Should I use a freelance website to find a web designer?
No way... Sure, you could try, but in our experience, as a marketing agency, it is never worth it. In most cases when we have new clients, their issue with the previous web design company they used was that it would take a long time, weeks, sometimes even months, to make a minor change to their website. Why? Because these were likely sales people, selling the "service" but hiring people from other countries to do the work. This is why you would send in a request, and it would take so long... Assuming someone is reading this and has had this happen.
The difference with Make it Active, is that our developers are here. In fact, in some cases, clients email us, or call us, and ask us to make changes, and depending on our workload that day, and our schedule, we sometimes make the changes immediately. Even if we don't make it immediately, we make most changes within 2 business days from the time we get the request. That is why we have a high client retention rate, and retain most customers for years.
There are other harms of using international freelancers to do website design projects, that you should be aware of. One thing some of these companies do is make it difficult for other developers to take over your website later. So, they will hack the basic structure of your WordPress website or Joomla website, which makes it difficult for you to make edits, or other developers to make edits. This seems to be a common tactic, used to force companies to continue hiring that freelancer, or designer. Of course, that's just the problems with the freelancer. What about the freelance websites? Many of them offer escrow accounts for protection! Right?
Not only are there problems with using freelancers, the freelance companies are often difficult to deal with and are really there just to transfer funds. We were once overwhelmed with work and hired someone from one of these websites, and they held on to the master files until after we paid for the "milestone." This seemed reasonable enough. Once paid, we found that they did not actually do the work correctly, and since we paid, the company would not reimburse us or work on our behalf to fix the issue; instead, they offered us the opportunity to pay and additional $300 to use their arbitration services. Why take the chance? Hire us to manage your website and see the difference that Make it Active has to offer.