Google Sites, Google's website creation tool, has existed since 2007. While Sites was always easy to use, it allowed users a tremendous amount of freedom. Users could customize fonts, themes, layouts, colors, and just about everything else they wanted. The resulting sites were often poorly-designed or difficult to navigate.



In late 2016, Google completely re-designed the Sites app and took it in the opposite direction. The new version of Sites limits users to using a few templates, color palates, and layouts. As a result, users have much less freedom, but the resulting websites look MUCH better and also all incorporate responsive web design.


This article is going to provide an overview of the new version of Google Sites. This is a big topic, so we're going to just cover the basics here: how to create, organize, format, and share a website using the new Sites.




What Sites is For (and What it's Not For):

Before we get into how to use the new Google Sites, it's worth first identifying why you might want to create a Site to begin with. Sites really shines when you're trying to bring a collection of different kinds of content together in one place in order to share it with your organization or the world.

These two key phrases ("different kinds of content" and 'share with lots of people') should be the two triggers for you to consider Sites for your project. If your project doesn't involve mixed content, you should reconsider if Google Sites is really the right tool for the job. If you want to share a text document or a map, you don't need to create a whole site; you can just share your work directly with Google Docs or Google MyMaps.


So what is Sites actually good for, then? Student or staff portfolios are one good example. Sites allows a student to compile artwork, writing, video, and slideshows together in a publicly viewable collection. The Employee Evaluation system is another good example of what Sites does best: aggregating written content with links, docs, slideshows, and even a video or two, then making this organized collection available to everyone in the organization.


One last caveat about Sites before we get started: don't use Sites to duplicate or replace functionality that the official TSS website already provides. If you want to make changes to your department's official web presence (say, the Wildlife Expeditions site), you need to work with the Marketing team. Don't create your own competing website using Google Sites; this will only confuse participants and make it more difficult for potential guests to find information about your program. 


Creating a Website with Google Sites

You can access Google Sites by typing sites.google.com into your browser's address bar or by clicking on the 9-square grid in the corner of any Google service, then select "Sites" from the drop-down. You can also go to sites.google.com.


Once you're inside the Google Sites interface, you should be in familiar territory. The interface supports Googles Material Design visual language just like Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms, but with a purple theme:




From here, you can double-click a site you've already created to open it, or you can click the big red action button (the one with the + sign) in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen to create a new site.



The Sites Interface

When you're first starting to build a new website, it's a good idea to start by naming the site. You can edit the title by clicking on topmost bar to rename your site. 



The next bar down is the logo/navigation bar. You can hover your cursor here, then click the gear icon to access the site's navigation settings:


From here, you can add a logo to the site (and a corresponding color scheme), choose the site's navigation pane (you get two choices: top or side), and modify other navigation options:



The right side of the screen has most of your editing tools, divided into three panes: Insert, Pages, and Themes. 


The Insert pane does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to editing your site. The Insert options let you choose what kind of content you want to add to the site, then drag it to the size and position where you'd like it to appear. The basic options, which are still the foundation of most static websites, are images and text:



Google Sites also has the power, however, to import and display content from many other Google services, and this is where it really shines. I won't cover them all in detail, but I've created samples of most kinds of content you can insert, so here are some of the examples:


The most important thing to remember about embedding content from Google Drive is that your site won't override the Drive permissions of your content. If you embed a Google Doc that no-one else has permission to view, they won't be able to view it on your site. 


Changing the Look of Your Website

The Themes panel allows you change the overall look of your site. The THEMES pane works a lot like type styles in Google Docs. When you change the theme of your site, this will change the look every page, all at once. Each theme has several color and typeface choices. As an example, look at how my sample site changes when I switch the theme from 'Impression' to 'Aristotle':




 It's not possible to have different themes applied to different pages of your website; you have to pick one theme for the entire site.


Collaboration and Sharing

If you want to bring other collaborators in to help edit your site, you can do this using using the sharing button.



It's exactly like sharing a Google Doc or a Google Sheet, where you can invite people (or groups) to edit your site. The only difference is that there's no 'view' or 'comment' option.



You'll also get granular control over who's going to be able to view your published site. You can restrict access to just certain users or certain groups. You can also make the site public to the entire organization, or the entire world, if you choose to.


If you think your site is ready for publication, press the purple publish button. You'll get a choice of what you want your custom URL to be; the site's home URL will be sites.google.com/tetonscience.org/YOURNAMEHERE. 


If you make further changes after publishing your site, those changes won't be visible to viewers until you hit "Publish' again.