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I asked CARROT Wellness CEO Michael Antaran "What advice would you give business owners like yourself about the Voice version of their platform in terms of incorporating an Alexa Skill or Google Action into their digital presence?" His answer was amazing, unexpected, and spoke to my heart - "I would advise them to leverage what they have. I'm all about being resourceful, and with four guys on my t...

Michael Antaran and I have a lot in common. We were both born and raised in Michigan. We both left jobs in the corporate world to create our own start-ups. We’re both building software on a consistent basis, and we’re building Alexa Skills and Google Actions (voice-based apps on top of Alexa and Google Assistant) and integrating everything into one overall experience. Watch the entire video or lis...

Yes! Your business can sell products and services on Alexa. You need a Custom Alexa Skill to do it, and we can build it for you, so your stakeholders can just say "Alexa, book an appointment with my CPA firm," or "Alexa, order my fitness supplements." This is done via Amazon Pay, NOT "In-Skill Purchasing." This video explains how businesses can get started selling their products and services on Al...

Attention marketing directors and small business owners. This is a great tip for you all to spin up quick small landing page websites by duplicating a full website in minutes using WPEngine WordPress hosting. Then, you have the ability to change around content easily in your new domain.

Ever wonder how to save time posting Facebook Ads, so that they can appear on Instagram, mobile apps and more? My friends, it’s called the Facebook Ads Audience Network, and it’s turnkey and set up for your business to use in Facebook Ads Manager. I talk about it here in my post keynote Q/A session at the Mt. Juliet Chamber of Commerce.

Which should your small business choose? Google Ads or Google Adwords Express? This is one of my favorite questions, and I answer it pretty emphatically in this keynote at the Mt. Juliet Chamber of Commerce Small Business Boom (during the Q/A Session at the end).

When recently speaking at the Mt. Juliet (TN) Chamber of Commerce about Google Analytics, Google My Business and Google Ads, I was asked - "Don't most people skip the Google Results that say Ad?" The proof is in the data, they don't. In this video I explain Google Adwords Express, how it works and how you can make it work for your business to generate phone call leads.

My WordPress Content Manager friends, this one is for you. You don't need a developer to make your CAPTCHA in the footer of your website not look horrible. This video shows you how to use Gravity Forms Conditional Logic to only show CAPTCHA after a user enters their email address in the field. This prevents email spam that you DON'T want on your lists. For the Data Driven Daily Tip that shows you...

I had a blast at the Mt. Juliet (Tennessee - close to Nashville) Chamber of Commerce Small Business Boost, discussing how to prevent "Small Business Injuries" by increasing productivity, increasing visibility on Google, and Tracking Results using Google Analytics, in what I called the Google Geek Session.

Amid the mad dash to try and grow your Business' Facebook Following, it's easy to forget about the why behind it. You want to connect with your target audience, understand who they are, and how you can better engage/help them. That's why it's important to look at who is following your page / liking your page. This video shows you exactly How To Find A List Of Your Facebook Followers, and it's not...

There are many different web hosting companies for Managed WordPress. The top ones include WP Engine, GoDaddy, BlueHost, HostGator and AWS. However, there are also several smaller ones. The best quality service provider related to these services is WP Engine, and this is NOT a sponsored post, it's based on years of experience trying a ton of different webhosting platforms. Clearing your website's...

As it relates to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I love trying a ton of things and seeing what works. One platform I've seen work very well for Small Business SEO over the last two years is Google My Business. Having an accurate, optimized profile, as well as posting regularly are things that can really help small businesses succeed in terms of being found on Google above their competitors. Anot...

As an Alexa Skill Developer, you have to be aware of how to pick Alexa-Supported Launch Phrases, also known as Invocation Names. It's not too complicated, and I'm still learning as I go, so I just wanted to share one specific thing with you. Amazon Alexa allows Alexa Skill Developers to pick three basic invocation names that essentially launch their Alexa Skills. These start with the word(s), "ope...

