How do you rank highly without sacrificing the design of your site?

There is a widely held fear that in order to be visible to search engines you also have to be pretty unappealing to the average human visitor.

Content filled with keyword saturated copy and link text may leave you feeling that the site won't be worth the visit after a Search Engine Optimiser has had his way with it.

But, if you're not in the first three pages of results offered up by a search engine, you're not being seen by many visitors.

Assuming you want visitors to your site and you don't have money to promote your web site through mainstream advertising channels such as television, radio, press and poster campaigns - then Search Engine Optimisation is going to be an issue.

It's been said that a good web site needs to be visually arresting and capture the viewers imagination within 5 seconds or less. And for it to rank well in Search Engine Optimisation terms it has to have the level of content and supporting text of a fairly weighty brochure. Potentially uneasy bedfellows.

Compromise is inevitable but there are many things you can do to minimise any negative effects.

At one level, what it boils down to is less code and more content. Use CSS rather than tables and avoid the exclusively Flash-based homepage.