How to improve your Google Sites intranet

Post date: Sep 22, 2012 1:46:23 PM

We often hear of organizations, businesses, and groups who want to improve their Google Sites intranet experience.

Most often, organizations are choosing a template out of the box, that is the Google Sites Template Gallery. While the templates there are a great starting point, in the end they won't speak to your audience. Remember, employees are really internal customers, you have to keep them happy too. If the intranet is difficult to navigate (this happens a lot with huge sidebar navigation menus) the collaboration on the intranet will suffer.

Intranet Tip #1: Boil down your navigation options to categories and create the horizontal navigation menu.

The horizontal navigation doesn't populate automatically, but that's a good thing in this case. You can to keep it simply, at least at first. Present a few options rather than hundreds.

Intranet Tip #2: Be consistent with design and styling

Create a method to your madness, a design pattern that is visitor can quickly acclimate to. Use the same font throughout, the same page layout, and the same Heading, SubHeading, Paragraph style. This will be more pleasing to the eye and professional looking.

Intranet Tip #3: Use a graphic designer or Google Sites designer

There is a reason why we're building some many intranet designs, it's because organizations see the benefit of an excellent design that matches their brand. It is really helpful and reassuring for visitors to notice their in the company space. It means security and unlike those out of the box templates, will wow your staff. Invest in a well designed Google Sites intranet.