TheRugged.com is a post from: i7o Media

We’re finally ready to launch our first major project! A men’s online lifestyle magazine targeting men ages 18-34. Head over to the site and subscribe now. You’ll be the first to know when we officially launch!

The Rugged will feature articles related to health, fitness, finance, relationships, sports, style, tech toys, and everything else men love! You’ll also be able to check out some great recipes, learn how to make drinks, ask questions, join the debates, interact in the forums, and even be entertained by the daily bits.

Eventually, we’ll be ‘competing’ with large sites such as AskMen, MadeMan, Spike, FHM, and others in the men’s lifestyle niche. We don’t plan to stop there. We’re going to take this brand and drive it into other men’s products/services as well. More on that at a later date. For now, check out a teaser shot:

Website

Looking For Partners (Joint Ventures)

Email “partner at therugged.com”  (replace “at” with “@” and remove the spaces) and give us the info!

- Investors

- Advertisers

- Related publishers/sites

- Models

- Guest Authors

- Interviews

- Writers

- Anyone who believes we need to connect

We’re Hiring Writers (Both Men and Women)

We’re looking for writers who are interested in developing a long-term relationship. We want great writers, and we want them to stick around. We feel that our pay structure reflects that. Pay is negotiable, depending on skills, article quality, and the ability to generate buzz and readership.

Base Pay: $3 per 100 words. We plan to gradually increase this figure, upwards of $10 per 100 words as the magazine grows. Articles will typically stay at around 400-600 words. Although there will also be the occasional 200 word news articles, and even 1000 word pillar articles.

Bonus: If your articles are hitting the front page of social media sites, it won’t go unnoticed. You’ll be awarded bonus pay for such achievements – upwards of $100 depending on the success of the article.

Revenue-Sharing: We want our success to be your success. Therefore, writers will share a percentage of monthly revenue.

Additional Opportunities: As the magazine grows, one of the first priorities will be to increase the pay and opportunities for our writers. As mentioned, we’ll also be looking for senior editors, and even community managers in the future.

Topics

Keep in mind that this is a men’s magazine, not wikipedia. Every article should be engaging, and entertaining. A perfect example of what we’re looking for is the publication; Men’s Health. With that said, we’re looking for writers to take on a variety of topics including:

Health & Fitness

Power & Money

Sex & Relationships – Looking for articles that are a bit more sophisticated than what you might find in say, FHM. This can be a bit tricky, but if you’ve ever read Men’s Health and FHM, you see the difference in the target audience. FHM targets teenage boys. Men’s Health targets men starting careers. Our target audience is more on par with Men’s Health.

Sports – We’re looking for broad topics here. A bad example would be a complete run down of a baseball game. A good example might be something about the Brett Favre controversy, or a hyped up UFC fight. Anything that interests the main stream, and not necessarily specific sports gurus.

Style – Clothes, hygiene, etc.

Tech – Concept cars, smart phones, gadgets, toys, video games, the web, etc. Again, we’re looking for broad articles covering the juicy stuff, not technical pieces.

Controversial Rants – We plan to have a section that is purely controversial. Your job will be to generate debates among our readers, in an educated, witty, humorous, open-minded way. We stress “open-minded” because we do intend on having political debates. If you find it hard to agree with views from more than one news station, then you’re probably not what we’re looking for in this particular section.

Requirements

- Excellent English writing skills (grammar, spelling, sentence structure).

- Be able to format an article for the best possible readability. Know when (and when not) to use bullets, sub-headers, etc.

- Be capable of extensively researching a subject, and portraying authority.

- Engaging writing style (this might include witty, humorous, personal, ability to connect with readers).

- Be able to produce content that generates buzz, and is worthy of being linked to.

- One article per week when necessary.

- Respond to comments.

- Respond to a monthly Q&A (regarding your expertise) sent in from readers

How To Apply

Email partner @ therugged.com (remove spaces) and include the following:

- Name, age, sex, location, and an avatar (photo of you).

- Let us know which topics you’d like to write about.

- 3 sample articles that you’ve written. If they haven’t been used/published yet, you may even be paid for these, if hired.

- Reason(s) you would be perfect for the job. Maybe you’re passionate about a specific topic, maybe you already have experience with online writing, maybe you know how to use WordPress, or maybe you’re good at marketing. Whatever you think we should know!

