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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 Server Cache is something that your webhost needs to offer, but it's done in different ways depending on the platform. This podcast shows how to clear your cache on WP Engine.

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. Another thing that everyone already acknowledges as very important is generating positive customer reviews on Google. But what businesses don't realize is that replying to each Google review is also a best practices that should always be implemented. This podcast explains how and why.

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), "open," "launch," "load," and even "begin." If you use one of these words with the name of your Alexa Skill, it's going to work and you'll pass the Alexa Skill Submission process, as seen in my video. But when you want to include an Intent in your invocation, things change a bit. An Intent, or Intent Block if using a third party tool like Voiceflow to build your Alexa Skill, essentially skips ahead of a skill's opening message to a point where the skill does something specific for the user. For example, in one of our Custom Alexa Skills called Ask Data Driven Design, you can say "Alexa, open Data Driven Design" and the Skill will open and start giving you prompts for how to get information from it. This invocation is a basic one. But, we've also added Invocations with Intents paired with Connecting Words. These examples include: “Alexa, ask Data Driven Design how my web traffic looks” “Alexa, ask Data Driven Design what my bounce rate is” “Alexa, ask Data Driven Design where most of my web traffic is coming from” “Alexa, ask Data Driven Design what are my top viewed pages” These intents skip the opening, and just start reading you what you asked for. More on these can be read here in the Alexa Developer Console documentation, or on this blog about tips for creating certifiable phrases for your Alexa Skill. This video walks you through how to avoid putting intents with connecting words in your opening invocations, in the event that your Alexa Skill isn't properly coded with intent blocks.

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 this Data Driven Daily Tip. Here is how to create a Snapchat filter. 1. Go to Shapchat.com 2. Click on Create. 3. You’ll see a few different options. Community Filters, Filters and Lenses. Select “Filters.” 4. Then click “Create Now” next to Filters. 5. You’ll see a couple different options. You can use Snapchat’s own pre-loaded options/designs, or you can design your own filter with creative tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, or even my own personal favorite – Canva! 6. Take note of the size of the file. Make sure it’s 1080 px wide by 2340 px tall. 7. Make sure you have a transparent background as part of your image, where the users would be shown in their photo, in the upper two-thirds portion of your design. 8. Also make sure you have a contrasting background with your text color in the lower third portion of your design. 9. Upload a png file of your design by clicking the “Upload” yellow button. Preview your design. 10. Click the yellow “next” button to select the day and time of when you want your filter to show (we set ours for a couple hours before the event, to a couple hours after the event). 11. Click next again. 12. Select the GeoLocation of your event. Start by typing in the address or name of the business location at which your event will occur. 13. Create your GeoFence by following the instructions within Snapchat (minimum size, click and drag). 14. Checkout – enter payment information, check settings and click Submit! Boom, your Event will now have a really cool Snapchat Geo-Filter!

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 powerful as me just simply looking at the data and educating her on the fact that WordPress is the most widely used content management system (CMS) in the world, by a long shot.   There is a website out there called wappalyzer.com and it’s actually also a Google Chrome browser extension the tracks millions of websites across the world and understands usage statistics for everything from the website content management software (CMS) being used, to payment gateways and even marketing automation software.   I have watched Wappalyzer grow exponentially over the last year or so, and aggregate data from more and more websites across the world.The number one thing that stands out to me is that WordPress is far and away the most used content management system in the world at 80.6%.   That's right, 80.6% of the websites in the world use WordPress.   And if you don't think Wappalyzer is a legitimate source, consider the fact that companies like Google, Amazon, IBM and others use it to understand what technology is being used on web apps and websites across the globe.   So my question to you, small business owners and mid-level marketers, is - why would you want to go with anything other than WordPress?   It’s free, open source software. There’s hundreds of thousands of themes out there that you can buy for less than $100, and then you can have just about any web developer in the world (worth their salt) work with you to help you get past whatever blockers or hurdles you're having.   Many clients have come to us after struggling and fighting with Wix, SquareSpace, Drupal and other platforms, as they did not allow their websites to be the marketing tool and operations friendly system that it is supposed to be.   Start with WordPress, and build the best possible website presence for your small business. And feel free to contact me directly for a free consultation at paul@datadriven.design.

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 Twitter Analytics into a spreadsheet to use it / pull it into other dashboards / reports. This Data Driven Daily Tip Covers Both.

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 sooner you take action by following the steps in this video and turn it on, the sooner you can get your data. Thanks so much to YouTube Subscriber Andres Granados for asking a question in a comment on this old video. As you can see once you set up your Facebook Analytics though, not all of the same information is there yet, such as "when are your fans online."

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 will tell you, like most Google "situations," the answer is actually pretty simple, it's just not easy to find it. So nevertheless, once you know which app to use to add your Action via, there will be no problems. That's just it my friends, don't look in the Google Home app to find your actions, look in the Google Assistant app! It's that easy. This audio explains what I mean.

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 introduction, but I built a voice app to help me.  I'm really excited because we are at the very beginning of something that is going to shake the way businesses are run.  If you remember, back inn 1999, not that many businesses had websites. Well, by 2003, it was pretty much unheard of for businesses NOT to have websites.  That is what we are going through now in 2019 with Alexa Skills and Google Actions related to businesses.  Whatever our role or responsibility, whether a Small Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Marketer, Product Owner, Developer or Operations person, we can all benefit from voice tech.  While voice tech is still early and new, the data shows it is actually going to be expected that businesses have Alexa Skills in the next 12-36 months.  A perfect example is Dan Winterberg, a 10 year old from Georgia who attended the Nashville Voice Conference with his father Bill, because Dan builds Alexa Skills for his class projects in elementary school.  So when Dan enters the workforce in 10 years or so, you can bet he'll EXPECT that the company he works for will have 10-15 Alexa Skills, including at least one that allows him to access the voice-based version of the company intranet.  This is happening now, and if you want information on building these kinds of voice-based apps for your business, please email me at paul@datadriven.design.  I've worked with a ton of small businesses, a ton of small business owners and marketers, and I've experienced the behavior that comes from being overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the ever-changing aspects of digital marketing, design, branding, websites and digital strategy.  I know this seems like "just one more thing we all have to do," and I'm very empathetic to that.  But I really want everyone to think this is the beginning of using voice apps to make your lives easier.  Don't just think of it as one more thing you have to do. Let's work together to integrate it into what you're already doing to make your work life more efficient and effective.

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 audience. Your business needs to think about doing this. The way people do business has changed. When I presented this session at Nashville Voice Conference, there was literally the mother of a newborn baby in the session as an attendee, and the baby was with her, folks! This is the perfect example of the fact that the way people will need to consume information will continue to change rapidly. The days of getting a screen out and scrolling will be annoying compared to simply being able to say “Alexa, open XYZ Website,” or “Hey Google, Tell me about XYZ website.”