Today Jeff Byer (@globaljeff) talks about backlinks inspired by the Search Engine Journal Show with Julie Joyce, training your brain to remember inspired by Thomas Oppong, and more tech talk.

Show Links

Julie Joyce on Paid Links, Top Tools, Cheap Link Building Ideas & More [PODCAST]
How to Train Your Brain to Remember Almost Anything
Rode NT-USB Versatile Studio-Quality USB Cardioid Condenser Microphone
MENS GV 005
Samsung QN65Q70RAFXZA Flat 65-Inch QLED 4K Q70 Series Ultra HD Smart TV with HDR and Alexa Compatibility (2019 Model)
Rode RODECaster Pro Podcast Production Studio
NETGEAR Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream Wifi 6 Router (RAX200) – AX11000 Tri-Band Wireless Speed (Up to 10.8 Gbps)

Transcript

Jeff Byer 00:06 Welcome to digital rage the podcast about all things internet and the people that make it great. My name is Jeff Byer and today we do not have a guest. Again reached out to a few people, , lots of, you know, too busy to talk, couple of non responses, you know, so, , I don’t have all day to do guest outreach so I apologize. But a, this’ll be another, , what’s going on and what am I working on type of episode. So, , what , happened this week, we hired a couple more people, a designer and a, a Shopify developer and great contrast. The designer is really slow and turning out terrible work and the Shopify developer is fast and awesome. So, , really happy with that because the Shopify good. Shopify developers are kind of like good web WordPress developers. There are a ton out there, but when you find a good one, you got to keep them.
Jeff Byer 01:08 So I mean, I’m paying a premi, but he’s very good. So that guy is doing great for me. He is, , is turning out stuff, you know, basically today he did a ton of stuff already, , which would have taken a week with my previous developers. So very happy with that. , the designer, not so much, , going back to my trusted designer that, , is a little slower but much more detailed and a much more on-brand. , so, and this designer, , I got this guy on Upwork and , he’s, , he’s a premi designer. His, his prices is, , right around $40 an hour. , which you know, is relatively not high at all if you’re going to think about hiring somebody or getting a senior level designer. But my, I’ve, you know, I’ve got my, my print process designer that’s doing it for $16 an hour and, , I have other offers for people that turn out some really good work at $24.
Jeff Byer 02:13 So paying this guy $40 for super slow turnaround and not that great at work. , I believe I’m just going to cut them loose and go to the next person on my short list. So that’s what’s going on at Jeff buyer inc. , so a couple of things. , listen to a podcast this week. , Julie Joyce was the, was the guest and she owns a backlink company. And I loved what she was saying. And, , one of the things that I took away from it was that it’s w that was a big truck. Sorry if you heard that. One of the things I took away from it was that she said, even though backlinks paid backlinks are against Google’s guidelines, they still work. And I’ve heard this countless times, they still work, you know, private blogging networks, very forbidden. And if, you know, if they’re obvious, they’re going to get shut.
Jeff Byer 03:16 You know, Google is going to be able to recognize him and penalize him. But the newer ones that are well done, that have quality content, they’re working. And there’s several use cases out there. I don’t, I’m not suggesting that you follow these tactics. I’m not suggesting it for my clients and I’m not doing them for my clients. But it was very interesting and I wanted to talk to her about it cause she, she disclaims to every one of her backlink customers that this is against Google guidelines and they still proceed anyway. , so that’s how she got into this specialty and niche of backlinks because her clients, even though she said she doesn’t advise it, her clients said we want it anyway. Very interesting business to be in. So I wanted to talk to her about that. She got back to me, said she’s super busy and we should reconnect in January.
Jeff Byer 04:14 So then I saw a medi article titled, let me just pull it up so I can give you the title, how to train your brain to remember almost anything by Thomas APO. So Thomas, I reached out to him and he hasn’t gotten back to me, but , I really found this article interesting and wanting to learn more about the process and how he came about learning all of this. , so one method that he talks about, I’m sorry, I’m having an indigestion problem. , one method he talks about is spaced repetition, which is just repeating what you, what you took in. And so, , in, in also in small chunks. But what I, I’ve kind of been doing that with audio books that I really love and would love to just have automatic recall for a lot of business process books and, and things like that.
