Spice Up your FREE GOOGLE SITE with these Hidden Tricks!

Summary of technological concepts / Google Sites “hidden tricks”

The video shares practical, “hidden” ways to improve a free Google Sites build, based on features seen in a viewer’s site (William) and a few common Google Sites editing tools that aren’t obvious.

1) Custom logo + favicon (especially with transparent PNGs)

• Google Sites lets you set both a homepage logo and a favicon.
• A key improvement: upload PNGs with transparent backgrounds so your icon/logo isn’t forced into a square with an unwanted border.
• If you export correctly (PNG transparency), the favicon can appear as a circle/triangle/etc. without a square backing.

Workflow mentioned:

1. Edit/export the logo in an image editor (example: Pixelmator) by masking and exporting as transparent PNG.
2. In Google Sites:
   • Hover the logo → Edit logo
   • Brand images → set both Logo and Favicon (keeping them consistent).

Comparison shown:

• Non-PNG (white background) → favicon may show a visible white square border.
• Transparent PNG → favicon shows the shaped icon cleanly.

2) Add “pages” that are actually external website links

• In the Sites page list, Google Sites provides a “new link” option.
• This creates a clickable “page/button” inside the site navigation that redirects to an external URL.

Setup:

• Go to Pages
• Hover the + at the bottom
• Click New link
• Paste external URL
• Option to open in a new tab
• Name the link page

Use cases:

• Linking directly to YouTube/social pages or other external destinations.

3) Contact page improvement: email icon redirect using mailto:

• Instead of using Google Forms for questions, the video demonstrates direct email interaction via an icon.

Steps:

1. Insert a transparent-background PNG email icon (so it doesn’t look like a square image).
2. Insert a link on the icon using:
   • mailto:your-email@example.com

Result:

• Clicking the icon opens the user’s email client (desktop/iPhone/etc.) with the recipient prefilled.
• The email link is described as opening a pop-up/new email draft where users can add subject/body and send immediately.

4) Hidden text formatting option: line spacing / spacing controls

To tighten up or change readability of text blocks:

• Select the text
• Open formatting options via the three-dot (more) menu
• Use Line spacing
• Choose standard options or set custom spacing (example given: ~0.5 to make text tighter)

Also noted in the same hidden formatting area:

• strike-through
• clear formatting
• indent controls (increase/decrease)

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Main speakers / sources

• Primary speaker: The YouTube creator (unnamed in subtitles) running the tutorial series.
• Referenced source: William (Uganda) — his Google Site is used as an example of creative implementations (logo/icon behavior, YouTube redirect, mail pop-up icon behavior).