and this potentially can be more costly than the saving you are making on the design and management of the site.
Technical Reasons
If you have a web hosting server and it's far away from you and your users, then it can affect efficiency. Slow loading can be an issue, and if a customer is experiencing this, then they may move on to the next website for the product or service they are using.
Google may also penalize you in the rankings for slow loading websites. If you are running a local company or organization and the server is far away; from this also negatively affects SEO performance, this is not an issue if your users come from all around the world.
Using a local company will hopefully negate this issue, although you should be careful to check they are using local servers, as a design agency could quickly be purchasing cheaper space on overseas servers,
Exchange Rates
If you do choose to trade with professionals from another market, then you need to consider the possibility of a volatile exchange rate. Changes in these cannot always be predicted, even if you create detailed graphs because events such as Brexit or the Arab Spring can send financial markets into turmoil in an instant.
Even in normal times, you have issues such as do you pay them in pounds, dollars, or their currency? It's a tricky decision. It can be affected by different factors, which is the most stable currency, what are the banking fees, etc.? By doing business locally, you can avoid all of these headaches and be sure every time you pay that you are not going to stung by a different exchange rate.
Understanding of the Market
You will perhaps find that a local pro will better understand what customers here in the UK are after? They do not have the challenge of trying to imagine the mindset of a foreign consumer market, and even things like using American English as opposed to standard English can make a website look cheap and unprofessional.
We've always used this guy Liam who is an expert in search engine marketing and is based right here in England, making it an ideal partnership.
You Can Personally Meet Them
Meeting someone you are to do business with is something that I've always placed a lot of importance in. Of course, there are so many other ways to communicate these days, such as email and web conferencing. However, there is still no substitute for meeting in person and getting a proper feel for how someone conducts themselves and carries themselves.
Use Of The Court System as a Last Resort
Finally, something we don't want to consider, but in reality, it has to be a consideration. What if the relationship turns sour, or work is not up to the required standard, even to the extent that it has been harmful to your business.
You will find it very hard to pursue someone legally if they are in another part of the world, and what if they hold your website to ransom or make huge mistakes that cost you money, if they are based here in the UK, you can pursue damages in the civil courts.
