How to Make a FREE WEBSITE in 10 - 30 Minutes (Google Sites Tutorial for Beginners)

how to make a free website and under 10 minutes using Google Sites hey team Stewart here welcome back in today's tutorial we're going to show you how to build a completely free website similar to this one from start to finish step-by-step using Google Sites and the awesome thing is you do not need any website or design experience we're going to guide you through the entire process now before we guide you through how to make a free website and if you're new here today consider subscribing to this channel and tap the bell icon and that way you'll stay updated and notified with new and practical videos designed to help your small and local business thrive online and with that covered let's start creating your free website [Music] okay so the first thing we need to do before we can start building our free website with Google Sites is we need to login to our gmail account now if you don't have a gmail account you do need one it's free to sign up and once you've done that all you need to do is log into your gmail back-end as you can see here the other option is to login to your Google Drive but what we'll do is we'll access Google Sites from here so what we need to do is head over to the right click over here and then click on drive and this is going to take you to Google Drive now what we want to do is head over here and click on you pop down to more and down here we want to click on Google Sites to get started and build our free website so click on Google Sites and this is going to open a new tab where we can start building our website okay so the first thing we want to do is change our name over here and before we start designing I'll cover all the different elements that we can use on Google Sites so the first thing we have over here is we have the undo last action which means if we create an action or we create a change we can undo that action here again we can also redo the last action over here is where you can preview your new website while you're designing it you can see it on desktop tablet or mobile then if we pop over here you can copy this link when your site is published and you can send that to people to have a look at your website then next to that we have share with others if we click on here we can add people who we want to have access to our website now you can add the email here and then if we click along here you can select if you want them to be able to edit the website with you or they can just view the published website so for now we'll leave that empty as it's just me working on this website so cancel out of that and click done then next to that we have settings which we don't need to touch for now and then we have more options over here which we'll go into a bit later on and next to that we have published so when you're ready to publish your site you can click publish and it will be visible online down here we can insert text box images and bid say a video and then you can access your drive and then down here we have so I'll talk about this a bit later on and then below layouts we have other elements that we can use to build our website now if we pop up to the top we have pages where we can add additional pages and then next to that we have themes and this is where you can choose the style and the theme for your website there's a few to choose from and you can test them all out you can choose the theme that best represents your brand or your business so for me I like the look of the vision thing and I'm happy with the blue you can also change the theme color yeah I'm also happy with the font we'll keep that as bold now the first thing we want to do is change our title here we can do that just by double clicking and then you can change the title because what I'm going to create is a digital media and marketing consultancy under Stuart Gold just for the purpose of this tutorial and then we can come up here we can change the size this is a title so I'm going to leave it as title then we can choose to bold italic then we can choose how we want to Center the text currently it's centered we can go left and right aligned then if we pop over here we can insert a link and then we can clear the entire formatting or delete this title but for now we'll leave that as it is so what we want to do now is change this cover image so what I'm going to do is hit over to change image we can choose select image if we already have images on Google Drive but what I'm going to do is upload images from my computer that I already have ready to create this website so I'm going to click upload and here is the folder that has all the media that I need to create this website so I'm gonna click cover image and select open now what Google Sites is going to do is it's going to adjust the readability you can choose to leave this on or leave it off so that's too dark so I'm gonna click off and that's gonna go back to normal so I'm happy with that that looks quite nice now if you don't already have your images or your media for your website what you can do is head over to canva.com and this is a great free online design platform that allows you to design all these images graphics and logos everything you need for your website so it's a great way to edit your images or create new Tyrael for your website so I'll pop a link down below in the description and you can head over to canvas comm and create your own media if you haven't done so already next what we want to do is add a logo and a favicon so if we pop over to add logo and then click upload we're going to upload our white logo here this is our business logo Scindia media it might take some time but remember you want to upload a logo that represents your brand your business so this is just an example for the purpose of this tutorial now remember you can also go back to canva.com and create a logo there then we want to do is add an alt text so I'm going to add the business name here and then come down to favicon and upload favicon and that is going to be this logo image here and what's going to happen with your favicon basically if you open your website up online in the