What’s up everybody? We had an amazing event, the Nashville Voice Conference , on July 31, 2019, and we are already making preparations for Nashville Voice Conference 2020. One of the things we wanted to do with our event, was create a Snapchat GeoFilter around the location of the event, which was held at Thistle Farms in Nashville, TN. I had one of my teammates, Tanner Boriack, help me prepare th...

So, the other day I was sitting in a meeting with a marketing director at large college in the State of Tennessee, and they asked me at the end of the meeting if I thought WordPress was the best solution for their website.   What I wanted to do was get up on the table and start yelling and screaming "yes, yes, yes... you have to go with WordPress!"   But that would not be as po...

If you're a small business owner, entrepreneur or mid-level company marketer, it's obviously important how you spend your time. And if you're spending your time on a Twitter strategy, you need to know how well it's working for you. Not in terms of justifying it, but rather to see which content is working better than other kinds. Also, we had a question from a client recently about how to download...

Attention Small Business Owners and Mid-Level Company Marketers, Facebook Changed the way you can access your audience data and page insights. You now have to access it via Facebook Business Manager / Facebook Ads Manager. And much like Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reports, you have to go manually turn on the tracking of this data, and you can't retroactively get data, meaning - the...

I've built several Google Actions and Alexa Skills recently, and while Alexa seems to be pretty straightforward in terms of finding and adding Skills to your devices via the Alexa app / Skill store, the Google Home situation with Google Assistant isn't as straightforward. To be honest, there still appears to be some "friction" in this experience that is eventually supposed to be "frictionless." I...

Alexa Skills and Google Actions are voice applications built on top of Alexa and Google Home / Google Assistant.  The next generation will expect businesses to have Alexa Skills. Watch this video or keep reading to find out why.  You can build these apps for just about anything. For example, in this video, I demo what would happen if I forgot my entire Nashville Voice Conference introduc...

Seems like a weird concept, right? But honestly, the data says that we’re only about 1-2 years away from people expecting to be able to listen to content from websites on Alexa while driving. This means, Alexa Skills Are The New Websites. Today, Data Driven Design is building Voice Based versions of content on websites, using Voice User Interface Design to create an engaging conversation with the...

The title slide is wrong on this video folks, it is Data Driven Daily Tip #324, and we're talking Facebook Offline Events with Casey Carroll of Action Ad Agency . In addition to the alliteration in our company name, Casey and I have a lot in common. As you can see from the Steve Largent jersey hanging in the background, he is also an NFL fan (Seattle Seahawks to be exact), and he knows Facebook Ad...

What is a Google Action? A Google Action is a way to make Google Assistant smarter. It's something you can search and add to your Google Assistant App, Google Home, Google Home Mini, Google Hub and more. As a user, you can just ask Google for information, similar to the way you can ask Amazon's Alexa via Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show and any other Alexa Enabled Devices. A Google Action is a voice-base...

What is Alexa For Business? It's not a phrase I'm using to try to encourage businesses to use Alexa, it's an actual service offering from Amazon. Similarly to the way that IT departments have managed company-issued computers and mobile devices, organizations can now distribute and manage company-issued Alexa-enabled devices as well as create Private Alexa Skills. This episode walks you through how...

I decided to run Google Adsense ads on Data Driven Design. First of all because we're publishing so much content on our site (1-2 new pieces per day), so technically we're a publisher in addition to being a digital agency. Secondly, because as a leading web design and development company, we need to stay up to date with all of the new changes to Google Adsense so that we can implement it properly...

Voice User Interface Design is so new. It's so hard to think through every scenario of what a user might want to say to Alexa or Google Home, which is why this particular use case I think is a good one to share with you all. I recently built an Alexa Skill using Voiceflow, which allows you to map out your entire conversation with Alexa. So for example, my Alexa Skill is to let attendees of the Nas...