Jeff Byer 05:15 So I keep, I re, you know, several times a year I will re reread on audible a book that I, that is on my short list of ones that I really want to remember. So, , he says that’s one of the things that you can do, but the other is a 50, 50 rule. The 50, 50 rule. Very interesting. And probably going to be where the, where my , my content process goes from here on out deciding what to write on, what to, what to talk about the time that you have dedicated to learn a new skill. 50% of the time is learning and then the other 50% of the time is teaching somebody else or explaining it to somebody else. And that’s what I just did with this article because I was explaining it poorly. And then I went to the article and just said, Oh, the 50, 50 rule, learn it and then teach it.
Jeff Byer 06:11 And so that is something, you know, not only is repetition a way to stimulate your memory, but being able, having to recall it and teach it, especially in a podcast or any video or especially on a, on a long form blog post, it’s going to be, , going to be detailed and referenced and cited, you know, citing all of your resources and stuff. You’re definitely going to take that in to your longterm memory. So explains the, the, the biology that once you listen to a audio book for instance, and you’d take the information in and it’s there for a limited time. And if you don’t actually do anything with it, it’ll just go away. And so I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken, , a course on a new, on a new programming language or something. And you know, in the while I’m in the course and I’m working with it, I recall the things that I learned in previous chapters and I’m like, okay, now I’m recalling it, now I’m doing it.
Jeff Byer 07:21 And by the end of it it’s like, all right, got it. If I don’t use it, then I go back to square one. It’s like, okay, how do we start? What’s the, you know, the little stuff, just like the context, like, you know, HTML was easy for me because once I learned it, I just kept hammering on it and hammering on it. And you know, back then there was no, no templates or are bootstrapping or anything like that. You had to actually type in the HTML tag in the beginning of your header or beginning of your docent to build an HTML page. So going from that level of detail, from starting out, you know, that’s where I, I got my gain, my skills and in HTML. And then, , one of the first adopters for CSS, I had to learn CSS by scrap, by scratch.
Jeff Byer 08:12 , you know, Java script, vanilla Java script was, was the way everybody was doing things back in the day. So, , so the, this, , the ways that he’s explained in this article on how to retain information into longterm memory, they’re starting to make sense to me because after reading about all of these different ways to do it, I’ve realized that the things that I’ve retained from my career in the past have been following these different guidelines and these different roles. So I thought it was a very interesting read. And as soon as I find something like this that’s inspirational or, , something that, that I’d like to talk about on the podcast, I reach out to the author to see if they’re willing to come on. So that’s what I did. I haven’t heard back, , Lily Ray just posted something on Twitter. So why don’t I bring that up because that was completely relevant to what we’re talking about right now.
Jeff Byer 09:12 Let me go to my notifications cause she liked the comment. Okay. So she said, , Google says Twitter as the best place to go for SEO updates or at to ask questions. And she also heard this week, I hear several newer SEOs saying they’re too afraid to put themselves out there on Twitter. And so there was a bunch of comments about, you know, why we’re such an open, you know, ask us anything. You know, and my comment to her was, so much is changing in SEO. Nobody could possibly know everything. When you find a thought provoking post, reach out to the author. I do. And I get to speak one on one with awesome people like Lilly. And so she liked that and she said she enjoyed our talk and that type of stuff. But this is an example of, of how I live my life.
Jeff Byer 10:06 I hear something, read something, , something interests me, something changes my life, anything like that, I want to reach out to the two, you know, show gratitude and, and show appreciation for the person that posted it for wherever I got the information. But I also like to share it. So that’s where, , most of that thinking came from. , so let’s talk about products because I dug a little bit of that it a little bit into it on the last episode. , I’m looking, obviously I talked about, you know, iPhone, getting the new iPhone. That one’s going to be a no brainer. I’m just, I just want to , wait and I’m just waiting. That’s all I’m doing. , the new MacBook pro, I’ve already decided that, , you know, the configuration that I want, it’s gonna end up almost $5,000, but it, as long as my current 2013 has lasted, , the investment is worth it, especially if it is going to save me time and stop hanging up wind.