Men’s Online Magazine (Now Hiring) is a post from: i7o Media

Basically, you see something you like on Amazon detail pages, and you push it to your followers. This isn’t a feature I’ll be using, atleast not on any of my current twitter accounts. But it could come in handy for those twitter accounts that are devoted to deals, specific products, etc.

Don’t be surpirsed if you see a lot more of Amazon floating around on your twitter feeds. Oh boy, can’t wait.

Amazon On Twitter is a post from: i7o Media

After reading everything you need to know about web hosting, be sure to check out the four web hosting providers we recommend.

This guide will evolve. Some subjects just require too many details, and are therefore better suited as individual posts – which will be linked to from here after we get around to writing about them.

8 Web Hosting Facts

1. Why pay full price? There are almost always web hosting coupons available. You should be able to find them easily with a quick Google search. If you’re looking for a virtual private server, or a dedicated server, it’s a good idea to check out the deals announced on popular web hosting forums.

2. Most web hosting reviews and recommendations are bogus. They’re simply trying to make an affiliate sale. Some might even feel obligated to hype up their own web hosting provider . A lot of sites are sponsored, and receive free web hosting. Make sure you’re reading real reviews from real people. My favorite happens to be HostJury.

3. The term “unlimited” is deceiving. Many shared hosting packages offer unlimited bandwidth. The truth is, you’re never going to see that bandwidth, because providers place caps on the amount of server resources your site can use at any given time.

4. Shared hosting is just that… shared. You have to remember that your site is on a server with many other sites that belong to other people. Therefore, if your site is using up too many resources, you’re going to slow down every other site on that server. Web hosting providers need to protect every client on that server. Host Gator for example, allows you to use up to 25% of server resources for 90 seconds. If you go over this cap, your account will be frozen until you’re able to work things out.

5. Don’t assume that a VPS is better than shared hosting. Just because a VPS costs more, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to see better performance. Again, lets use Host Gator as an example. Their shared packages start at only $4.95 a month. Looking at the server specs on their shared servers, and taking into account what I’ve mentioned above (25% cap), you’ll be able to calculate that you’re allowed to use the following resources (in bursts):

• 2.0 GHz CPU
• 2 GB of ram

Now lets say you’re in the market for a VPS, because your site has received a ton of traffic lately. Maybe you just got featured on the front page of Digg, and got the boot from your shared server. Obviously, you’re going to want at least the same amount of resources you had on the shared server (2.0 GHz CPU, 2 GB of ram). A fully managed VPS with those specs will run you around $100 a month. So, if you were to move from your $5 shared server, to a $30 VPS, you’re actually downgrading in many ways.

As you can see, the shared server was allowing your site to expand with bursts of traffic when needed, but once you’re forced to move to your own server, you have to purchase ALL of those resources, regardless of whether or not your site is using them at all times.

6. Don’t assume a dedicated server is better than a VPS. There are plenty of VPS servers that can out-perform lower-end dedicated servers, even though the dedicated might actually cost a lot more. One of the biggest disadvantages of a VPS however, is disk i/o, since it can’t be isolated.

7. All hard drives are not created equal. Typically, SSD > SAS > SCSI > SATA. You’ll also want to check the raid setup.

8. Your database or media files can be served from another location. Amazon for example, offers a variety of CDN and cloud services, and there are even wordpress plugins to help with integration. Depending on your needs, this could be a cost-effective solution.

11 Questions To Ask The Web Hosting Provider

1. Are the servers fully managed?

2. Is there a network uptime guarantee?

3. Is there a hardware replacement SLA (question doesn’t apply to shared hosting)?

4. Is there an initial response guarantee (for support)?

5. What type of access do I have to support? Phone? Email? Live chat online? Available 24/7?

6. How scalable is the server? Easy to upgrade? Do files need to be transferred or is an upgrade automatic? Will my site experience any downtime?

7. Is there a setup fee? Are there any discounts available for paying an initial setup fee?

8. Is there a contract?

9. Is there a money back guarantee?

10. What control panel and/or features does the server have?

11. Does the data center (where my server resides) have the following safety precautions: Fire suppression systems in place? Authorized access in a secure area? Temperature controlled environment? Back-up power supply?