browser you're gonna see your little logo icon here the favicon and if you open any web site you're going to see the favicon for that particular website for example with Gmail we have the little icon here Google Drive and in the practice web site so this isn't going to show until your website is published and it's live online so I'm happy with the logo and the favicon it's going to automatically save so click exit and you can see the logo up here so I'm happy with that that looks quite good for now and now before we edit the rest of this page what we're going to do is add some more pages so at the moment we've got the home page if we pop down here and click plus we can add a new page so I'm going to add our services and click done I'm also going to add contact page click done and up the top you can see our menu so I also want to add a link now with Google Sites it's great because you can also add a direct link that takes people to a different website a different page other than just a page on your website so for example I want people to be linked to our YouTube channel because that for us is a powerful tool to help educate our followers to help educate our customers and our audience so I'm going to click new link and I'll head over to YouTube head to my channel and now what I'm going to do is copy the URL from here head back to Google Sites paste it in here and here we want to add a name for the link so I'm gonna write YouTube tutorials and click done and as you can see here I've got the home page our services page contact and in YouTube tutorials and what's going to happen is that's going to open up in a new tab in a new page so again this is an external link these are internal links going to different pages within this website that we're creating so what we can do is add sub pages to our main pages so what I'm gonna do is with our services we provide three main services it's under this I'm gonna click Add sub page and the first one is going to be digital marketing and then click done I now want to add two more sub pages so I'm gonna click the three dots again add another sub page and this one is going to be web design click done and one last sub page for our services and that is going to be called online workshop and then click done think about the way that you want your website to look what kind of pages do you want on your website do you want subcategories so remember subcategories for example if we move over to our services we now have these sub categories sub pages and if I click these it's going to go to a different page the next thing we can do is we can actually change the menu now if we don't like the menu the way it is we can head over to this gear icon and under navigation we can hit it over here and click the drop down and go side and as you can see now the menu is on the left and it's what we call a hamburger menu so if we exit out of this and we head over to our menu and click this little sidebar the hamburger menu then our menu is gonna pop up here and we can access the different pages through this sub menu so I like the look of this because it looks more streamlined more modern so I'm gonna leave the menu as it is okay now let's start designing our web pages so the first page we're going to start designing is our home page so head over to your home page as you can see here's our home page and there's currently nothing except for the cover image now the great thing about Google Docs is it's a very easy to use website buildin so you can basically drag and drop the different sections and different elements I'll show you how to do that right now so if I double click here and I click text that's going to pop up with a new section now with this section we can start typing because it's a text section again we can change the size of the text we can bold italic change the alignment numbered list bullet points inserting and more so again if we pop down here we can duplicate the section or we can delete it so here what we're going to do is add our purpose our message because that's the first thing we want people to see so they know exactly what this website is about so again I'm going to head back to my documents which is where I've already got our message text here so I'm going to copy this and head back to our website and click paste now I want this to be center-aligned so I'm going to click Center aligned and I also want to change us to a subheading then if we pop over to our section background we can change the color now this is based on the theme that we chose at the beginning we have regular which looks like this plain white then we have emphasis one which is a slight gray background then we have emphasis two which is a dark background and then we can also add an image so for now I'm going to keep it as emphasis too I like that dark background and then first go back to creating our footer which we were supposed to do before but will quickly create that now so again I'm gonna head back to my Docs and as you can see here is my footer I'm gonna copy this and then I'm gonna paste it in here click out of it and I'm happy with that as my header now again if i double click this i can start changing the content change the size of the text and all the other elements across here so you can unfold this now as you can see I've added a link so all you need to do here is click Edit link and you can paste a link in here so if someone clicks on this text it's going to take them to that external link whether it's your Facebook page it could be another website it could be a video whatever it is for the purpose of this tutorial this is a are going to link to my real website our Terms & Conditions page so I'm going to click apply I did the same with privacy policy here so again as you can see I've also bolded these words so I'm happy with my footer for now and like I said before this footer is going to appear on every page of your website now to create a new section all we need to do is double click here we can add images over here we can upload use our drive we can add another text section or we can add a video this is great fit and bidding a video on to your page or what we can do is hit up to insert