Building Intranets with Google Sites
Google Sites is an application that makes building a website for your organization as easy as editing a document. With Google Sites, teams can quickly gather a variety of information in one place—including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text—and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, an entire organization, or the world.
As a business user, you can use Google Sites to set up internal project sites, intranets, or public-facing sites.
Read this guide for basic steps on creating a Google Site and customizing it for your organization.
What can you do with Sites?
Build internal project hubs, team sites, company intranets, public-facing websites, and more—all without IT help.
With Google Sites, building websites is as easy as editing a document. Create a one-stop destination for all important information—including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text—then quickly and securely share it with a small group, an entire organization, or the world.
Access Sites
To go to Sites, or to view a list of sites that you own or can edit:
From your browser, go to sites.google.com.
To create a new site, click CREATE.
Note: If you can’t access Sites, make sure your Google Apps administrator has Sites enabled.
Choose a template
To work from an existing site template, click Browse the gallery for more. Here you can find templates created by your organization, or search public templates such as work portfolios, training sites, and club pages.
To design your own site from scratch, select Blank template.
Name your site
Enter a name for your site. Initially, this becomes the unique part of your site’s URL.
(Optional) Change the URL under Site location (don’t worry, this won’t change your site title).
(Optional) Add a site description under More options.
Note: The name and URL you choose must be unique within your domain. You can change the name later, but you can’t change the URL.
Select a theme
Choose a look for your site. Each theme comes with a preset background, color scheme, and font selection. You can adjust fonts, colors, and the background later, and you can always change the theme or build your own custom theme once the site has been created.
Note: If you’re working from a template, your site might already have a theme. If you’d like, you can choose a different theme here.
Once you’re all set, click CREATE at the top of the page.
Add pages
At first, your site only has a home page and site map. To add pages:
In the top-right corner, click .
In the new window, add a name for the page.
Choose a page template option. Learn about different page types.
Choose your page’s location within the site by nesting it under an existing page or keeping it at the top level.
Click CREATE.
Now you’re ready to customize the new page.
Update and personalize your site
With Google Sites, you don’t have to be a web designer to make something that looks good. Next, we’ll take a look at how to update and personalize your site.
Edit pages
Updating a page is just like editing a document, although you can do much more than just adding text.
On the page you want to update, at the top right, click
to show the editing options. If you just created the page, the options appear automatically.
Insert menu
Format menu and toolbar
Table menu
Layout menu
<HTML>
2.2
Add images and site features
Under the Insert tab, you can add a wide variety of objects, apps, and gadgets to enhance your site even further. This is also where you can embed Maps, Calendars, and files.
Some useful apps and gadgets include:
Recently updated files—Lists the latest additions or updates to files loaded on to the site.
Calendar—Ensure your project stays on schedule. Embed a team calendar that includes key due dates for deliverables.
Drive—Embed Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and more. When the source is modified, the document updates automatically within Sites (this is true when embedding documents, spreadsheets, forms, and presentations).
Map—Headed to an offsite meeting? Don't just provide directions, embed a map!
YouTube—Embed any YouTube video in your site.
Click More gadgets to browse more add-in features from Google and third parties, or to search for a particular gadget.
Adjust colors, fonts, and backgrounds
You can further personalize your site’s look by adding background colors or images to the content areas, header, or the entire page.
At the top right of the page, click
and select Manage Site.
Note: If you’re in Edit mode, you won’t see this button.
On the Manage Site page, in the left sidebar, select Themes, Colors, and Fonts.
Change the colors, fonts, and backgrounds across your site.
At the bottom, you’ll see your changes reflected in the preview.
Click SAVE.
Update site layouts
Give your pages structure by changing the layout. At the top right of your site’s homepage, click
and select Edit site layout.
Note: If you’re in Edit mode, you won’t see
.
To add headers, footers, sidebars or horizontal navigation, click an option in the toolbar. Click it again to remove the object.
To change individual objects on your site, hover over parts of your site. Editable areas are highlighted in blue. To make a change to a highlighted object, click it.
Header—Change your header's height and alignment, and add a logo.
Horizontal navigation—Change your navigation bar's style and select which pages of your site you want to display there.
Sidebar—Choose your sidebar’s name, how it will be organized, and to what it links.
Custom footer—Add and format footer text.
Once you’ve finished changing an object, click OK. When you’re finished making changes, clickClose
To change the site width, click Custom and change the width. Press Enter to apply and save the change.
Change site navigation
Once you’ve added navigation bars, you can add links or change the order.
At the top right of your site’s homepage, click
and select Edit site layout.
Note: If you’re in Edit mode, you won’t see
.
In the top toolbar, click Horizontal navigation.
In the Configure navigation window, you can configure any of these options:
Click OK.
In the Edit site layout window, click Close.
Copy and delete sites
See a Site you really like? If you have edit access, make a copy of it to use as a starting point for your own website. Don’t need a Site anymore? Delete it at any time.
Copy your site
A URL is automatically created for the new page, which you can change later. To change the URL after you’re created the page, click
and select Page settings.
You can move pages later. Click
and select Manage Site > Pages.
To add linked pages, click Add page.
To rearrange the page order, use the arrows.
To make a linked page a subpage in a sidebar or a drop-down list in a horizontal navigation bar, indent the link.
Add images
Add links
Add a table of contents
Add gadgets
Add Google-specific applications, such as Calendars, Google Maps, and YouTube video
Format text
Add links
Change text alignment
Remove text formatting
Edit HTML or CSS content directly
Insert, delete, and modify table rows and columns
Specify the number of columns on the page
Add sidebars
If you’re familiar with HTML or CSS, enter code directly on the page.
To copy your site:
At the top right of your site’s homepage, click
and select Manage site.
Note: If you’re in Edit mode, you won’t see
.
In the left sidebar, click General.
Scroll down and click Copy this Site.
Give your new site a name and unique URL.
Click COPY.
Delete your site
To delete your site:
At the top right of your site’s homepage, click
and select Manage site.
Note: If you’re in Edit mode, you won’t see
.
In the left sidebar, click General.
At the bottom, click Delete this Site.
At the prompt, click DELETE.
Note: If you delete a site by accident, you can restore it up to 30 days after it was deleted.
Try it now
If you don’t want to share the site with the same collaborators, uncheck Copy Site Collaborators.
If you want to carry over your revision history, click Include Revisions.