6 risks of cheap website development

Inaccessible color schemes, crowded navigation menus, broken links, blurry images – poorly built websites are a nightmare for you and your prospects. They frustrate users, don’t rank on Google, and ultimately, negatively impact your conversion rate.

Building a high-performing website requires experience and attention to detail. Think of website development as if you were building a house. You wouldn’t cut corners on plumbing. And you definitely shouldn’t do it on your website.

Avoid these 6 risks of cheap website development

1. Higher cost in the long run

While working with inexpensive freelance developers might save money upfront, we frequently see companies paying to fix or replace code down the line. In the end, you end up spending more than it would have taken to get it right the first time.

2. Slow page speed

Coding errors or heavy reliance on third-party plugins can negatively affect page load time. This is a major frustration for users, but it also impacts your page rank. Google penalizes slow websites, ranking them down the list on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). If your website is slow, your audience may never even find it.

3. Poor SEO performance

Google also doesn’t like websites that lack clear content hierarchies, title tags, meta descriptions, and more. Inexperienced website developers are often focused on surface-level appearance and functionality and may neglect critical factors for SEO performance.

4. Limited ability to scale

Many developers rely on pre-built website templates. While templates can get your website up and live fast, they make it incredibly difficult to manage your content and scale your site. If you change your offering, want to add a new component, or build out additional pages, you may need to start all over again.

5. Low conversions

For some brands, website conversions aren’t a priority. In tech and SaaS (software as a service), they’re critical. If your website doesn’t work the way a user expects – maybe the design isn’t implemented properly or a button doesn’t work – users aren’t likely to stick around. Technical errors on your website are conversion opportunities lost.

6. Integration issues

Cheap website development solutions aren’t likely to consider your tech stack. For SaaS marketers who rely on calendar APIs, CRM integration, chatbots, and email signups to engage prospects, this is a major problem. You simply don’t have the time and resources to handle this information manually, and you shouldn’t have to. A high-performing SaaS website should be seamlessly integrated with your preferred sales and marketing tools.

Hire a website development agency to build your website right.

An experienced web development agency works with you to make strategic decisions about how best to code, host, launch, and optimize your website. When you work with an agency, you can leverage their expertise in three key ways:

Website audit

If your website isn’t performing well, but you aren’t sure what the issues are, a website audit is a great choice. Developers can conduct a thorough audit of your website and provide you with a list of priority issues and high-impact solutions.

Website redesign

If your website wasn’t developed properly or is out of date, your user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design likely need a refresh. A strategic website redesign and rebuild can elevate the look, feel, and functionality of your website and deliver a positive user experience and responsive design for your customers.

Website retainers

Attempting to manage your website on your own may seem efficient, but it can quickly become an overwhelming responsibility. Self-management introduces the risk of security issues, missed WordPress updates, broken functionality, and more.

With an agency partner managing your website, you and your team can focus on business objectives and trust your website is working as intended. Beyond maintenance, a website retainer gives you the opportunity to regularly test, optimize, and scale your website.

Prioritize your most valuable sales and marketing asset.

While it’s tempting to look for cheap website development, it will almost always cost you in the long run. Trust the build, management, and growth of your website to an experienced web agency. It’s not only an investment in quality code, it’s an investment in your customer experience and business success.