Jeff Byer 11:15 I upload things so hoping that could fixed, , upgraded to a Photoshop and illustrator 20 and things are going great there. It didn’t copy over my plugins. I’m not sure my tiny P and G plugin is going to work anymore. , it was shady on the, on the, on version 19. Anyway. , if I had a large file open and there wasn’t enough scratch disc disc space for the plugin to work, it would shut down Photoshop completely. So I was always afraid to use it. And if it’s not updated for Photoshop 20, Oh well find a new plugin or I will just keep using their web API to do my compressions. , so my, my brother Rob who’s been on the show, he is going to start recording product demos and he wanted suggestions for what type of setup that he would a microphone set up specifically.
Jeff Byer 12:20 And I’ve looked into, you know, I listened to a lot of podcasts about podcasts and I read a lot of blogs about podcasts, people setups and learn a lot about it. So he asked me what microphone he would suggest and he asked specifically for a USB microphone. I never really thought about this, but this is a whole nother level of, of, of w w what I knew, what I know and what I’ve researched before and what I could write about and could talk about that just today I realized, Oh my God, I’ve got a ton of stuff to talk about. , if I take it in this context of people just asking me questions. So by Rob asking me this question, I went down this whole rabbit hole of, of you know, audio quality microphones and I admit I do not have the best set up.
Jeff Byer 13:09 I basically just scrapped together the best setup that I could based on what I already had. I have not purchased any equipment for podcasting as of yet. I will, and I’m going to get to that later. , so I asked him, I asked him, you know, do you really want a USB Mike? Because that’s really not the best way to go. The best way to go is again, an XLR Mike and plug it into an audio interface. And he said, whatever it is, I don’t want to spend 200 bucks. And I said, okay, direct to computer. It is so USB Mike and I sent him the road. Let me just grab the link really quick where, Oh, it’s already open. Okay. So I whooped, that’s not Rob. There he is. I sent him the road. N T U S B studio quality, USB cardioid condenser microphone. So basically it was the best reviewed.
Jeff Byer 14:09 I love road microphones even though I’m using a Sher S M 58, but, , they’re, they’ve got super high reviews and I’ve seen it on other bloggers and podcast lists people that that do, , you know, mobile setups and they don’t want to bring around a, , a USB interface like the, , focus, right Scarlet , which is what I use right now. So I said that would be the best plug and play. It’s got all, it comes with a windscreen built in and it has all of the, the vole and gain knobs on the side of it. So it’s very easy to use and probably the best solution if you’re just going to record audio directly into your video application. So he’s going to get that. I’m sure. , I’ll, I’ll get him to send me some videos so that we can hear the examples of, of how that goes.
Jeff Byer 15:04 But, , that is a telemarketer, so we’re gonna not take that call. , so the next is, , text marketing. I’m on Gary V’s text list and he just texts out a, , a message saying that his new case with were out and he was sending it to the texts community first. So he sent a video of himself as, , with inspiration, sent another video saying his O fives were out and go get him, send another link to his blog post where he posted the link to the O fives. I clicked the link to the O fives from the interface. It looked like my size was available. Click up my size, added it to cart. And once you get to the cart, the right side of the cart says it’s there and then the left side of the cart says it’s out of stock. And so basically everything was out of stock and the system just couldn’t keep up with the demand.
Jeff Byer 16:04 So within minutes of getting the text message there were sold out. So he basically sold out, , a new line of shoes in minutes from a text message. So that’s a very interesting thing to, , to consider, especially when you’re dealing with, , large personalities, , personalities with a following, influencers, things like that. They’ve got to, they’ve got to consider this text platform as a, as a way to, to move whatever they’re trying to move. So with my celebrity endorsed products, we’re going to, , experiment with getting this in their hands, getting them using it, , you know, not only for their own purposes, but for what I do, which is try and optimize their online sales and online marketing for the best performance possible. So we’re going to look into that. I also signed up for Tony Hawk’s text messages and, , because he was offering three free skateboard decks.
