How to Build an Intranet in SharePoint (Step by Step)

Our leadership team asked for one place where every employee can find company news, key resources, and “who we are” pages. We answered with a SharePoint intranet: a communication site that works as the company’s front door.

Here’s what we’re building: the SPGuides Intranet home page, with top navigation, a news feed, and quick links to the resources people use most.

In this tutorial, we’ll plan a SharePoint intranet, create the site from the Organization home template, publish the first news post, and switch the navigation style.

Then we’ll cover hub sites, a home site, and audience targeting.

What Is a SharePoint Intranet?

A SharePoint intranet is a set of connected sites for your organization. Microsoft describes three building blocks: team sites for collaboration, communication sites for broadcasting news to many readers, and hub sites that connect related sites with shared navigation, branding, and search.

The front door is usually a communication site set as the home site. It searches the whole intranet, publishes official organization news, and powers the SharePoint app in Teams (formerly Viva Connections). If you’re unsure which site type fits each department, see our communication site vs team site comparison.

Before You Start

You need permission to create sites in your tenant. Setting a home site or registering a hub needs a SharePoint administrator. Sketch the main pages first; here’s the plan we used:

Page	Purpose	Owner
Home	Company news, events, quick links	Communications
Who we are	Mission, leadership, values	Leadership office
What’s happening	News and announcements	Communications
Resources	Links to IT support, HR tools, policies	IT and HR

Name an owner for every page before you build; an intranet without owners goes stale fast.

Step 1: Start a New Site From the SharePoint Start Page

1. Open SharePoint and select Build in the app bar on the left.
2. Under Start building, select the Site card (“Create a shared space to collaborate or communicate across your organization”).

Checkpoint: The Select a site template dialog opens with two tabs, Team site and Communication site.

Step 2: Pick the Organization Home Template

An intranet home page is read by many and edited by few, which is exactly what a communication site is for.

1. Select the Communication site tab.
2. Under the Microsoft templates, select Organization home. Others include Department and Human resources.
3. Review the preview and select Use template.

The preview lists the template’s site capabilities and what’s included: 1 home page, 3 additional pages. You can change the template later under Settings. For your own reusable designs, see how to create a custom site template.

Checkpoint: The Set up your site panel opens.

Step 3: Name the Site and Create It

1. Enter Site name: SPGuides Intranet. SharePoint confirms “The site name is available.”
2. Check Site address: /sites/SPGuidesIntranet, then add a short description.
3. Pick a Sensitivity label if your tenant requires one (ours did; we chose Public).
4. Choose the language carefully. The panel warns, “You can’t change this later.”
5. Select Create site.

Checkpoint: You see “Applying template…” and then “Your site is ready!” It took about 50 seconds for us. Select Go to site.

The template filled the home page with a hero, a world clock, an events section, and news, plus the Who we are and What’s happening pages. Our SharePoint Hero web part tutorial shows how to swap the sample tiles.

Test the Intranet With a Real News Post

Sample content won’t convince anyone, so our test was a real news post.

1. In the News web part, select + Add > News post.
2. Pick a template (such as Topic overview or Monthly news update) or Create blank.
3. Title it Welcome to the new SPGuides Intranet, write the post, and publish it.

Then edit the Frequently used resources section. It ships with IT support, My vacation, My rewards, and Glossary; our guide to the Quick Links web part explains each layout.

Checkpoint: The post appears in the home page News web part with the author’s name.

Step 4: Choose a Navigation Style

1. Select Settings (gear) > Change the look > Navigation.
2. On the Layout tab, keep Show navigation on.
3. Choose Mega menu (the template’s default) or Cascading, then select Save.

Mega menu suits intranets with many links per section. To add the links themselves, follow our steps for a dropdown navigation in SharePoint.

Make It Production-Ready

We didn’t change these in the test site, so this list follows Microsoft’s documentation:

• Hub sites: a SharePoint admin registers the hub, and department sites associate with it to share navigation, theme, and search. A site joins one hub, and association doesn’t change its permissions. Compare options in hub site vs subsite.
• Home site: set the finished site as the home site in the SharePoint admin center. Microsoft recommends swapping it with your root site first.
• Audience targeting: in Edit navigation, turn on Enable site navigation audience targeting; each link can target up to 10 Microsoft 365 or security groups.
• Permissions: give everyone read access and keep editing to page owners. Use our steps to check site permissions in SharePoint.
• Branding: apply one organization theme from the brand center to every intranet site.

Troubleshooting

• A Sensitivity box you didn’t expect: some tenants require a label on new sites. Ours did, so we picked Public.
• Wrong language: the site language can’t change later, so delete and recreate the site while it’s still empty.
• Sample news still showing: the template’s placeholders stay until you publish real posts, so post one before you share the site.

Where to Take It Next

Create department sites for HR and IT from the matching templates, then connect them through a hub. Turn on page approval so news gets reviewed before it goes live. Browse our SharePoint tutorials for page and web part guides.

A few more guides help when you shape the intranet:

• SharePoint Customization Examples: How to Customize a SharePoint Online Site (Step-by-Step)
• SharePoint Site Left Navigation or Quick Launch
• SharePoint Site Owner [Complete Tutorial]
• How to Create a SharePoint Site?

Frequently Asked Questions