Add an audio version to a Google Sites site

Google Sites appeals for one simple reason: you assemble a page by dragging blocks, with no hosting account, no theme to configure, often inside the intranet of a school, a nonprofit or a small local authority. That comfort has a limit you hit the moment you want to add a feature from elsewhere. Unlike a WordPress site, where you freely install an extension that acts on the server, Google Sites does not let you drop a line of script into your page. Turning your pages into audio looks impossible as a result. It isn't, but you have to go through the only door the editor leaves open, and know what it costs.

The only door: the "Embed" block

Google Sites offers an "Embed" block (Insert, then Embed), with two options: paste a URL, or paste a little code. Either way, what you add shows up inside an isolated frame, an iframe, loaded separately from the rest of the page. That is how the audio player gets in.

The code is a single line:

``
<iframe src="https://wedispatch.fr/embed/IDENTIFIER"
style="width:100%;border:0;height:140px" title="Listen to the article"></iframe>
``

Replace IDENTIFIER with the identifier of your voiced content, adjust the height, and the player appears at the top of the page. You repeat the step on every page where you want listening. It is manual, because Google Sites has no repeating post template the way a blog does: each page is built by hand, and the embed block drops in like any other.

What this route quietly decides

Going through an iframe is quick, and it is the only route here, but you should choose it knowingly. An isolated frame is a page within the page: its content belongs to the document loaded from our domain, not yours. For an audio player, that means the transcript, the chapters, the synced text live inside the frame, and so outside your page in a search engine's eyes. On a real blog, a player rendered directly in the page does the opposite and feeds your ranking; on Google Sites that option does not exist. We laid out what rides on this choice in the piece on the in-page player versus an iframe: on Google Sites, you inherit the iframe's constraints with no way around them. For an internal page or a document nobody searches for on Google, that is of no consequence. For a page you want to rank, it is a serious reason to prefer a proper blogging tool.

Making the audio when there is no feed

Showing the player isn't enough: the file has to exist. And here Google Sites shows its second limit. A blog exposes an RSS feed that announces each new post, which lets articles be spotted and the audio produced on its own. Google Sites isn't a blog: it does not expose that feed per page. The feed-based automation, which works on most platforms, therefore does not apply here.

Two honest routes remain. The first: you send us the published page's address, its text is extracted, the audio is made and tied to the identifier you carry in the iframe. The second, if you want to trigger generation yourself or choose the voice, goes through the API, which an external automation calls when you publish. Either way the match holds on a stable identifier, one that survives a title or address change.

Accessibility: where Google Sites makes sense

Many Google Sites pages are school, association or public-service sites, exactly the settings where an audio version serves accessibility first. Read-along, the text that highlights word by word in step with the voice, helps dyslexic and low-vision readers, and puts the page on a path of real accessibility. These settings are made from your dashboard, outside the Google editor: the isolated frame shows the result, you steer it elsewhere.

Where to start, and when to switch tools

For a Google Sites site, the shortest route is the "Embed" block with the player iframe, the audio built from each page's address. Budget a few minutes per page, no line of code to write in the strict sense. It is the same logic as on other closed builders, laid out for Wix, but Google Sites goes further in its lockdown: no repeating template, no feed. If your need is a page or two to make accessible, it is perfect. If you publish regularly and want your audio content to work for your ranking, the time has come to look at a proper blogging tool: you will gain the in-page player, the automatic feed, and listening measurement under your own roof. The simplest thing is to hear the result on one of your pages before deciding how far to go.

Read next

• An English quote in the middle of a French article: what the voice does with it
• Connect your RSS feed: audio follows what you publish, without voicing the whole archive
• A custom voice for your site: what it costs, and when it is worth it