This document provides an agenda and overview for a class on websites and design skills. It discusses using GitHub for collaboration, technologies that power websites like HTML and CSS, search engine optimization, business models, and an upcoming project involving designing a website business. Students are asked to review an existing website for SEO and business factors for homework.

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.)