and then we can insert a layout just like this if you're not happy with the layout you can click delete is also this layout here again there's an image title text and a body text unit here now for the home page I'm gonna create it myself without using any of these layouts so I'm going to click delete now because this is my home page what I want to do is add a video because having a video on your home page actually increases conversions and people are more engaged when they see a video so I'm gonna add a YouTube video so what I can do here is double click and indeed I can head over to either YouTube find the video that I want to embed and copy the link and paste it in but because I've already got all the information ready on my document I'm gonna head to my video link which I had already written down here I'm gonna copy this it back to my website and then paste that link into the space provided and as you can see the little preview is here of the video and I'm going to click insert and here is my video now what I want to do here is make it Center aligned so you can do that by clicking on the video and dragging it so I'm going to drag that between the columns and there we go the video is centered now it looks a bit dull so I can choose to change the background of the section I can have it as emphasis 1 or emphasis 2 now again that doesn't look very streamlined very modern so much gonna add a image as the background so again I'm gonna click section background and then come down to image and upload and I'm gonna choose this image here open and as you can see it's adjusting for readability remember you just need to click this if you don't like the adjustment that Google Sites is made for you because this is automatic it may take some time so just be paid and as you can see it's already adjusted so I can turn it off or I can turn it on so I like the adjustment that Google Sites has already made so I'm going to keep it as it is and that looks quite professional now what we want to do is hit to the next section and here what we want to do is add more information about our website so I'm gonna double click and click text again I'm gonna head back to my Docs and copy this body text here ctrl C get back to the website and then paste the text in here so like I said before I've already created all the images the text that I want for this website because this is a tutorial and I want to make it under 10 minutes to show you how you can easily make a website within 10 minutes when you have all your information all your media and all your content so again let's go back to the website now what I want to do is center align this text so I'm going to click up here and pop down to Center aligned that looks good however again it looks a bit dull so to keep the theme the same I'm gonna actually change it to the same color as this section here so I'm going to head over to edit section background and I'm gonna go emphasis to and as you can see the text has automatically adjusted to what so that it's readable so again I'm happy with that then we're going to pop down and add in another section so I'm going to double click and add text so with this home page that we're creating now I'm creating everything from scratch I'm not using any of the layouts as you can see over here on the next two pages we're going to quickly create them with these layouts so again coming back here I'm gonna head back to my document and I'm gonna come down here and copy this last section and then paste in here and as you can see it's already the size that I like but I want to Center it align this message so I'm gonna copy this and click Center aligned that looks good again I can change the size of the text but I like it as a kidding so we'll leave that as it is and that looks quite streamlined with the different colors the dark and the light and in image here so I'm going to leave that as it is but now what I want to do is add two buttons because we've got this call to action ready to make a real change let's grow your business together so what I want to do is add two buttons so to do that I'm gonna head over here and click on button the first button is going to take people to the contact page and this is going to be a free quote then click link and then find the page you want to link to so I want to link this to my contact page because if this person wants a free quote they can click on this button and it takes them to the contact page where they can get a free quote now I want to add one more button a call to action it's great to have at least two or three call to actions on your homepage basically a call to action is what you want the visitor to do once they land on your website do you want them to head over to your contact page to your book now page do you want them to call through to your business what is it so for us we want them to get a free quote which is going to take them to the contact page then we want to add one more button and we're going to name this our services in a click link and Link this page to our services page and insert and as you can see we've got two buttons here so this takes the user to our contact page and this button takes people to our services page now the great thing about Google Sites and the website builder is you can just drag and drop everything you have complete freedom just to drag and drop and change the way you want elements to show up so for example for these buttons I'm gonna drag this one and put that here then I'm gonna grab our services button and bring that across here I can also change the size of the button just by dragging it and then I want to move that to let's say here again with our services I'm gonna change the sizing and drag that out happy with that and again I can move that around but I like the position of both buttons so I'm gonna leave it as it is and as you can see we now have to call to actions that take people to our contact page and our services page so now that looks fantastic what I want to do is add another section so that my website is smooth and it flows really well so I'm gonna get double click here click text now I do not want to add text but I want to change the color of this