The greatest temptation of outsourcing is to approve the lowest bid in order to maximize profits. This is definitely not a good practice, especially when dealing with overseas freelance developers and designers. If a problem may arise – it will be difficult to solve it. Remember that your reputation and moreover business depends on timely and due delivery by a third party designer or developer and you might lose the client, and worse still, your business. This does not mean that low bids stand for poor quality, but they require more close attention. Study their experience, portfolio, testimonials of ongoing clients, and their core competencies.

In any outsourcing arrangement, if you get "bad vibes" it's best to heed your instincts and not continue with negotiations - too much is at risk.

Communication can also be a bit of a challenge.  If you receive a bid from someone in very poor English (if that is your primary language), it's best to keep away; so that you don’t want to correct the grammar and spelling mistakes on your website or application. Even if you need graphics only, contractor’s poor English may be an obstacle on the way to clear understanding. . A good deal of time will be lost in the to and fro of revisions. 

Even if you have hired an overseas developer at $10 an hour, it may cost you $20 per hour with the inevitable issues of communications that will definitely occur.

The benefits of advertising for developers and designers globally are many. By building up a network of professional contractors, you not only decrease your running costs as each contractor is responsible for his own work environment and insurances etc, you also greatly expand your companies portfolio of skills that can be offered to clients.

By outsourcing project components you aren't efficient in, it will leave you with more time to focus on your core skills and further develop those.   

In advertising project components globally, you will also probably secure the best price possible for the work. India and Eastern Europe have many thousands of quality freelance programmers looking for work and their rates are incredibly low in comparison to their Western counterparts.

Web design is a huge field with many dozens of technologies involved - there's no way a small design company or site owner can cover everything. But without having access to expert designers and developers, small companies can lose many contracts or market share through a lack of suitable expertise.    

The idea of outsourcing projects or project components may strike fear into the hearts of many small operators, but the future success of your company may depend on it - otherwise you may find your customer base drying up.