Note: Many of the answers to these questions can be found on the sales page itself.

8 Server Specs To Look For Before Making A Decision On A VPS Or Dedicated Server

1. Processor: Check out this article on server load.

2. Memory

3. Hard drive

4. Operating system: Plan on using Windows or Linux?

5. Control panel

6. Bandwidth

7. Port speed

8. Dedicated IP addresses available

Web Hosting (Everything You Need To Know) is a post from: i7o Media

Liquid Web

The Good: Superior reliability, excellent support, and options…many options! They offer shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers.

Want to add 1GB of ram without upgrading to the next (tier) package? Maybe you want to upgrade the processor, or add a gigabit uplink port? No problem. Liquid Web offers the best scalability.

The VPS, dedicated servers, and upgrades are competitively priced.

The Bad: Their shared hosting packages are expensive and don’t offer as much as you’d expect at those price points.

The Ugly: Hell, we can’t think of anything. Liquid Web has a solid reputation.

Host Gator

The Good: Host Gator is by far the absolute best in the shared hosting industry. Fully managed servers, fast, reliable, great prices, and the best support we’ve seen. Call, or use the online live-chat feature and get a response within a few minutes.

Host Gator is very fair, and unlike other shared hosting providers, will not bother you over minor issues such as wordpress plugins that command too many queries.

The Bad: Although we’re a fan of their shared hosting, they don’t offer any virtual private servers. They do have dedicated servers available, but the options and scalability are severely limited.

The Ugly: Again, they are the best as far as shared hosting goes, but that doesn’t mean shared hosting doesn’t come with its trade-offs.

Since you’re sharing a server with others, if you go over the resource limit, you’re going to effect everyone on that server. Therefore, they reserve the right to take your site offline and even ban you if you’re causing other sites to slow down.

Host Gator is pretty lenient; allowing you to use up to 25% of server resources for 90 second bursts. Some claim to have had sites with near 100,000 uniques per month running on a Host Gator shared package.

However, large traffic spikes are what you need to worry about. If you’re constantly hitting the front page of Digg, you’re going to want more than shared hosting.

Media Temple

The Good: Awesome control panel, and the ability to do just about everything through the iphone enabled panel. Media Temple offers something that no other provider can at the moment. The ability to handle traffic spikes from sites like Digg, for only $20 a month on their grid service.

The Bad: Going from their $150 a month DV server, the next tier available is the Nitro package, at $750 a month. That’s quite a big jump. Sure they offer ala carte upgrades in between those two packages, but you’ll pay way more than you should for them.

The Ugly: Their grid service experienced a very significant amount of downtime earlier this tear. Many sites were down, and email unavailable for hours (some report days). Everything seems to be under control now, after they upgraded the system.

Known Host

The Good: Great prices, very reliable, good customer support, and sky-high approval ratings. They offer many packages including hybrid servers, which are a lot cheaper, and even outperform some dedicated servers. Click a button and upgrade your packages instantly.

The Bad: Some upgrade options are limited, but not a big deal for 99.9% of webmasters.

The Ugly: We say “good” support and not “great” because they don’t offer a phone number on their website. All support is handled via email.

Best Web Hosting (Our Recommendations) is a post from: i7o Media

Gravity Forms: Makes form management easier than ever. Especially useful for sites that publish user-generated content.

Duplicate Post Checker: Will check for similar posts that already exist. Great for sites that publish jokes, quotes, poems, etc.

Viper’s Video Quicktags: If you embed videos into your posts, you’ll definitely want this plugin. Once the plugin is installed, you can configure how the videos are displayed (width, height, alignment, etc.). Then all you need to do is paste the url (that the video is located at), and it will show up in your post.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin: Uses an advanced algorithm to show related articles (from your blog) for each post. The plugin also caches the related posts that are shown, which significantly improves performance over other related posts plugins.

WP-Polls: Allows you to place a poll on your site. Easily customized via templates and css styles.

Feedburner Feedsmith: Detects all the ways to access your feed, and redirects them to your Feedburner feed (allowing you to track all of your subscribers).

WPtouch iPhone Theme: Transforms your blog into an iPhone application-style theme when viewed from popular smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, etc.).