Jeff Byer 17:13 So I want those skateboard decks. So I signed up with Tony Hawk. And so it’s fun because it’s text messages that look like they’re coming from the real person. So when I look at my text history, Oh Gary V and Tony Hawk texts me, it’s novelty, but still probably something that people look at saying, Oh this is, this is fun. And they want to sign up for as many celebrity text messages as possible so that they’re, they can feel good when their phones are in there and they have celebrities texting him. So there is that novelty portion of it that that works as well. So definitely something that I am going to pitch to my celebrity back clients. , and let’s look at my wishlist here. So on my wishlist, I have a couple of things that are, you know, not really relevant. I’m looking, I told my wife we are going to replace our old crmy TV that takes eight years.
Jeff Byer 18:14 It’s a Vizio and if for some reason it takes for ever to turn on, you turn it on and it’s just blank for, you know, the, the light, the white led on the front comes on and then you’re waiting for what seems like forever, it’s probably 30 seconds, which is a pretty long time to turn a electronic appliance on. And I don’t know what it’s doing or what it’s trying to do, but it’s annoying and it’s old. So I said, all right, black Friday deals, we’re going to research them, do whatever, but we are getting a new TV. And so what I settled on was the Samsung Q led 65 inch Q 70 series TV. So my mom just upgraded hers. , she ended up with the LG, which is definitely, you know, it’s, I would say they’re better TVs, but they’re almost a thousand dollars more. So, , I, I don’t watch a lot of TV, so any upgrade is, is good enough for me.
Jeff Byer 19:20 I’m not, I don’t need the best. And so this for me is a $1,200 TV middle of the road, but it has everything that, that we want and it has Alexa built in. So you can walk into the living room and say, Alexa, turn on my TV and it’ll turn on the TV. So looking forward to that. So, , that’s on my, with my list. It’s not a anything business or marketing related, but that’s, you know, we’re in shopping season. So just wanted to let you know and I’m looking at a new pair of shoes, not interested. Oh, the road road, caster pro. So I was listening to a podcast about podcasts and there was a professional podcaster who swore by it. So when this originally came out, it did not get good reviews. There were audio files that were talking about how the quality was bad.
Jeff Byer 20:17 There’s no EEQ and it’s hard to, to, you know, these little intricate detail things. And I think that they’re missing the point that this was meant to be the easiest one stop shop for podcasters to use, , some sort of a mixing device, , and interface desktop interface that would allow multichannel and split channels from, from a microphone to a different audio channels from the computer. So, , I am going to get one, I think it’s going to be, cause right now I’m just got too much junk on my, on my desk right now. That is, you know, I’ve got the, the , I’ve got the, , the headphone amplifier. The headphone and flier is also acting as a mixer. So I’ve, it’s a crazy setup that I have right now, but I have two and you know, the two, I too has the two inputs.
Jeff Byer 21:21 My first input is the microphone microphone goes directly to the computer. My second input is I’ve got, I’m going out of the headphone Jack on the to I to bear with me. I know this is going to be complicated and I’m just thinking it through my head and it’s super hard for me to, to describe, but I’m just going to do it quickly. My second input is I go out of the two I to headphone Jack into the input on the headphone amplifier and then out of one of the headphone amplifier channels back into the second input of the two ITU. So I’m basically just doing this big loop and all it does is it removes the microphone but grabs everything that’s coming out of the computer and puts it into the second. So if I’ve got a Skype interview or , anything like that, any, any sounds from the computer are going to be recorded into that second input.
Jeff Byer 22:23 So, , that set up is not ideal obviously because I’m kind of hacking it around to get what I want and I would rather have something direct. So what the road cast approach is going to allow me to do separate everything out. , I’ve got to buy additional additional software to get it done, but , in the end, much better, much easier to manage. So the software that does all of the audio track splitting is called Reaper, , at interface, not very advanced. Their website’s not very good, but as long as I can get separate audio sources split into separate tracks and be able to use the road caster pro interface to control them, boom. Done. I’m ready. Let’s go. I’m going to get it, but I’m not going to get yet. I’m going to wait. And the same thing with the Mac pro MacBook pro.
