Create your own website with Google Sites

You want know how to create your own website for your sports club, your association or simply for your family and friends? Why not try Google Sites? This service from Google not only hosts your site for free on Internet, but also offers a plethora of tools to create, enrich and modify it easily!

Before you start

Google Sites is a free service from Google, which complements the range of services already available: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Reader etc.. It allows you to easily make your own website in a few clicks and … Better yet, Google not only helps you to create it, but you stay for free!

To use this service, you obviously need a Google Account, you necessarily have one if you use Gmail or hosting of photos via Picasa.

•     Launch your Web browser.

•     Go to the following address: sites.google.com

•     If necessary (particularly the first time), log in to your Google Account by entering the email address and password of your Google account (used for Gmail, for example).

•     Click Connect

•     If you have not created a site, the page displays a large button Create a Site. Click on it and go to the next step.

Place the foundations of the site

Immediately, we enter the heart of the matter. We’ll have to return the fundamental characteristics of your site and to define a look.

•     In Site Name, enter the name of your site.

•     Note that Google automatically generates a URL compliant naming that correspond to your site (it removes all spaces, accented characters, symbols and signs). Note the URL generated. It will look like http:// sites.google.com / site / SiteName. This is the URL that your friends will take to get to your site.

•     Then make a description of your site. This is optional, of course, but it is strongly recommended to take the time to write one, it will be used by the Google search engine to rank your site and allow users to access the Find feature .

•     You must then specify if your site is “all public” or is intended for mature audiences (it talks about sex, violence, war, weapons, etc..). Do not cheat! Or you could be banned and your site permanently deleted … If your site is actually intended for mature audiences, check “Adult Content“.

•     You must then determine if your site is accessible to any Internet user (Everyone option) or only a list of people that you define later (option All people I choose). Note that you can change this setting later. You can start by building a site reserved for a closed circle of friends and relatives (who will identify themselves), then later, if the site please, change this setting to make it public.

•     Finally, you must choose a look. By default, 3 looks are available: Blue, Simple White, Coal. Other themes are available by clicking More themes.

Before submitting this creation, you must enter the code displayed with garbled characters. This code is a protection to prevent hackers from using bots to create fake websites and saturate the Google servers.

Once the code is entered, click the Create a site button to create a site page. Then go to the next step …

Create the home page

Your site is now created. It only remains to give content. Initially, the site contains a very simple tree: a simple homepage.

We’ll see how to enrich. But first, let’s take a walk in the settings page to change certain elements:

• Click More Actions
• Select Page Settings
• Uncheck “Allow attachments“
• Uncheck “Allow comments” (generally, there is no reason that visitors may need to comment on a homepage).

•  Click Save.

Let’s talk about publishing …

• Click Edit page

• Enter a message in the main area

•     The different functions layout of the text is similar to that of a word processor. You can change the font, vary in size (please use the predefined styles in the Format menu for a good consistency and a good showing in the Google search), bold or underline text, etc..

•     Note that the Page Setup option allows to choose a presentation on a single column or two columns.

•     Feel free to construct a visual, incorporating graphics! The Insert menu allows you to import the page elements like images, but also a Google calendar, office documents stored in Google Docs, Picasa slideshows, YouTube videos, etc..

•     Click Save to save the changes.

We can now proceed to the next step 

Add more pages to your site

Obviously, your site will not be limited to a simple home page … So we will see how to create other pages.

• Click Create a new page.
• Give it a name (again, Google generates a name of standard Web page depending on your input)
• Then select a page type.

Currently the system offers five types of pages:

• Classic pages, similar to the home page
• Dashboard pages, composed of gadgets of your choice
• Ads pages, like blogs, very practical for a News category
• Workbook pages, very useful for sharing files with friends or colleagues
• Lists pages that are 4 types: To do, to solve problems, Project steps, Custom Lists.

The classic pages and ads pages are mainly used for news sites.
The workbook pages and lists-project steps are very useful for an intranet site or a site about a collaborative project.

•     Finally, you should define how the site will be arranged, ie the tree. For each page created, you must determine if it is placed at the root level or in a particular category.

•     Click on the Create a Page button to confirm the selection.

•     Once the template page created, it remains only to edit it with the same tools as the home page by clicking Edit Page.

Once all the relevant pages are completed, proceed to next step …

Adjust the sidebar

Your site is almost ready. It only remains to work the tree diagram and the sidebar.

• Click on Edit the sidebar

• Note that you can delete the “recent activity on the site”.

• Note that you can add an item to the sidebar. The items that can be added as well: a text block, block “My recent activity” (for logged in user) and a block “count” (which counts the days until a given date).

• To change an item, simply click on Edit. Typically, you always want to enrich the navigation with the new pages and sections you have created. Then click on the Edit link in the navigation bar.

• Then click on Add a page to the navigation area of the sidebar, then choose the page to view the list of pages you’ve created.

• Click OK

• Finally, click Save Changes.

We can move to the final stage of this tutorial …

Visit your website

This is your first site operational. It remains only to visit! Nothing could be simpler …

• Open a new browser window

• Enter the URL of your site: sites.google.com/site/sitename

• If you have Google automatically recognized and placed in “Editing”, click the Disconnect button in the top right and return to the URL of your site.

This concludes the quick start of Google Sites. But there are still many other issues to be explored, including how to limit access only to your friends, add the logo of your club, use a simplified URL, etc.. As many points as we will discuss in the next tips …