In the first case, site may be one out of world but who knows about it. Of course it helps if its a Blue Chip with multi million dollar advertising budget to announce its URL through other media. In absence of this, the site doesn't exist for majority of potential customers.

In second case, even when the site is ranked at Top with search engines, potential buyers can visit it once but there is remote chance of anyone spending any time there with such stale and boring website.

In both these cases, result is same: No Sale. The purpose of putting up Business Website is defeated.

There has be some approach where design and search engine optimization efforts are balanced. Where creative and artistic elements are not to be sacrificed for Search engine rankings and rankings shall not suffer in quest of a very creative web design.

A good website has to catch viewers attention in 5 seconds while search engines need related, rich content. This is possible using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Any and every web element can be arranged at right place using CSS and not using tables. Working with tables create many extra lines of codes that makes keyword phrases seem less important.

Using CSS can do away with these extra lines of codes and will help you in rankings while not compromising on quality of your web design. With advances in html and css, text itself can be a very flexible and attractive design element with endless possibilities.


However, its important to have a web designer who understands Search engine optimization. Site optimization consists of some rigid, unbendable rules. It can be combined successfully with very creative and attractive design.