Don't leave your Google search page plain, add a favorite picture or virtual scene creation for a custom look to enjoy every time you search!
Creating a custom search page is quick and easy to do! You can easily change the plain white background of the Google search page to an image of your choice. Landscape pictures are oriented correctly for this purpose and will require minimal cropping. Nature scenes, vacation pictures, or city scapes work well and can easily be swapped out. Images with people are more difficult to work with, as faces tend to be behind the search bar or icons, so I tend to avoid using those.
This image was a virtual room that I created for home use. For classroom use, I plan to customize my school search page to coordinate with my lesson plans and virtual classroom theme. Using a custom search page background is a fun way to carry the theme between interactive virtual classrooms and online searches.
To customize your background, click on the pencil in the bottom right corner of the the Google search page. Click on Background and Upload a picture from your device.
Choose a picture, then click Done. It is so simple to do, you can quickly and easily change out for the seasons or special events!
Don't have a picture to use but still want to cusomize your look? No problem. There are folders with dozens of preselected images to choose from!
Do you have virtual clasrooms that you have created to use and want a similar image on your search page? Create a copy of that slide and save as a PNG file under the File>Download options in Google Slides. It may be necessary to adjust some of the items on your slide in order for it to look right as a search page background, so it may take a little trial and error. Remember if using a virtual room with hyperlinked items as your background, those links will not work here and are not intended to, just another option for a coordinated look.
Did you like this Tech Tip? Watch for upcoming posts to learn how to create your own virtual Bitmoji classroom for your students. Want to get more engaging ideas to make tech fun? Subscribe to my page, follow my social media, and leave me a like or a comment below. I would love to hear reactions from your students!