box so I'm going to head over to section background and click emphasis to and now we have a dark box here and it breaks up each section and I'm loving the flow of the website remember you can play around you can drop you can play around with the sizing do whatever you like and take your time to create the website the way that you like and remember get feedback from friends and family to see if they like the way that your website is looking remember you can also add people here like we showed before if you want to add people to just view your website before it's live or if you want other people to make simple edits with you and with that said we have completed our homepage as you can see it flows very well I like the look at the colors it's nice and sharp and modern and professional-looking as you can see we have a video here we have our purpose our message so people know what we're all about then we have a quick description about our business then we have our call to action information down here free quote or check out our services and if we pop down to the bottom we have our footer here which is going to appear on every single page now what we're going to do is quickly create a contact page using all the elements and the layouts on the right-hand side so what we need to do is head back up to the top click on pages and in head down to contact page so click here and here is our contact page now we have a choice to keep this image the same or we can change it so all we need to do is click change image we can upload an image or select an image from our gallery so again if we come down here you can choose an image that best represents your business or you can upload one for the purposes of tutorial we'll just quickly upload one so I like the look of this image and click select and as you can see it's going to adjust for the readability and it's automatically being darkened so I like the look of that I'm going to leave that as it is now let's create the first section so what we need to do is head over to insert and then let's check out some of these layouts I like the look of this layout here so I'm going to click this and then over here I'm going to add a image so click add image again you can use these elements here but what we're going to do is upload from our computer we're going to jump onto our contact page folder and click profile picture and click open and there we have it a picture of myself now what I can do is I can crop this image so all I need to do is hit up here and click crop all we need to do is drag this little dot here until the sizing is right and then we can drag the emerg down so I like the look of that so I'm going to click tick and I'm happy with way that that image looks now if we come over to the right I'm gonna add some information here so again I'm gonna go back to Google Docs and copy this title here and then click paste now that's quite big so I'm going to change the sizing to a sub header and then I'm going to change the alignment so it's centered and then I'm going to head back to my Google Docs and I'm gonna copy this text here and then paste that down below again I'm gonna copy all this text here and change the alignment so it's centered and then click outside of the editing field I might actually change this so it's a dictator I change that to a heater that's better I like the look at that get in touch with us today send us a message message we would love to hear from you have a general question we're just an email away now we want to add a map and our contact information so again what we can do is click on this layout and then I want to move these around so like I said before with Google Sites you can just click and drag elements so I'm gonna click this and drag that down here and then I'm gonna click this text here and I'm gonna drag that across yeah again I want to drag this little box here and drag that to the left hand side and there we have it we've just reversed the way that the section looks now you also have the choice to copy the section for example I could just copy that and then change the image or change the text but what we've done is we've just rearranged the original layout so I'm going to delete this and then start editing this side here so I don't like the header here I just like the text so I'm gonna get rid of this click on here and click delete title then we have our text here so what I want to do is head back to our Google Docs and in copy all our contact information get back to our website and paste that in here I'm happy with the bold yep that looks good for now too much space down here so I'm gonna get rid of that and then I'm going to highlight Monday to Friday and I'm gonna bold this and this one here now on the right hand side what we want to do here is add a map so to do that I'm just going to delete the section here this image and then I'm going to come down to our elements and click on met so here all we need to do is type in our business location now if you have a Google my business you can actually type in your business name and that's going to automatically come up with your business address and that's automatically going to come up with your business location and address so I'm going to type in Cindy oh and this is our business here so I'm going to click here so just checking it yep that's exactly we were located and then I'm going to click select and there we have it our map is automatically generated then all we need to do is drag the map and place it up here next to our contact information give it a moment and that's going to load and I like the look of that as you can see it's quite smooth we've got an image here we've got text here then we'll reverse the order so it flows quite well now you can resize the map just by clicking on the section and dragging it and that's a good size for us so what we're going to do is leave it as it is now we can also add a divider which I'm going to do so click divider now what I want to do is put this divider up in between these two sections just like that and there we have it our contact page is basically complete now down here I want to add a button that takes people to our services page