One of the first, and arguably one of the most important steps when starting a new web development project is the construction of the framework.
What is the framework? Frameworks are the basic beginnings to styling your design and provide the foundation on which the rest of the development is going to be built. Spending some time and effort here is going to save many headaches in the long run. There many options when it comes to frameworks. There are those that are available online in the design and development communities or if you are working with web design services, odds are they will have a pre-constructed framework in house that they tweak on a project by project basis.
The best type of frameworks are those that are jointly constructed by a developer and a designer. Each of these professionals approach web development from a unique angle and by working together are much more likely to produce the desired results.
Be sure to ask your web design services to include you in the framework development process. It is much easier to make changes to things during the creation of the foundation of your website than it is at the end of the project.
Having a well built framework is also beneficial long term as it allows for your web design services to scale and upgrade the website when needed without the need to completely overhaul the entire site. This will mean that future changes to your website will be able to be made both in a time efficient manner and at a reasonable cost.