Create a Personal
Website Quickly
using Google Sites
Ever wanted to quickly
create a webpage for your
neighborhood book club or
sports team? Or maybe a
personal page that you can
share with your friends and
family for a specific event
like a wedding or birthday
party?
If you do a Google search,
you’ll get hundreds of
listings on creating web
pages instantly using
templates, etc, but you
normally have to spend a
little bit of money. Those
sites will get you a pretty
looking site and it’ll probably
be really customizable, but
sometimes you just need to
create something super
simple, you don’t care what it
looks like and you don’t want
to spend a cent.
Google Sites can solve that
problem for you because all
you need is a Google
account! Google Sites has
been around for a long time,
but it’s not terribly well
known. The main reason is
that Google only markets it to
Google Apps for Work users,
but it can be used by
anyone. Here is an example
website that I create with
Google Sites in just the last
45 minutes to write this
article.
As you can see, it’s a really
simple webpage with a bunch
of widgets added in two
columns. It’s nothing fancy,
but it gets the job done for a
small family website. Also, if
you do know a bit of coding
and are tech-savvy, you
can make the site look much
more professional. For
Google Apps users, you get
10 GB of space, but for non-
app users, you get only 100
MB, so it’s really meant to be
a small site.
By default, the site will have
a URL starting with
sites.google.com, but you can
easily use a custom domain
name if you have already
bought one or purchase one
using Google Domains or any
other domain registrar.
To get started, go to
sites.google.com and click on
the Create button to create
your first web site.
To start off, you can pick
from a couple of templates
like sports team, classroom
site, wedding, etc. Make sure
to click on the Browse the
gallery for more link
because there are many
more templates broken down
into categories like activities
& events, business
collaboration, schools &
education, clubs &
organizations, etc.
Give your site a name and
then customize the end of
the URL if you like. By
default, it’ll just be sites/
google.com/site/
sitename . You can change
it to something else, but it
has to be unique amongst all
the Google Sites created in
the world. If you chose a
blank template, you can
select a theme also. Click the
I’m not a robot button
and then click Create at the
top.
You’ll now be brought to the
home page for your new site.
The important section is at
the top where you can edit
the current page, create a
new page and adjust the
settings for the page and the
site.
The first thing I would
suggest doing is to click on
the gear icon and then click
on the Manage site link at
the bottom.
Here you can configure a
bunch of options like the site
name, site description, the
landing page, etc. You can
also setup a site notice,
which will pop up a message
for all visitors of the
website. If you want, you can
configure Google Analytics
and Google Webmaster Tools
here also. At the bottom,
there is an option to make
the site responsive by
adjusting it for mobile
phones.
On the left side, you can also
see recent site activity, all
your pages, attachments that
you upload, page templates
you can use, apps scripts,
sharing and permissions and
themes/colors/fonts. The
last section lets you add a
header image and change the
font, color and size for the
text in various sections of
the site like content area,
sidebar, navigation, etc.
Once you have configured
the site settings, it’s time to
make sure you pick the
layout you want for the
entire site. To do that, go
back to your homepage and
then click on the gear icon
again. This time click on Edit
site layout.
It’s really easy to change
the layout of the site. By
default, Header and
Sidebar are selected and
enabled. If you want to
remove or add a section,
just click on the appropriate
button at the top. When you
have the sections you want,
you can then hover your
mouse over the section to
edit it. You can also choose a
custom site width if you like.
For example, when you click
on the header, you’ll get all
the header options you can
configure.
You can click on the sidebar
to choose whether you want
it on the right or left side of
the site and adjust the width.
You can click on the footer to
choose what links you want
there, etc. If you choose to
add a custom footer, you can
insert images, tables, etc.
For my example page shown
above, I got rid of the
sidebar and the header.
After these two items have
been completed, it’s time to
start editing and creating
pages. Before we get into
that, there is one more
concept to understand. In
Google Sites, you can create
four types of pages: Web
Page, Announcements,
File Cabinet and List. The
home page is set to web
page as default.
An Announcements page
is a blog page with posts
listed in chronological order.
A File Cabinet page lets
you upload files and will list
them on the page. A List
page allows you to create a
list of items and displays
them in table format. You can
change the template for a
page anytime by clicking on
the gear icon while on the
page and choose Change
page template.
Now go back to your home
page and click on the little
pencil icon at the top to edit
the page. You’ll see a new
menu across the top of the
page.
By default, the layout for a
new page is set to One
Column (Simple). You can
change this by clicking on the
Layout menu option. The
simple versions don’t have a
header or footer.
In my example page, I chose
Two column (simple).
Now you can start adding
stuff to your page! To add a
table, click on the Table
menu item and choose the
size of your table in terms of
rows and columns. To insert
anything else, click on the
Insert menu option.
You can insert all kinds of
items like images links, text
boxes, HTML boxes,
calendars, charts, maps,
YouTube videos, etc. Since
Google Sites is owned by
Google, it integrates with
Google Docs, Spreadsheets,
Hangouts and other Google
services. Under Gadgets,
you’ll see Recent posts,
Recently updated files and
Recent list items.
You can only add those to a
page if you have already
created an
Announcements page,
File Cabinet page and List
page, respectively. In my
example page shown at the
top, those three items are
added in the second column.
When working with text, you
can click on the Format tab
to pick different heading
styles, etc.
Note that if you want to add
any kind of CSS, JavaScript
or custom HTML to your
page, you’ll need to insert
an HTML box. You can view
the HTML for each page
content area, but you can
only make very few edits to
CSS and HTML.
Lastly, you can create a new
page by clicking on the
Create Page button that is
directly to the left of the
Settings button.
Give you page a name,
choose a page template and
then choose the location of
your page. You can create a
top level page or put it
under a different page.
Well, those are the basics
for creating a simple
webpage or website with
Google Sites. It’s nothing to
write home about, but it’s
very easy to use and learn.
It’s also completely free,