You’re not getting the results that you had hoped for from your website, so you’ve determined that it’s time for a re-design. As your business evolves, it’s important to have a website design that grows with it and meets the needs of your customers.

A seemingly cost-effective solution is to partner with a freelance web designer to revamp your website. With summer rapidly approaching, some business owners are looking to hire web design students on the cheap to re-work their websites. However, is it really in your best interest to outsource website design to a freelancer, let alone someone that can give you a great deal?

Any prudent business owner knows that you get what you pay for. If the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. While the price on the front end may be attractive, it’s important to consider the extra costs that you could incur to make your website truly function and add value to your business.

Here are some of the dangers of entrusting just any freelancer to re-design your website:

1. You put your reputation at risk.
Your website is the online face of your business. It needs to be consistent with your branding strategy and convey your intended message. If your website is slow to load, difficult to use, or appears unprofessional, you risk damaging your reputation.

2. You put your SEO strategy on the line.
You’ve put a lot of time and energy into creating quality content to drive organic traffic to your website. However, if the freelancer does not take your SEO strategy into account when designing your website, you risk losing website traffic and earning new business. This is why you want your web designer to have a thorough understanding of how SEO works, what your specific SEO strategy is, and what search engines like Google look for when ranking websites.

3. You risk running into issues with web hosting.
A freelancer may be able to help you with website design and web hosting. The challenge is that if you want to make tweaks to your website down the road through another website designer, you’ll probably need to find a new web hosting company too. To make this transition go smoothly, you’ll need to record important details such as security settings, email boxes, and software and configuration data.

4. You create a security risk for your business.
Website hackings are on the rise. If you sell products and services online, a hacker could gain access to sensitive customer information, which could be detrimental to your company’s reputation. Other common security risks include malicious characters defacing your website or directing users to another website. Your website poses a number of security vulnerabilities for your business, which is why you don’t want to entrust your website design to just any freelancer.

In today’s digital world, your website is one of your company’s most valuable assets. You can’t afford to let just anyone handle website design and development. Partnering with an experienced website design agency will help to ensure that you have a website that makes a positive contribution to your business and represents your brand well.