Companies that do web design - should you prefer local companies?

What's gonna be special or advantageous about local?

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What's gonna be special or advantageous about local?

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I would think that the advantage is the money stays in your community and is later spent by people who live in your community.

Pray for Ukraine

There are competent web devs around the world. I probably wouldn't go with a solo/freelance dev, but would generally recommend finding someone local mostly just for the keeping it in the community aspect. It does help for other reasons like being more likely to understand your business and your audience etc.

You should really understand what you are trying to accomplish with your site before making this decision.

Don’t let someone talk you into a custom design that they then have to do all the work to maintain so you can’t leave them.

If you just want a website that looks pretty, then just go with a designer that does good work. Beware though that many designers have no idea how to design a site that ranks.

If you are wanting it to drive traffic or for e-commerce, find a firm that can give you references of sites they built that are similar to yours and check their references.

My wife and I own a digital marketing firm that she runs, and we see all the time where people pay to build sites that look pretty but that are not built using SEO best practices and the owners end up having to pay for a lot of rework to get the results they wanted.

Do a little work to educate yourself enough to ask a few questions that will tease out if they at least have a basic understanding of SEO and local optimization. Moz is a good place to learn enough to be dangerous.