seo, business model canvas, pull requests and merging in git

1. UNTANGLING THE WEB
CLASS 5 – THE BUSINESS OF WEBSITES AND DESIGN SKILLS

2. AGENDA
• Still moving IBM Bluemix back in the schedule. Next week!
• Review of github, how to work together on github
• What runs websites?
• Design and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Business model canvas and value proposition canvas
• Project 2
• Homework 5

3. GITHUB REVIEW
• Git clone
• Update for each significant set of changes (do this often!!)
• Git add
• Git commit –m
• Git push

4. GITHUB BRANCHES
• Detailed guide: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v1/Git-Branching-
What-a-Branch-Is
• Simpler view: https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-
world/#branch
• The gh-pages branch is special in that it tells github to expose that
on github pages

5. COMMANDS TO CREATE A BRANCH
• git checkout -b gh-pages
• This checks out the current code and puts it into a new branch on your
local machine
• git push origin gh-pages
• This pushes that new branch up to the server, creating the new branch
on github

6. HOW DO BRANCHES LET US WORK
TOGETHER?
• Features go into a branch
• Branches are then merged back into the main branch
• This is how gh-pages should be used – do all the work in
another branch and then merge back into main, and then down
to gh-pages
• If yo are working on your own you can work in main and then
push into gh-pages
• https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/git-merge

7. PULL REQUESTS
• One level of control beyond a merge is to designate one person
the main branch owner and have the other group members
create pull requests
• This means that the state of the main branch is always under
the control of one person, but that everyone can work
independently
• https://yangsu.github.io/pull-request-tutorial/

8. WHAT POWERS A WEBSITE?
• https://www.whatruns.com/?source=plugin

9. WHY DO SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION?

10. FINDING CUSTOMERS
• At one point, finding customers
was a non-issue
• Towns were small, customers
were local
• If you sold something people
wanted, they’d find you
• But with such a small customer
base you need to sell only things
everyone wants
• “If we don’t have it, you don’t
need it!”

11. SALES

12. SALES OUTSIDE YOUR IMMEDIATE
NETWORK
• If people don’t find you, you have to find them
• Outbound sales
• Cold Calling
• This is not fun!!!

13. PAID ADS AS OUTBOUND SALES
• Today’s topic is organic search results, also known as natural
search results
• But automated outbound methods are still important
• Next we’ll talk all about paid advertising and pay-per-click
• It’s all about “qualifying” the customer. Making sure that they
are a good target for your ads before you spend money on
reaching them

14. INBOUND IS BETTER
• When your customers find you, they do the work
• By the time they reach your site they have qualified themselves

15. THE LONG TAIL
• The book is getting a little bit dated
• It was one of the first systematic
analyses of why the web enables
specialty products to dominate
• Since a website has very little
marginal cost to add a new product,
and storage of that product is in a
warehouse not an expensive
storefront, consumers can suddenly
get exactly what they want

17. GOOGLE KNOWS!
• They know what people are searching for
• They know what kind of content people want
• It’s in their interest to tell you
• But they also know when you’re cheating!
• So since you eventually want a page that searches well and has the
content you users are looking for, it’s just easier to start with SEO
• http://searchengineland.com/seotable

19. EXERCISE
• Find 3 good points and 3 bad points about the Uvic website
using the SEO success factors

20. ADVERTISING ON THE WEB

21. GOOGLE ADWORDS
• Adwords versus adwords express
• Pay per click
• More specific search terms are cheaper
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU3X9Q_4ROg

22. FACEBOOK ADS
• There is a lot of scepticism over the value of facebook ads
• Facebook targets types, google targets buying moments (ie. when you’re
searching)
• But facebook cpc (cost per click) is way lower than google
• And facebook knows different things than google does
• Who your friends are
• Your pictures and interest groups
• More comment history
• http://www.dipoll.com/blog/2010/11/six-steps-to-run-cheap-and-
successful-facebook-advertising-campaigns/

23. LEAN LAUNCHPAD
• Moving into the business strategy side of the course and setting up
for project 2
• Steve Blank
• Eric Ries

24. BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS
• https://youtu.be/QoAOzMTLP5s

26. ELEMENTS OF THE CANVAS

27. MORE IN DEPTH LOOK AT THE BUSINESS
MODEL CANVAS
• We don’t have time to watch in class, but please watch as
you’re thinking about your project
• https://youtu.be/SliMK6Z2jlA

28. VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS
• https://youtu.be/aN36EcTE54Q

30. PROJECT 2 – DUE START OF CLASS OCT
25TH
• Groups of 3-4 (no smaller than 2, no larger than 5)
• You will design and implement a website business
• This website must contain 3-4 html pages, a map (we’ll discuss
this next week), a database mockup (you’ll do the UI only in
this project, the database itself will be for project 3), and a
chatbot (also for project 3, but you’ll do the dialog design for
this project)

31. PROJECT 2 DELIVERABLES
• A business model canvas and value proposition canvas for your
website business
• 3-4 web pages, hosted on github pages, that are styled nicely in CSS
• A half-page discussion of which SEO factors your website exhibits
• A functional map on one of the pages, although it does not have to
be completely populated
• A presentation of between 3-5 minutes giving a walkthrough of the
website concept
• This project is worth 15% of your mark and all group members will
get the same mark. Switching groups between projects 2 and 3 is
discouraged but not impossible.

32. HOMEWORK 5 – DUE OCT 11 BEFORE CLASS
• In this homework, you’ll be evaluating an existing website business for SEO and business
model canvas factors.
• http://www.usedvictoria.com/ is a local classified ads site
• You may also choose a different site if you prefer
• Evaluate the website with respect to the SEO success factors and fill out a business model
canvas for the site.
• Identify the technologies powering the website and give a short description in your own words
of what each one is
• Please check both of these documents into a repository and submit that, along with a link to
the site you’ve chosen to review
• Unlike coding homeworks I would like you NOT to work in groups on this homework. Each of
you should do your own work.

33. TO PREPARE FOR NEXT CLASS
• Get an IBM Bluemix ID from
https://console.bluemix.net/registration/
• Email me your bluemix ID (use your uvic email address, if
possible, as I’ll be getting IBM to extend the trial to the end of
the class.)