Monetizing

OiOPublisher: Allows you to sell your own advertising through a fully automated system. Also makes it easy to sell digital products.

Amazon Auto Affiliate Linker: Automatically adds your Amazon affiliate id to every link pointing to Amazon from your blog.

Performance

WP Super Cache: This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic blog; dramatically reducing server load during high traffic spikes.

Security

WP Security Scan: Scans your Wordpress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions.

Limit Login Attempts: Limits the number of login attempts from an IP address, making a brute-force attack difficult. The plugin will also log the activity, and notify you via email if you choose.

Akismet: Checks your comments against the Akismet web service to prevent spam from getting published. Also allows you to review the spam it catches.

RSS Footer: Makes it easy to add a line of content to the beginning or the end of all the articles in your feed. This is great for adding a link back to your site (to counter scraper sites that are stealing your content).

SEO

All-in-One SEO Pack: A must have plugin for SEO. Here are just a few actions that are easily performed using this plugin:

• Setup canonical urls
• Rewrite titles
• Set meta description and keywords
• Optimize title format
• Enable noindex on specific pages, to avoid duplicate content penalties

SEO Friendly Images: Automatically updates images with ALT and TITLE attributes.

SEO Smart Links: Allows you to interlink posts on your site, or link to affiliate sites through keywords that you specify. When these words appear in your posts, they will automatically link to the url you set.

Google XML Sitemaps: Generates a XML-Sitemap of your site. Supported by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask – this will help search engines crawl your site.

More Useful WordPress Plugins

Come on, you didn’t expect us to stop there did you? That would only leave you wanting more. Which is exactly why we’ve added 10 more plugins to the list.

Why didn’t these make the top list? To maintain performance, we believe you should aim to keep plugins to a minimum. Additional plugins mean longer load times, stress on the server, the possibility of complicated upgrades, and maybe even trouble with your web host (depending on the provider).

We also took into consideration how useful the plugins are, and how easy they would be to replace by simple theme revisions, or manual actions. In other words, if the plugins only added a minor convenience, we preferred to avoid the unnecessary bloat.

Even so, many bloggers will find these plugins useful, so we’ve added them to cater to everyone.

WP-DBManager: Allows you to optimize, repair, and backup your database.

Why it didn’t make the top list: We prefer doing a manual backup of the entire site (not just the database).

W3 Total Cache: The ultimate plugin to improve server performance; this plugin has it all. Seriously the author thought of everything.

Why it didn’t make the top list: Unless you’re advanced in dealing with the backend of your site, you won’t be able to take advantage of many of the features offered in this plugin. You’d be better off using the WP Super Cache plugin mentioned above.

Robots Meta: Easily add meta robot tags to Wordpress pages.

Why it didn’t make the top list: All-in-One SEO Pack already gives you the ability to noindex the important stuff. This plugin just goes overboard in our opinion.

Breadcrumb NavXT: Generates locational breadcrumb trails for your blog.

Why it didn’t make the top list: Breadcrumb navigation is situational. In fact, some studies show that breadcrumb navigation can actually confuse the user. Even so, breadcrumb nvaigation is easy enough to implement without a plugin if needed.

SEO Slugs: Removes common words (the, in, a, what, you, can) from post slugs to improve search engine optimization.

Why it didn’t make the top list: We’re not convinced that this is going to make a big difference in your rankings.

We’ll be adding more plugins to the list soon. Be sure to bookmark this page!

18+ (Must Have) WordPress Plugins is a post from: i7o Media

People are finding that it’s easier than ever to connect with others (from all over the world).

Entrepreneurs are finding that there’s never been a better time to start a business.

Businesses are finding that transparency, and interaction are the keys to thriving on this evolving phenomenon.

10 years from now, media giants don’t exist. This is the day of new media. A democratization of the internet. So many opportunities await, and our hopes are that we’ll be able to teach, learn, and share along the way.

What is i7o Media

We’re a lot of things. Our focus is what we believe to be the ‘hub’ of this new media, and everything that evolves from it. Blogging, social media, startups, WordPress, internet marketing, and SEO to name a few. Here are a few things you can expect to see around here in the coming months:

1. Blog – Our goal is to produce quality content that helps bloggers, entrepreneurs, and businesses succeed online. We also intend to keep you up-to-date with what’s happening on the net. We may talk about new startups, the browser war, what’s going on in the social media world, technology updates, etc.

