Image: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

A Google Site is an efficient way to share content. After a Site is created, access can be shared with collaborators, then text, images, videos, maps, or files can be inserted from Google Drive. In late 2019, Google added the ability to insert collapsible text, which works well for Frequently Asked Questions or other support/help pages.

Google Sites can help gather information as well. The following tools let a visitor to your site initiate contact, offer feedback, and provide or request information; however, to enable each of these, you need edit or administrator access.

SEE: Google Cloud Platform: An insider’s guide (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

A Google Form, a shared Sheet or Doc, and an embedded third-party app survey are added similarly. On a site page, click Insert (in the upper right area), and select Forms, Docs, Slides, or Sheets (Figure A). Click/tap the form, doc, or sheet you wish to insert, and the item will display on your page. You can click any dot (on the sides or corners around the form) and drag it to resize.

After your changes are complete, click the Publish button for your Site to make them available over the internet.

Figure A

Insert the type of item you want to add onto your Google Site. Most feedback is gathered with Forms, but Docs, Slides, or Sheets can also help obtain input.

1. How to add a Google Form

A Google Form can gather various types of data, including text, uploaded files, dates, times, rankings (linear scale or grids), and responses to multiple choice, checkbox, or drop-down questions.

To prepare a form for your site, go to forms.google.com, and either click the plus (+) button (in the lower right area) to create a new form, or select and review an existing form to make sure it gathers the information you need. Edit your form, and when finished, return to your Google Site and insert your form as described above.

SEE: How to embed content from the web to your Google Site (TechRepublic)

2. How to add a shared Google Doc, Slide, or Sheet

A page on a Google Site provides access to files shared from Google Drive. To share a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide, click Share, and adjust the permissions so that other people can view, comment, or edit. With edit access, people can add text to a Google Doc, fill out cells in a Google Sheet, or add content in Google Slides.

3. How to embed a poll or survey into your Google Site

Third-party polls or surveys can be embedded into your Google Site, as long as the tool you choose provides an embed code. Search the support or help pages for your favorite poll or survey app–using the term Embed–to learn if it supports this feature. For example, SurveyMonkey not only explains how to embed a survey on a help page, it also provides a blog post with step-by-step instructions.

SEE: How to embed content from the web to your Google Site (TechRepublic)

4. How to type an email address on a Google Site

If you type an email address in a text box on a Google Site, the system will turn it into a mailto: link, so when a person clicks this link in desktop Chrome, it opens a new email in Gmail.

The process works much like the above steps: Click Insert, select Text Box, type a properly formatted email address in your text, then Publish the site. If your site is available to anyone, the email address will be public.

5. How to enable a contact form for a Google Site

For sites created by people in organizations that use G Suite, Google added the option in late 2019 to enable a contact form for a Google Site. Once enabled, a visitor who is signed in to a Google account can click/tap the i with a circle around it (in the lower left corner of a Google Site), and select Contact. The form displays two fields: Subject and Message (Figure B). After the visitor fills in the fields and clicks Send, the system submits the message to the Google Site owner via email.

Figure B

Clicking the circled i button and choosing Contact displays a contact form to send feedback to the Google Site owner.

To enable the Contact Form feature, site owners or editors click/tap the vertical three-dot menu (in the upper right), select Site Info Settings, then move the slider next to Show Contact Form to the right to enable it. Click Save, then Publish to make your change available to site visitors (Figure C). A G Suite blog post provides more details.

Figure C

Contact forms can be enabled on a Google Site.

What are your thoughts about Google Sites?

If you use Google Sites, which of these feedback methods do you use? If you use more than one, how do you choose? Have you established any organizational guidelines to help people use Google Sites and/or feedback on Sites? Let me know, either in the comments below or on Twitter (@awolber).

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