Business Website
Quick guide to get you and your business online
Still hanging out with us? High five to you! It goes without saying - a website is an invaluable tool for a business.
If you have a business and don't have a website - hang out with us a little bit longer. We'll get you connected.
We'll go ahead and assume that you made it through the first two websites. If you are having trouble following along please visit our First Website and Project Website pages.
Google My Business
Is your business listed on Google? Not sure? Take a moment to Google it. Google is by far the most used search engine on the internet. Listing your business is free!
Lets get this business website going!
google sites
Login to your Gmail account and navigate to Google Sites.
Google Sites will do the heavy lifting for you. Let's take advantage of the templates they've listed for free.
Step 1: Click Template Gallery (upper right)
Step 2: Select the template labeled Salon or Restaurant
Note: I'll be working with both templates up at the same time so I can take themes or ideas from each template for my site.
Please Note
Take a moment to put pen to paper and scratch out some ideas. How do you want your site to look? In the name of finishing this bad boy today - lets focus on the layout and worry about color schemes, fonts and other content after we're done.
In this example we will make a website for a taco truck. We will start with three pages: Home, Menu and Contact Us. Our template should have this all started for us.
Restaurant template | home page
Once you've opened your restaurant template from Google Sites -work on updating the home page with your business information. Our restaurant will be called Senor Digital Tacos.
update any place you see the word restaurant (double click and type in)
delete the Reservations button
delete the Press coverage and Review boxes using the small trash can icon on the left of each green box
scroll all the way to the bottom and fill in the address/number/email information. We'll use dummy info.
double click the image, when you see the editing icon's come up on the top left side of the picture | click the three vertical dots to replace the image.
if you are feeling risky - in the upper right hand corner of your web page, click on the images icon to add in a second image - then drag them next to each other.
menu page
Step 1: Start by clicking on the Pages tab in the upper right hand corner of your screen. You should see a list of four pages (they were included in the template). You can drag and reorganize these pages. Put them in the following order: Home, Menu and Contact Us..
Step 2: Click on Menu and change the title of the menu to something much cooler. We'll go with Le' Menu Supreme.
feel free to play with font sizes, making the text bold, etc.
delete the Reservations button
Step 3: Update the menu page with your preference of delicious digital meals. We will be adding in a bunch of pictures of tacos and reducing the number of options from 5 per course, to maybe 2 per course. Remember: click on the image until the edit icons come up and you'll be able to replace the images.
Appetizer: little chicken tacos, little carne asada tacos
Main Course: big chicken tacos, big carne asada tacos
Dessert: taco shaped cake, extra tacos
(feeling pretty original right about now...)
Step 4: Update your pricing, enter your email into the next cell and move onto the Contact Us page.
contact us page
Step 1: Make the Location text larger and click on the gray box under it to enter in a location. We will fill in Tempe Arizona.
Step 2: Delete the Reservations button and everything under the first image (simplify).
Step 3: Fill in the Contact Us, Hours of Operation and text under the Image.
Final Site review
Step 1: On the upper right hand side of the page click on the Themes tab. Select Aristotle as a theme and pick the green circle as our color. This will change the theme on your entire website.
Step 2: When you hover over a box - look to the left side of the box and you'll see three little icons come up. One of them looks like a miniature painting palette. Click it and switch the box from Regular to Emphasis 1 (or 2).
Step 3: Go through each of your pages and change a few of the boxes into an emphasis 1 or 2 to give your page a little color.
Step 4: Click Publish (top right corner), fill in your name, and click Publish again.
You're all done! You're website can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/yournamehere
Please Note
If you'd like a more personal web address, check out Google Domains and Publish your site under a more unique website name. Our masterpiece can be found here.
While our quick website is probably not the professional site of your dreams - if you've followed along thus far we're pretty sure you understand how far you can go if you spend a few hours getting creative. Like we mentioned before, check out company websites, follow their themes for inspiration, follow our videos and most importantly - build a website YOU love.
additional resources
Canva | canva.com has a ton of great resources for logo creation, color schemes and much more
create your images or logos and add them to your website!
Calendly | calendly.com is an awesome resources for those that want a little extra organization.
create a free calendar with your gmail and you'll get a link you can share with customers.
this link organizes your schedule and allows customers to schedule appointments which are then automatically saved to your gmail calendar.
connect your gmail calendar to your phone and BOOM - amazing organization is in the palm of your hands.
Color Hunt | colorhunt.co is a great website for color scheme selection. Search the site, copy the code for your favorite color and use it on your website!
What's next?
Take a few moments to play around with Google Sites. Check out your favorite organization's website for inspiration. Reminder - Google Domains allows you to purchase a website name (domain) and link your website to it.
Would you like your website to be 'yourwebsite'.com instead of google.com/sites/view/'yourwebsite'? Check out Google Domains below. This will incur a cost but depending on the domain name you shouldn't have to spend more than $15-$20 per year. The process is simple: click the link, search the name you want and make your purchase (if its available).