I started out as a designer but over the years have moved to the
SEO side of things. In my opinion it is absolutely necessary to decide from the start whether or not the clients site is meant to be focused on look or functionality or be able to be found by the search engines.
I have stated many times that
SEO begins on paper long before the first line of code is entered. Everything from site navigation to text placement to image naming and so much more must be carefully planned in order to make a ready for its climb up the search engines. Of course fresh content is a big part of the equation as well and that fresh content has to be found.
Designers like to use graphic links rather than text links, they like flash and large graphics and they don't like plain text. Finding a happy balance is difficult at best and in the end the person who heads the company needs to decide if they are more interested in being found or how they look.
I do realize there are some companies where image is everything but in most of those cases they have a strong offline network and marketing program that will bring significant traffic to their website. But for most small business and even a lot of larger ones who rely on searches, they just have to understand that they will probably have to give up some of the look.
As a former designer I can say that most designers are very very full of themselves and have paper thin egos and get easily offended........... I speak from experience.