Design effective SharePoint sites with the help of new site templates

Designing a SharePoint site requires knowledge of how SharePoint site structures work and a deep understanding of how you want SharePoint users to navigate and interact with the site.

With new SharePoint site templates, Microsoft provides teams with a starting point to develop a customized site that fits the exact needs of your team.

In this blog we’ll cover what a SharePoint site is and how to get started with site templates.

What’s a SharePoint site?

The basic design structure of SharePoint is broken down into sites and pages. Both team sites and communication sites provide further access into pages, lists and libraries underneath. Sites can be thought of as the umbrella location with content organized within. Pages within sites are where content are stored and modified. There are multiple page types with different use cases, but typically sites include a home page to provide an overview of the site, navigation pages to give the user options to access different area of the site, and destination pages that provide the actual content the user is looking for.  

With the introduction of Microsoft Teams as the premier communications app of Microsoft 365 (replacing Skype for Business), Microsoft has introduced the ability to create SharePoint team sites within Microsoft Teams. Learn more about how you can design well-structured SharePoint team sites directly within Microsoft Teams here.

Take advantage of SharePoint site templates

Microsoft has introduced a new tool called SharePoint look book to showcase new SharePoint site templates by theme and use case. Much like other template services, look book allows you to filter by use case and provides visual examples of how templates will look. These templates include customizable home pages and destination pages with pre-populated content and web parts. Each template also includes its own customization guidance page to help site owners and content editors get started with customization.

Clicking into a site template on look book provides additional detail about the site including features included, web parts used, and content included. This page also includes an option to add the site template to an existing SharePoint template making it easy to get started. Only users with site owner permissions or higher in a Microsoft 365 environment will be able to add a template to a site.

For organizations that are already using SharePoint sites whether they are out-of-the-box or customized, Microsoft provides additional guidance for applying new site templates in their SharePoint Site Template Q&A. If your organization is interested in creating a customized site without a template, Microsoft provides guided walkthroughs of basic design processes. For organization with no experience with SharePoint site design or customization, we recommend working a certified Microsoft 365 partner to help with design and building. Working with a partner can save valuable resources and ensure a site is built correctly and no rework is required.

Designing and building a SharePoint site can take monumental effort from internal teams. Our team of dedicated SharePoint consultants can work with your team to design and build a SharePoint site that meets the exact needs of your organization. Schedule a call with our team to get your questions answered and begin exploring SharePoint site design.