The question is this: “What is your websites ILQ Rating?”  You may be asking what is ILQ?  What is ILQ Rating?  ILQ stands for Inbound Link Quality, and the rating is just what you may think it is.  Think of how the Google Page Rank works in rating a webpage, the ILQ Rating is the rating of the amount of quality sites we have linking to our site.

What are a few examples of (Inbound Link Quality) these kind of links/sites?  DMOZ and Yahoo! Directory are just a couple on my list.

Where do I find the tool that gives me my ILQ Rating?  You can find an easy to use tool here from SEO Company:  This tool could be an important market research tool in finding out the kind of sites you are going up against and what thier ILQ is.  You can also research the kind of sites they are linking to and get a good list of potential sites that you could then link with.

What makes a site worthy of being an “ILQ Site”?  Several factors, but the main ones being, age of site, how long they have owned the domain name, PR and do they give you a link no matter what, or do you have to go through some sort of screening?  For example Yahoo! Directory makes you pay 299$ just for “consideration” and it does not mean you will be for sure accepted in.  Most people don’t want to throw away 299$ for a directory submission, but they have no clue that one link in Yahoo! Directory could be worth 100 links of a “regular-non-ILQ directory”.

Here is my top 10 ILQ Directories:

1. http://www.dmoz.org
2. Yahoo! Directory
3. Microsoft Directory
4. www.botw.org
5. www.Elib.org
6. www.americasbest.com
7. www.jayde.com
8. www.mavicanet.com/
9. www.business.com
10. www.abilogic.com

Most of these cost to get in, but are well worth it and could put you leaps above the competition just getting into these 10 if you are going up against people that are not aware of directories or the quality ones for that matter..

Check out your sites ILQ Rating, and make a plan as to how you will start to get better ILQ.  It’s not as hard as you might think!

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Just a quick note about something Utah SEO Chris Bennett (owner of 97thfloor.com) came across the other day and it got me thinking about all the things (scams) we got to be careful about in the world of SEO. If I can bring this up here and maybe save one person from not making a mistake then it will be worth it!

He had come across a page that was selling a Page Rank 10 text-link for 200 a month. Anyone involved in the world of SEO knows that is just to good to be true. Besides what it could do for rankings (for whatever word you anchor up) just imagine the actual traffic you could get from a link on a PR 10. It could be insaine.

So, just for kicks we investigated a little bit and found out the site only had a couple back links to it and virtualy NO Offsite Optimization. MSN, Yahoo and Google all showed no signs of the site even on radar. There are tools to find out if sites are cloaked and we ran some tools on this site and found out it was jacking the Page Rank from another source (which actually was the PR 10) The site in question (which I will not give any exposure here), had no page rank and like I said … virtually no back links. Crazy huh?

So the point here is to be careful when purchasing links. I would always make sure anyone is very careful about any links they mighy buy on Ebay, forums or other various search engine blogs, or domain names promising a PR 9 or 10 - yet only selling for a 100 bucks??? Ask yourself this: “Why would anyone be selling a PR 10 site for 100 bucks”? The answer is they would never. Never in a million years.

To me its amazing the forms that fraud takes on. Who would have ever thought you would have to worry about purchasing links on supposed high PR sites, only find out the site is probably banned on most search engines. Be careful and stick to the basics with link building. A link from a banned site on Google could be bad news for the future of your site, and you never want to have to deal with that!

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I get posed this question often, so I figure now is as good of time as any to discuss it once more.  The question is this:  “Can I build up links to my site to quicky because I have heard that Google will penalize me for doing so”?

More then likely (doing link building on your own) you will never run into the problem of “coming on to strong for Google”.  Let me help you understand what (I feel) is what people do that would be considered “wrong”.  First, avoid anything that resembles a link farm, or massive link building campaigns that will overnight give you 100k (plus) links.  That could raise some red flags on the Googlebot.

Second, do the link building in a search engine friendly fashion; for example - If you are implementing a link building campaign by use of directories, articles, press releases, blogging and other community websites and tagging type sites then you really will not be doing anything out of the normal.  Some may try to tell you to only submit to 50 or so directories a day, but you can submit to as many as you possibly can and not be coming on to strong.  Think about it.  You may submit to 50, but how many are actually going to approve you right away?  Maybe half if you are lucky.  So, lets say in a week you submit to over 600 directories, you will probably not get more then 100 actually accept you that first week.  As time goes on every week you will see more approving you, and your link building campaign is gradually coming on (not to strong) by doing it this way.

It’s the same with articles and press.  You may submit a press release but how many media sites are actually going to be picking you up? 

Slow and steady will win the linking game race (well it’s not actually a race), but remember its just not about the amount of links pointing to your site.  Its the method, site they are on (PR, .gov, .edu???), and the anchor text used to link to you.

I think if you avoid any kind of link building that gives you hundreds of thousands of links overnight then you are ok.  $pam in any form is bad on Google, and this would be (in my opinion) a form of it!

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This is an interesting topic that I have been debating about for a while. 

In my line of work I often talk with people about finding thier “niche” in the “internet marketplace” through massive keyword research and analysis.  It is also important to help people understand thier passions and how they tie into thier internet business plan. 

But thats just it….lately I have been thinking about that very thing.  I can be passionate about anything if it makes me money.  With the help of suppliers, and all sorts of information through them you can create a pretty dang informative websites - and really know NADA about the product. 

In the past I would consult people to do the very opposite thing - Find a product they are passionate about because its so much easier to write content about something you know.   It was the best advice I could give at the time, but now … I am not sure if this is the best advice anymore.  The more and more I think about it - it was not!  Thats why I wanted to blog about this today to help people understand what they SHOULD BE DOING.  I hope someone gets something from my rantings!!!

Well that has all changed lately:

With all the free lance opportunites lately from sites like Guru - Elance and Get A Free Lancer its easy to get someone else to write about your products, content and topics. 

SO what does this mean?

It means that you need to base what you do on numbers (keyword research and analysis) and find “niches” that are good according to the search engines, and what people are looking for based on those numbers.  Use tools like the Keyword Selector Tool from Yahoo!, “allinanchor” and “allintitle” from Google.  Many Search Engine Optimization websites/firms have seo tools as well that help you research out keywords and the competition.

So, in conclusion when trying to figure out what your internet business is going to be…rely more on numbers and research, finding something that people are looking for, and finally - something we know we can get rankings on rather then just something you are “passionate” about!  (Cause remember - anyone can be passionate about making money!  Right??)

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I have been using Google Alerts and I love it.  Here’s why:

Google Alerts is not brand new by any means, but it is something that I have just been getting more familiar with over the last few months.  Google Alerts will track and notify users of topics in the news, hot community topics, online groups and other various web findings. 

If you do alot of article writting, blogging, press releases, market research (and everything else to stay on top of your industry) (or even looking for ideas for a fresh new topic) then Google Alerts is perfect for you.  All you do is go to the URL http://www.google.com/alerts and fill out the form for what you are searching for, what type it is (news, web, groups etc) and how often you want to be updated via email. 

Here’s the best part: (in my opinion) You can keep an eye on what the competition is doing, and what thier lastest news is.  You can also add your site, blog, articles etc. (or whatever) so you can find out what people are saying about you.  It could be a really great way to get honest feedback about your site and what you are doing in the industry.

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