SEO - Simple for people who don't know how it works . . .

Every business now has a website, having a website is critical for business to demonstrate their products, services and provide value for both their current and future customers. Building a great website is not enough, building a visible website is more effective.

Being visible online means that your website shows in search results in visible position when customers search for keywords related to the products you sell. Sadly, over 90% of Google users do not scroll past the first page results. So it is a must to have your website showing up in the first page when Google user is searching for your products or services.
Before explaining how stuff works in this area you need to understand how Google Engine operates to sort the results it displays and what are the different types of results you see on Google.

Google engine is built to try and provide its users with the most quality and relative (correct) results for their search terms or search queries. So from Google prospective it always tries to rank websites to show the best websites related to the search term first In order to determine which websites are better and it is shown on top (at the first page). These results are called Organic Results, Results are called Organic because they are not affected by any paid ads to change their position or display order, only quality Score is calculated to sort websites. In order for Google to be a successful search engine, it should provide its user with the best results related to their search.

Here come the million dollars question, How does Google Rank (Sort) its results?
Google uses a very complex equations to calculate score for each website pages against search terms, in order for you to rank high in search engine you should adjust the factors affecting these equations and as a result, your website score should improve thus increasing your position on the search result. Below we will provide a list of most factors affecting your website rank with brief description for each point. SEO = Search Engine Optimization , is that Art of improving your website score to show first on search engine.

Website/Page Contents Design
The web page has to be designed and developed with Search Engine friendly standards. Following the correct and best practices in placing the content and page materials has a large impact on the website score. (Web Designer & Developer Responsibility, So choose Professional Developers)
Check this: http://softexsw.com/en/webdesign.php

Search Engine Friendly URLs
Your website page names are very important, your page names should have descriptive names about the product or service, Use "-" in the Page URL instead of spaces (which are not recommended) , so if you have a page selling Used Golf Cars in Cairo, your page name should be something like: http://www.yourwebsite.com/Used-golf-cars-in-Cairo.php , This will guarantee Google will see your page with high relevance score for Used Golf cars + Cairo.
(Responsibility of website developer + Marketing Team)

Meta Tags and Page Keywords
Every website has in its internal structure a hidden text called: Meta-Tags, meta tags are text embedded within each website page that is visible only by Search engine and not visible for regular website users. You should make sure that each page has the description tag + keywords Tag matching with the products/services you sell. In order to check the Meta-tags of each Page , Right click any website page in your browser and click "View Page Source". Search for Meta-Tags in the title Tags. (This is the responsibility of your Website Developer and your Marketing Team).
Website Hosting Reliability and Loading Speed
Believe it or not, but Google keeps an eye continuously over your website, if you have a poor hosting for your website (which is not stable and goes down frequently), Google will kick you down the rank algorithm and you will get poor score. Google for sure does not want to display links in the search result that goes to "Website Down Page" (Choosing Reliable Website Hosting company is important, Pay a little extra and get Decent Hosting Services)
Check This: http://www.softexsw.com/en/hosting-services

Back Links Population
One of the most important facts in determining your website score is the Links population. Links Population means how many website have links pointing to your website (Having many websites linking to you is important, Google recognizes that these many links mean your website have high quality content and this is why people are linking to it). Please note that not all links are useful, Having quality links is what it counts for Google. Quality links comes from decent website that Google determines as "genuine Content" , so choose only quality websites to host links pointing back to your website. (Just make sure your company with website URL is listed in several high quality online directories and databases, For more help you need to hire professional SEO Specialist to improve your score)

Content is King and will always be
The most important factor now in the most recent Google Equation calculator is the quality of the content. How content is rated by Google is very important, Google engine is becoming more and more smart in evaluating the quality of your content. Make sure your content is not copy and paste , Unique content is a must , if Google finds out duplicated content on your website that is copied from other website, your Score will get penalized. Google also use advanced grammar analysis algorithms to make sure the content is good to read. One of the most Not-To-DO are duplicating content, Do not ever never duplicate content within your website. Google will consider this is a scam and will heavily penalize your website. Remember that Content is the most important Factor in determine your website Rank nowadays.(This is the main responsibility of your marketing team, if you do not have the ability to write about your products and services yourself, hire somebody to do it for you , believe me the benefits of having your website visible is far more that the expense you will pay for hiring somebody to prepare Unique content).

Finally, these are not all the factors. These are most of the important factors that affects your website quality score. Remember that SEO and Online marketing is a marathon, and to get results you might need to work continuously for 6 months. Once you succeed , you will be very happy of the number of people reaching out to do business with you via the internet.

Good luck and Happy SEO
Maged A. Reda
CEO
Softex Software House
http://www.softexsw.com