so remember we talked about this you want to have internal linking to different pages within your website so I'm gonna head over here and click add button I'm gonna type in our services and then click link and then click our services and then click insert and then I'm gonna drag this button into the middle here click on it drag it so it looks a bit bigger now the great thing about Google Sites is you can just drag and drop like we talked about before however Google Sites will actually automatically come up with columns so you know exactly how your elements are aligned with the wrist of the website so that is centered there I like the look of that I'm gonna leave that there and then down here like I've done on every page I'm gonna click add text and then it change the color to emphasis to so that it breaks up my website and breaks up the sections and there we have it I love the look of the contact page I'm going to leave that as it is remember take the time to put in all your information so that you have a beautiful contact page that represents your business and now with that complete let's head over to our pages and now let's design our services so click our services now I want to make sure this is a capital there we go so again all you need to do is click on the text to change it and now what I want to do is change the image again like I did on the contact page so I'm going to click select image and use an image from the gallery that Google Sites has already provided so I'm going to click on this one and click select and as you can see Google Sites has automatically adjusted the readability and made the image darker so now that the text is easier to read so I'm happy with that now let's actually build the page so as you can see our footer is already down there because we created that earlier on the home page now what I want to do is head over to insert and head down to our layouts now because we have three services I'm gonna click on this layout here which has three separate sections so there's an image here title text and normal text below so again I'm gonna add three images so here I'm gonna add a image by uploading I'm gonna head back to our folder and then click on our services and then I'm gonna click digital marketing so our first section here is going to be about digital marketing so I'm going to type that in down here and over here will be web design so I'll upload another image and call this service web design and then on the far right hand side I'll add another image which is going to be online workshop then if we pop down here we'll type that in now what we want to do is add a small call-to-action or small description so to do that I'm just going to head back to our document and copy this text here for digital marketing head back to our website paste that here back copy this paste that here and then the last one is online workshop copy this text and paste it in here now I'm happy how that looks now what I want to do is add a button for each service that takes people to these pages because remember these are our sub pages as you can see if we head back to the top and under our menu these are our sub categories our services under our services we have three so exit out of that and now we want to add those three buttons that take the user to digital marketing web design and workshop so to do that all we need to do is click insert pop down here to button and write learn more and then click on the link and then click digital marketing and in insert now this button is gonna take people to the digital marketing page now I want to create this button at three times so what I can do here is I can actually add them from the elements bar on the right hand side or I can come across here and duplicate the button so there we have it we have three buttons but remember this one was for digital marketing and these two because they've been copied they're both still gonna link to the digital marketing webpage so to change that we just double click and then change this will delete that I'm gonna go web design here update again down here double click delete this and then click online workshop and update and then what we can do is drag this over here and then the online workshop button here that's a bit uneven so I'm gonna drag that into the middle now I'm still not too happy with that so what you want to do is drag this button and bring it right underneath the text within the single section so you can drag and drop drag and drop as simple as that again you can change the sizing of the button if you like but I kind of like the look of that so I'm gonna leave that as it is now what I want to do is add some text up the top that kind of explains our services so to do that I can come down here and click text now I'm going to go back to my Google Docs and copy this message tics here head back to my website and paste the text in here now again I want this to be centered so I'm going to click over here and click down to centered and I'm happy with the way that it looks now what I'm going to do is change the color so it flows with the rest of the website to emphasis to which makes the background dark and the text white so it's easily visible and then what I'm gonna do is drag this section up below the cover photo now what I might do because this image is quite dark and this section here is dark it's not it's not flowing very well so I'm gonna add a white section in between the cover photo the cover image and the section here so do that I'm just going to pop down here double click and click text and then I'm gonna drag this all the way up to the top above this section and between here and there we have it I'm happy with that that flows quite nicely and then down here one last thing is I'm going to add another dark section so that the rest of my website flows quite nicely and in add emphasis to and I'm gonna leave that as it is there we go that looks beautiful and there we have it we've completed our services page now if we go back to pages up here we've completed our home page our services page and our contact page so those are our three core pages that we want on our website then we also have a link to our YouTube