Building a Google Sites Portfolio

What you’ll be able to do

• Create a Google Site and give it a web address
• Add pages, text, and images
• Publish it so other people can actually open it
• Keep your work after you graduate

Read

Which account to use

Use your school account for now. That’s what you’re signed into at school, and it’s what you’ll submit with.

Know this up front: your school account gets shut off after you graduate. When it goes, the site goes with it. So before you leave, you’ll copy the site to a personal Gmail account. There’s a section at the bottom on how, and it’s worth reading now so it isn’t a surprise in May of your senior year.

Make the site

Go to sites.google.com and click the blank template, or pick one of the layouts if you’d rather start with something.

Two names to set, and they are not the same thing:

1. Document name, top left. This is just the file name in your Drive. Only you see it.
2. Site name, on the page itself. This shows in the header of every page.

Name both something real. “Untitled site” is not a portfolio.

Add pages and content

The right-hand panel has three tabs:

• Insert puts things on the page: text boxes, images, embeds, and layouts. Layouts are prebuilt arrangements of image and text blocks, and using them is faster than dragging boxes around and much easier to keep tidy.
• Pages adds pages. Click the plus, name the page, and it appears in your navigation automatically. You can drag a page underneath another one to nest it.
• Themes changes fonts and colors across the whole site at once. Pick one early and leave it alone. You’ll get more out of good work presented plainly than a great theme wrapped around empty pages.

Publish it

Editing a site does not put it on the internet. Click Publish, top right.

You’ll be asked for a web address, which is the end of your URL. Use your name, something like jordan-lee-portfolio. It has to be unique, so if it’s taken, add a number or your grad year.

Then check who can view. Under Manage, you’ll see the audience setting. If it’s limited to the school, people outside the school cannot open your link, and that includes your family. If you can set it to anyone, do. If that option is greyed out, ask, because your account may be restricted.

The one mistake everybody makes

Editing does not update the live site. You make changes, they look right, you send the link, and the person sees the old version.

Every single time you finish working, click Publish again. The button says “Publish” the first time and stays there after; pressing it republishes. Get in the habit now, because “I did the work, it just didn’t show up” is not something a grade can fix.

To check your work, open the published link in a private window, or on your phone. That shows you what everyone else sees.

Keeping it after graduation

Google Sites does not move with the file-transfer tool that copies your Drive and Gmail to a personal account. Sites has to be handled separately, and it has to be done while your school account still works.

Before you graduate:

1. Open your site and click Share.
2. Add your personal Gmail address as an Editor.
3. Sign in with your personal account, open the site, and use Duplicate site.

The copy belongs to your personal account. Publish that copy with its own address and the portfolio is yours for good.

Your school account is usually disabled within weeks of graduation, so don’t leave this to the last day.

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