Creating a SharePoint site takes about two minutes once you’re signed into Microsoft 365. You’ll choose between two site types, pick a template, name your site, and start customizing. Here’s everything you need to set up a functional SharePoint site and organize it for your team or audience.
What You Need Before You Start
SharePoint Online is included with several Microsoft 365 plans, including SharePoint Plan 1, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, and enterprise-level subscriptions. If your organization uses Microsoft 365 for email or Office apps, you likely already have access. You don’t need to install anything since SharePoint runs entirely in your web browser.
Your ability to create new sites depends on your organization’s admin settings. Some companies restrict site creation to IT administrators, while others let any licensed user spin up new sites freely. If you don’t see the option to create a site when you follow the steps below, your admin has likely turned off self-service site creation, and you’ll need to request one through your IT team.
Team Site or Communication Site
SharePoint offers two site types, and choosing the right one matters because it shapes the layout, features, and permissions you start with.
A team site is built for collaboration. It connects to a Microsoft 365 group, which means your team automatically gets a shared Outlook inbox, calendar, Planner board, and OneNote notebook alongside the SharePoint site. Everyone in the group can edit content by default. Use a team site when a department, project group, or committee needs a shared workspace to store files and work together.
A communication site is built for broadcasting information to a wider audience. It has a polished, news-oriented layout and doesn’t create a Microsoft 365 group. Most visitors will read content rather than edit it. Use a communication site for company announcements, an internal landing page, an event portal, or any scenario where a smaller group publishes content for a larger audience to consume.
Step-by-Step: Creating Your Site
The process is nearly identical for both site types. Here’s how to do it:
- Sign in to Microsoft 365 at office.com or microsoft365.com with your work or school account.
- Open SharePoint. Click the app launcher icon (the grid of dots in the top left corner) and select the SharePoint tile. If you don’t see it, click “All” to find it in the full app list.
- Click “+ Create site” at the top of the SharePoint home page. You’ll be asked to choose between a Team site and a Communication site.
- Select a template. SharePoint offers pre-built templates for common use cases like project management, department hubs, or event pages. Each template comes with a suggested page layout and sample content you can replace with your own.
- Name your site. Enter a site name and description. The name becomes part of your site’s URL, so keep it short and clear. Avoid special characters and unnecessary words.
- Set a language. Choose the default language for your site’s interface. This doesn’t restrict what language you write content in; it only controls menus and system labels.
- Click “Create site.” SharePoint builds your site in seconds and drops you onto the home page, ready to customize.
For team sites, you’ll also be prompted to add members immediately after creation. You can add people by name or email address, or skip this step and add them later.
Setting Up Permissions
SharePoint uses three default permission groups that control what people can do on your site:
- Owners have full control. They can change site settings, manage permissions, delete the site, and edit all content. Keep this group small, typically just the site creator and one or two backup admins.
- Members can view and edit content on the site, including uploading files and editing pages, but they can’t change site settings or manage permissions.
- Visitors have read-only access. They can view pages and download files but can’t add, edit, or delete anything.
To manage who falls into each group, go to your site’s Settings gear icon and select “Site permissions.” From there you can add or remove people, change their permission level, or share the site with specific individuals. On team sites tied to a Microsoft 365 group, group members automatically become site members. On communication sites, you manage access manually.
You can also set permissions at the document library or even individual file level. This is useful when most of your site should be open to everyone but certain folders or documents need restricted access.
Customizing Pages With Web Parts
Once your site exists, you’ll want to build out the home page and add additional pages. SharePoint pages use a drag-and-drop editor where you place “web parts,” which are content blocks that each serve a specific function. Click “Edit” on any page, then click the “+” icon to browse available web parts.
Some of the most useful web parts to know:
- Document library: Displays a file library directly on the page so visitors can view, open, or download files without navigating away.
- Events: Shows upcoming events with dates, locations, and online meeting details.
- People: Displays team member profiles and contact information.
- Planner: Pulls in task boards from Microsoft Planner so your team can see assignments and deadlines right on the SharePoint page.
- File and Media: Embeds a specific file on the page, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, and videos.
- Embed: Displays content from external sites like YouTube videos using a URL or embed code.
- Button and Call to action: Adds clickable buttons that link to other pages, forms, or resources.
- Divider: Inserts a simple line between sections to improve readability.
You can rearrange web parts by dragging them, resize sections to create multi-column layouts, and delete anything you don’t need. Every template comes with web parts already placed, so you can simply swap in your own content rather than building from scratch.
Organizing Multiple Sites With Hubs
If you’re creating more than one SharePoint site, hub sites help you tie related sites together. A hub site acts as a central connector: when you associate individual team or communication sites with a hub, those sites inherit the hub’s navigation bar and visual theme, and content from all associated sites appears in hub-level search results.
For example, a “Marketing” hub site could connect separate sites for brand guidelines, campaign planning, and event coordination. Anyone visiting the hub sees shared navigation across all three sites and can search across all of them at once. News published on any associated site can roll up to the hub’s home page, giving leadership a single place to see activity across the department.
Hub sites replace the older “subsite” model that SharePoint used in previous versions. Microsoft now recommends creating flat, independent sites and linking them through hubs rather than nesting subsites inside a parent site. Hubs are more flexible because you can associate or disassociate a site from a hub at any time without moving content or breaking links. Only a SharePoint admin can designate a site as a hub, but any site owner can associate their site with an existing hub.
Adding Content and Going Live
With your site created and permissions set, the final step is populating it with content. Upload files to document libraries by dragging them from your computer directly into the browser window. Create new pages from the site’s “Pages” library for announcements, guides, or reference material. Each page can be saved as a draft visible only to editors, then published when it’s ready for your audience.
Share your site by sending the URL directly to colleagues or posting it in a Teams channel. For team sites linked to a Microsoft 365 group, members are automatically notified when they’re added. For communication sites, you’ll want to distribute the link through email, Teams, or your company intranet so people know where to find it.
SharePoint pages are mobile-responsive out of the box, so your content will display properly on phones and tablets without any extra configuration. As your site grows, use the site analytics feature under Settings to see how many people are visiting, which pages get the most traffic, and where visitors are coming from.