New features for Google Sites: Templates and announcement banners
What’s changing
Google is adding two features in new Google Sites (sites.google.com/new):
- Site templates – Quickly and easily create high-quality sites optimized for common uses.
- Announcement banners – Highlight important information to make sure site visitors see time-sensitive updates.
See more details below, or see Cloud Blog to post to see how Sites can support remote work and learning.
Who’s impacted
- Templates and announcement banners: All site owners and editors.
Why it matters
Google hopes these new features make it easier to create and use sites, especially as their customers deal with the impact of COVID-19. For example, announcement banners can help businesses quickly communicate important information to customers. Using templates to create high-quality sites without requiring design or coding skills can help educational institutions and businesses enable remote learning and workings. Overall, Google hopes the enhancements make Sites a more useful tool to share information across dispersed audiences.
See the Cloud Blog to post to learn more about how Sites can support remote work and learning.
Additional details
Site templates
For this launch, Google has built 10 templates for common site uses, available in 16 languages. With one click, you can start a site suited for a specific purpose with a professional look and feel. Then, you can customize the site to make it your own. Examples of sites that templates will make it easier to create include:
- Help centers: Help users learn how to use new tools and resources, for example tools to enable a remote workforce or remote learning for students.
- Project sites: Help colleagues or classmates collaborate on a project remotely.
- Class or team sites: Have a centralized place for team resources and information.
- Club sites: Enable students to continue club activities while remote learning.
- Small business sites: Keep customers informed about your business, like your restaurant or design services, while they’re social distancing.
Google is building more templates and working to make templates available in more languages. You’ll see more templates for common business sites added to the available options in the next several weeks. Use our Help Center to find more information about using templates in Google Sites.
Announcement banners
Created based on customer feedback, announcement banners help site owners communicate timely, important messages to visitors. They display information in a banner at the top of the site, grabbing viewers’ attention when they land on the page. Ways that customers can use banners include:
- A business administrator at a large company can add a banner to an employee resource site to highlight newly added pages and information in the larger site.
- A small business owner can add a banner to alert customers of changing operating hours or business practices.
- A teacher can add a banner to a class site to notify students that a new assignment has been posted.
Use the Help Center to learn more about how to add an announcement banner to a site.
Getting started
Admins: These features will be ON by default. There are no admin controls for them.
End users: These features will be ON by default. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to create a website from a template or add an announcement banner to a site.
Resources