tutorials so again if we pop over to our menu we can see all that here we've got our home our services and our sub pages of our services in our contact and YouTube tutorials now I'm pretty happy with that we're not going to go into detail about changing digital marketing web design and online workshop we're gonna leave those pages as they are because we've showed you how to use each of the elements how to construct your own website and I'm happy with all three pages that we've just designed and as you can see it's very simple it's very straightforward you don't need any design skills it's all drag-and-drop you don't need to have any website experience however a good idea is to look at other websites within your market in your industry and look at the way that they've set up their pages look at the different pages that they have remember you can also add a link rather than a page you can actually just add a link and that is everything you need to know to design your website and now what we can do is actually see how our website looks before we publish it so if we click preview this is how our website will look on desktop you can also come down here and click tablet to see how your website will look on tablet I like the look at that looks beautiful as you can see we have the menu up here then you can click phone so what you want to do is go through all your different pages on each of the different devices and review the way that your website looks to make sure that it's streamlined that it's responsive and I'm happy with the way that everything looks I'm gonna exit out of that and now I'm ready to publish so all I need to do is click publish we're going to call it Stewart gold and this is what your URL will look like you can also come down here and create a custom URL to a hosting company and a new domain however for the purpose of this tutorial we want to show you how you can create everything for free so nothing on this tutorial you need to pay for again you can come down here and manage who sees your site so we want everyone to be able to see our site when it's live if you don't want your website to display in search engines then click here but we obviously want our website to appear on Google so people can find us we want our website to appear on different search engines and when you're happy with your website name and your URL then click publish and congratulations your site is now published all we need to do is click over here and we can change our publish settings we can review changes and publish and then we can view our publish site here so I'm going to click view publish site and as you can see our beautiful new Google site is up online I love the look at that I love the menu on the side remember you can change us at any time our services now remember we haven't actually created any content but now you know how to create web pages and how to create content on those web pages then let's head over to our contact page beautiful I love the look of that we have our map down here and then if I click YouTube tutorials that's going to open up another tab to our YouTube account where our video tutorials are to help people succeed online so exit out of that and I'm super happy with the way the website is looking so I'm gonna head back to our Google Sites dashboard so when you make any changes here on your draft website remember this is just gonna be saved in your drive it's not your going to be live and when you're ready to publish your new changes so that it appears on your live website online then just click publish and those changes will be updated on your live website and again there's more elements down here which we're not going to go into today because these are more advanced tools and and features that you can use but will create another tutorial in the future that will cover all these different elements for now this is how you create a website if you're a beginner very simple very straightforward drag and drop features amazing features for your website so that you can get your business up online so if we head back to our live website and click on home so we can click on our logo to head back to our home page this is our link here so if you copy that you can actually seen that too in and they can head over to your website now before we finish up it's important to note that this does not replace a comprehensive website okay so this is a great option if you're just getting started online if you want to practice building your own website if you want to practice designing and developing your own website then Google Sites is a great option however it is limited in the features and functionality it's not going to replace a comprehensive website say if you were to get a designer to build you one or if you use WordPress or another website builder this is a very basic website builder but it's great to get online and again that has a lot of powerful features that you can leverage to get your small business online so have fun play around with your different pages play around with the different features the different layouts and options available that represents your business and brand and that is it for today's tutorial I hope you now have a clearer understanding on how to make a free website using Google Sites let me know if you found this tutorial helpful and if you have any questions make sure to leave them down below and once that said thank you for watching if you got value out of this video make sure you hit the thumbs up subscribe and I'll see you in the next video take care [Music]

Channel: Stewart Gauld

Views: 162,347

Keywords: how to make a free website, Google sites tutorial, how to create a free website, how to build a free website, how to make a free website on google, best free website builder, how to use google sites, how to make a free website in 10 minutes, create website google, how to make a google website, google sites tutorial 2020, how to create a free business website, Google Sites Tutorial for Beginners, Stewart Gauld, google sites, how to make a website with google sites

Id: 992Wj0mZkow

Length: 35min 17sec (2117 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020