Jeff Byer 23:17 I’ve got to wait. There’s a big, a bonus payment coming on a onetime project towards the end of the month. And so that will pay for the TV, the road cast or pro. And the net gear Nighthawk, a X 1212 stream wifi, six router R a X 200 a X 11,000 try band wireless speed up to 10.8 gigabits per store. GERD cannot wait for this thing. Oh my gosh. So just this morning we have it. We had a power outage at the office. , I got here around 4:30 AM and by 4:45 AM power went pack on. So everything rebooted. I’ve got the, the, the , fiber optic O N T on my desk. And so I can manage the LEDs in and make sure everything’s up and running. And then I have my 7,200, , Nighthawk on my desk as well that runs all the, all the wifi and other wired resources.
Jeff Byer 24:31 So I get back online and, and you know, lights are on powers on, everything’s booted up. I go to run my speed test and I’m getting about 300 megabits per second down. And, , I was, I consistently get 500 on my fiber. I can’t get any more than that because I’m on a, a busy branch up the street. And you know, long story short, I ordered a gigabit and they sent the guy down. He went through all my equipment. He says, I don’t think I’m going to get you a gig, but I’ll try. And the fastest that I got was six 80 and I was like, all right, I’m not going to pay for a gig if I’m only getting six 80 so that’s how I ended up at 500 and 500 so with that explanation out of the way, I was only getting three 60 so I got on the, on the horn with them and chatted and so bypassed the, the old night Hawk and went directly to the ONT.
Jeff Byer 25:33 Sure enough it was 500 and 500 then that old Nighthawk was just being clogged with something. I dunno, but it is an old Nighthawk. So the new Nighthawk is gonna give us faster wifi. So the wifi speed that I can get on, on the iMac across, across from my desk is about 400 over wifi, which, which is kind of, you know, exceeding my expectations on a five gigahertz band. So I’m on a 2.4 gigahertz band. We’re getting about a gig in or about a mag and that’s about it. , you know, not super reliable but good for the, for the people in the building that are siphoning my guest wifi. , but there’s new one is a bad boy. I cannot wait for this thing. This is going to make my wireless life at least easier. , you know, wired my wired speeds on my main computer are not going to change.
Jeff Byer 26:32 There’s still going to be maxed out at 500 by 500. So, , that’s just gonna make my life a lot easier. So, , what I also have in my list is a focus right Scarlet for I four, I was going to replace my Scarlet to I two until the road cast are pro got such a great review on the podcast about podcasts. And so now I don’t need the four by four, because I can just use the road caster pro for everything. , I also have in my list a bidet day, toilet seat. , a bunch of photography stuff that is either discontinued or out of stock. , a Filbert, Phil Sonicare, diamond clean toothbrush. I have the Sonic care now, but this is the, you know, the bad bad boy, one and a cannon F 700 to 200 millimeterF 2.8 I S I U S M telephoto lens.
Jeff Byer 27:36 This is a bad boy telephoto lens and it is also no longer available. So I do have some wishlist cleaning up to do, but that is a, that’s pretty much everything that I wanted to talk about today. I, I’m hoping to get you a guest or get you something more interesting than me telling you about what technology is going on and how, how my projects are going. , but again, if you’re listening to this, if you’re, if you’re my designer on Upwork and you know that I was talking about you, I apologize, but this is kinda your fault. So, , we’ll talk to you later. , but developer, you’re doing awesome. Keep up the good work. I’m sure you will. , we’re going to launch those two projects this month no matter what and I’m going to rely heavily on you, so keep doing a great job. All right then. Thank you very much for listening. As always, you can follow me on Twitter. I am at global Jeff, and you can view the show notes@digitalrage.fm. You can tweet me, you can email me, you can call me, you can text me whatever you want to do. I’m here for you. Ask me questions. What do you guys want to hear? , reach out to me, let me know and , and we’ll get some, some better ideas other than me talking about my week
Speaker 2 29:10 every week. All right. Thank you very much. Talk to you next week for show notes and information. Go to the digital rage.fm. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at digital rage at bam. And please give us a rating. Review is clearly appreciate it.