Making Google Sites Not Ugly: A Love Letter to DIY Website Glow-Ups

 A funny thing happened at the NCCTE Summer Conference: after my session, more than one person came up and said, “Hey… what do you use to make your website?”

And my brain — somewhere between post-conference bliss and 85-tab brain fog - suddenly went,

“Wait. You’re talking about my Google Site?”


Yes. It’s a Google Site.

No. It does not look like a tragic, default-template train wreck with a 75-character URL that ends in
.sites.google.com/view/something/horrible?ref=crying.

But here’s the secret:
When I first started building Google Sites (almost ten? years ago), I had zero idea what I was doing. But I knew I didn’t want it to look like it was made in an underfunded time machine from 1997.

So I went deep into research mode.

Enter: @FlippedClassroomTutorials on YouTube — the hero I didn’t know I needed. Stiegler (the genius behind the channel) walked me through everything:

  • Layout tips to avoid visual despair

  • How to customize the theme without screaming "I used a theme!"

  • Embedding elements like a pro

  • Making navigation intuitive and clean

  • And most importantly: how to make your site look like it wasn’t made in five minutes out of panic and regret

💡 But what about that awful URL?

Ah, yes. The cursed gobbledygook link.
Here’s the trick: buy a domain. It costs $12. Seriously.

I buy a new one every time I have a big project. Something hyper-specific.

  • My husband’s portfolio? marcedward.art

  • My design stuff? I’ve got three domains for that alone.

  • sylvestre-design.com

    victoriasylvestre.com

    tori-sparks.com 

  • My SparkLab site? Branded specifically for the district, clear and memorable.

It makes your Google Site feel like a real site. Because it is.

Coming Soon: YouTube Series

I'm thinking of launching a quick mini-series to go along with this — short episodes showing:

  • How I set mine up

  • What I avoid at all costs

  • How I link the custom domain

  • My go-to tricks for making people go, “Wait… that’s a Google Site?!”

Stay tuned. And until then - don’t let your URL betray you.

You deserve a clean, beautiful site that says, “I came to teach, and I brought my pixels in order.”

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