2. Services – Soon, we’ll be offering a variety of services. Maybe you need a custom blog design? Coding? Writing? Blog promotion? Brand recognition? You’ll find that and more!

3. Tools – We’ll be developing wordpress plugins, and premium wordpress themes among other things.

4. Community – Collaborating with like minded individuals is crucial. Yet few take action. That’s why we plan to make it easier. We’ll also be managing clubs/groups where members will team up to help each other reach the next level.

5. Publisher – That’s right. We’re also in the process of building our own online empire. We have quite a few projects in store, and we’ll be sharing them with you soon!

Now What?

Currently we’re in the process of becoming an LLC. In the meantime, subscribe to our RSS feed and/or follow us on twitter. Be sure to keep an eye on our blog. We’ll be sharing some valuable tips over the next few weeks, and of course, you’ll be the first to find out when a new project is launched!

i7o Media (Official Launch!) is a post from: i7o Media

We saved the best for last! When it comes to making serious money from your blog – affiliate programs are your cash cow.

Affiliate Marketing In A Nutshell
Affiliate marketing is connecting customers to merchants and taking a commission. A website owner will promote a product on their website and each time a visitor clicks the link to the merchant’s site and buys, the website owner gets a commission.

How do we find products/services to promote?
The best way to find affiliate programs is through affiliate networks such as Commission Junction and Clickbank. You sign up for an account, search the database of products/services, once you find the product you want to promote, you simply add the links or banner to your website.

How is it tracked back to the website owner?
When you sign up for the affiliate program, you will be given a special link which contains your affiliate ID, so it can be tracked back to you.

Types of Affiliate Incomes
Recursive – You may be promoting a monthly service to your customers such as website hosting. Often you will receive a monthly commission for as long as that customer is paying for the service.

For example – You may refer a customer to a hosting company and the customer signs up for a $20/month hosting plan. Each month you receive a $5 commission. Sure $5 is not much money, but imagine if you sign up 100 people during the year. Now you have $500 recursive passive income. You literally do nothing to earn this money, it just keeps coming in!

CPA(cost per action) – With CPA offers, you will get payed only once for refering customers. You can be paid if your customers buy a product, take a free trial, in some cases they only need to enter their email address into a form and you get paid.

I promote a membership product on one of my blogs, each time a customer takes a 7 day trial membership for $1.95, I get paid $30. Not a bad deal at all! The membership site converts enough “trial members” to “full members” that they can afford to pay $30 CPA.

It is always a good idea to know the product well before you start recommending it to your visitors. It needs to be relevant to your blog niche and genuinely useful to your visitors. Don’t promote crap or you will lose visitors.

Right now, I am not promoting affiliate offers on Bizboink. I am focused on building up quality content and a loyal following. If I were to start promoting products, I would promote products such as:

• Hostgator – A website hosting company. They have an affiliate program, it is recursive. I use hostgator myself and they are a fantastic service, so I would have no problem promoting them.

• Wordpress Themes – There are some awesome wordpress templates packages which I could promote. I have bought many of them, so I know which to promote.

• SEO software – I could promote keyword research tools such as Micro Niche Finder. I use this software everyday and it has helped make me alot of money. I would provide video tutorials on how it works and how to get the most from it.

That should give you some ideas on how to promote affiliate programs.

Always Remember
As a blogger you are not here to solely promote products – you’re primary focus is your readers. Focus on providing value and entertainment, if you can do that, you build readers trust and loyalty and when you occasionally promote a product – you will have your readers respect and attention.

Monetize Your Blog(Part 3) – Affiliate Programs is a post from: i7o Media

Another option to make money from your blog is to do paid reviews. Basically you get paid to review a company, service or product on your blog.

Here’s how it works

1. Sign Up With reviewme.com
Reviewme.com is a company similar to text-link-ads which we spoke about in Part 1. Once you have joined reviewme, you will be listed on their website. Companies, individuals, webmaster and product owners who are looking for some advertising for their service or product will pay anywhere between $40 and $500 for a review on your website. The cost depends mainly on the exposure your blog will give them. Reviewme will decide the cost.

