Successful Collaboration: Five Ways to Do More with Google Sites

I can say from experience that managing a company Intranet, even just departmentally, is a minefield. The goal of effective collaboration is often hampered by duplicate content, ineffective tagging or file names, a search functionality that doesn’t return any results, no visual engagement, the list goes on. Sound familiar?

In order to be effective, an intranet must be user-focused and functional. A great user-friendly way of building collaborative websites and intranets is Google Sites. Until recently users could primarily only integrate Google Apps, however in an exciting update from Google it’s now possible for users to embed all URLs into new Google Sites. Why is this exciting, you might be thinking? It means you can now embed all POWr plugins in your Google Sites! Not only can you make your site more user friendly, improve internal communication and better manage content but you can do so in an easy-to-use and affordable way in 5 simple steps:

1. Boost satisfaction

If you think about your workplace, it’s commonplace to have to use several different programs during the work day. From document management, email, shared dashboards or reporting, centralized databases and videoconferencing or communication tools, it’s easier to keep things simple and avoid using unnecessary extra systems or programs. With POWr you can embed forms of any type into your Google Site using Form Builder. You can do a company survey, event registration, order form and even take payments via PayPal, all from within your existing site. This makes it easy to gather feedback or any necessary information from company members, while boosting satisfaction by improving internal processes and avoiding the need to use yet another platform or system or login. With features such as a Google Sheet integration too you can view all form responses in real time to keep track of all insight for your business.

2. Showcase your most important assets

Content and asset management can be tricky and you want to make sure that your co-workers can access the information they need to find. With Multi Slider you can put all of your most important assets, whether they’re documents, videos, images, infographics and whitepapers, in a sleek slideshow anywhere on your Google Site. The great part is you can embed links so that you can direct users to a specific location and if you need to protect your assets you can disable the option to right click. With other features such as autoplay you can be sure that your most important assets will be visible, accessible and in a visually engaging way.

3. Get social

You have social media profiles - use them! Boost engagement and collaboration by sharing content from any of your social accounts using Social Feed. It’s fully customizable too, so you can decide on the layout, colors, frequency of content updates and even follow competitor accounts or interesting hashtags. You can also use Social Media Icons to give your co-workers or any other collaborators easy access to your social accounts.

4. Build a sense of community

If the goal of an intranet or Google Site is to be collaborative, allowing contributors to interact with each other is conducive to establishing good working relationships and building a sense of community among sometimes dispersed teams. By adding Comments to your Google Sites you can receive and display comments, allow feedback, replies, sort them by date, popularity, or even allow voting or anonymous commenting. You can receive automatic email alerts for all comments and moderate content by manually approving any comments before they display on your site, always keeping you in control.

5. Create excitement!

We all like to feel excitement in life! Achieving this online can be tricky; you can make colorful images or adjust your web design, but why not try a Countdown Timer? It’s a great visual tool that you can use to countdown to the end of a particular promotion you might be offering or to an event, product launch...the choice is yours. With many customization options, including animations, you can make it fit in with the look and feel of your site and drive up excitement for an event!

With over 50 plugins in the POWr library, the possibilities continue! Try these today on new Google Sites and let us know how it goes by leaving us a comment.