Free design resources to give your template a personalised appearance
There are some excellent quality resources on the Internet to help you learn, improve and enhance the design of your Google Sites website, a lot of them free. Here's a list to help you get the content you need for your website.
Using your own photos is the best way to build trust with your audience, but if you don’t have them—or need something to get your site launched quickly—there are some excellent free stock photo resources available online. (Just be sure to credit the creator where required.)
*Some of the stock image sites have "collections", so if you're looking for images in a particular theme it's worth checking these out.
It's worth reading about colour theory and how this can subtly impact your online audience. If you already have house colours, or a brand colour palette then there's a range of resources to help inspire you or create the colour combinations for you to use in your website.
Any of these websites allow you to create a palette based on one or more base colour:
Google Sites is limited to three colour Styles, or palettes, but despite this being something of a constraint you can still create effective styles and layouts using the resources above.
Naturally, Google Sites has seamless integration with Google Web fonts, which is an excellent typography resource. Fonts can fundamentally change the look and feel of your website and can be used to reinforce the branding message and audience appeal. You can "test drive" Google Fonts by entering text (for example your main title or strapline) which is then displayed in their library of fonts.
Alternatively, if you're looking for inspiration or direction on fonts to use, try any of these websites:
Think about your audience when selecting fonts, and the impression you want to convey.
No doubt you'll want images of your products or services on your website so here's a few useful online (and free) tools that I use to edit and manipulate images:
Take screenshots of your website with a screenshot generator
Images are usually quite big in terms of file size, so use an Image Compressor to speed up load times (and improve SEO)
Hemingway app helps you write in simple, clear language.