2. Write and Publish Your Review
Once an order is placed by an advertiser, you will receive notification and given 48 hours to publish a review. Once you publish the review, it will be checked by reviewme and you will be paid at the end of the month.

The best thing about paid reviews is that you can be 100% honest. This is a review…..NOT a plug! There is a huge difference. The advertiser has come to you, so you can be as honest as you like. Remember to always think of your readers first and foremost! If the product or service is crappy, then tell your readers that. If the product is actually pretty good, then go ahead and recommend it to your readers. If the product is good, but has a few issues – tell them that. You get the idea.

Always remember – your reputation and integrity is of upmost importance, you need to build trust in your readers. You can choose which paid reviews you want to accept. If you really don’t want to put your readers through the agony of a crappy product review, then reject the offer.

Here is the annoying part – reviewme.com takes 50% of the payment. Whilst they have generated the advertisers for you, it is a hefty chunk of the profits. Here is what I would do….

3. Also add a Paid Review offer on your “Advertise With Us” Page.
We spoke about the importance of having an advertise with us page in Part 1. If you can generate paid reviews directly, you can make more money and you can charge the advertisers less. make it 75% of what you are worth on reviewme.com

Add this to your “Advertise With Us” page:

Package 3 – Sponsored Review
Cost:
What you receive:
Conditions:
Benefits:

If you are getting decent traffic to your blog, you will no doubt attract paid reviews.

Monetize Your Blog(Part 2) – Paid Reviews is a post from: i7o Media

Paid advertising can be a great way to make easy monthly income on your blog. Many of the top bloggers make good money through paid advertising.

Here are the options:

1. Text Link Ads
You can join a company such as text-link-ads.com who will manage your paid advertising. Firstly you will need to create a “publisher” account. TLA will then decide the price of the ads on your site based on factors such as traffic, theme and link popularity. You will then go into the marketplace and advertisers can find you. You will be provided with a small piece of script which you will need to place on your site. Very easy to add this to a sidebar “text-widget”

Once an advertiser chooses to place a text-link ad on your site, they will pay the money to TLA management and the link will go automatically into the pre-defined link section on your site(usually in the sidebar). You split the revenue 50/50 with TLA and get paid on the 1st of every month.

2. Private Text Link Ads
This is the same method as above, however you cut out the middle man and keep all the revenue yourself. You will need to set up an “advertise with us” page on your site. On that page you will need to provide advertisers with details of your advertising packages.
- Cost per month
- What you actually get
- Availability
- Benefits

By cutting out the middle man(TLA), you will increase your profits on each advertising space, however you will need to track-down payments, manage the links and keep it all up-to-date. It can certainly be a pain in the butt, especially chasing up advertisers for monthly payments.

I would recommend you do both of the above. Most definitely join a network such as TLA as this will increase your exposure to advertisers. Also add the “advertise with us” page so you can get 100% payment and capture some advertisers who are actually visiting your site.

Another option is to check out related blogs in your niche. See who is advertising on those blogs, contact them and see if they are interested. Look at who is advertising on the best blogs in your niche – these will be the interested folks who have money for advertising.

Here’s what I would do - I would advertise at TLA and use this service for a few months. I would then contact the advertisers privately and see if they would like to pay 75% of what they are paying now through TLA. I’m sure they will agree. That way you make 75% instead of 50% and the advertisers pay 75% instead of 100%. Are you following? Advertisers save money and you make more money. 50% commission from TLA is ridiculous.

3. Banner Ads
You could offer a premium package on your “Advertise with us” page which has a banner advertisement in the sidebar, footer or the end of each post. You can charge more for these banners.

Some blog themes come with custom advertising space in the sidebar. If you have no advertisers, make a small banner “Advertise your company here” and add it to that space.

Most of all, I highly recommend you add an “advertise with us” page. If your blog has plenty of traffic, you should be making some easy bucks with paid advertising.

If you have low traffic to your blog, you will need to build it up before you will be able to attract adertisers. Nonetheless, you should still add your “advertise with us” so its ready to go.

Remember - great content = more visitors = more $$ from advertising. It all comes back to great content. Content is King!!

Monetize Your Blog(Part 1) – Paid Advertising is a post from: i7o Media