Tag: Website

  • Website Design for Academics and Research Labs with Brittany Trinh

    Website Design for Academics and Research Labs with Brittany Trinh

    Brittany Trinh returns to The Social Academic featured interview series. We talk about how her thinking on websites for professors, scientists, and researchers has changed. We also talk about how her life has changed now that she’s back in grad school (and what that means for her online presence). Plus, hear about our Team VIP Day service for research lab websites. Read Brittany’s bio.

    In this interview

    Meet Brittany

    Jennifer: Hi everyone. It is Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to The Social Academic. I’m here today with my friend and one of my business partners, Brittany Trinh. We’re talking about personal academic websites, research lab websites, websites for academics. Brittany, would you say hi and introduce yourself? Or, reintroduce yourself since you’ve already been a guest on our show?

    Brittany: Hi everyone. My name is Brittany Trinh. Yeah, I feel like the last time I was on your show was maybe in like 2020 or something like that. It was a while ago.

    Jennifer: Oh my goodness. It’s been that long and we’ve been friends ever since. I mean, Brittany, you were at my wedding this summer. I can’t believe how time has flown by and your life has changed. You’re back in grad school. Tell me about that.

    Brittany: Yeah, so I was working and running my side business as a website designer at the time when we’ve met. Since then, I had started grad school in 2021. I am now a PhD candidate in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

    Jennifer: Amazing. I really like how you reached out and introduced yourself to me in the very beginning. I felt like there wasn’t a need to be in competition with each other. It was so nice to be able to have someone to talk with about something that we both care about, which is having an online presence when you’re a scientist or someone who’s in academia. And also, we’ve been able to work together and partner together on some fun projects.

    Brittany: When I first started getting in the online space and I heard about you. When I saw you at first, I was kind of thinking like, “Oh, we are kind of competitors in a sense that we have similar services” and things like that. But after I thought about it and kind of learned more about the space, I figured at that time we had slightly different audiences. You were still more targeting professors and people who were further along, whereas I was trying to target with graduate students and earlier career. But obviously since starting grad school, a lot of my side business web design stuff has kind of been put on the back burner. I’m still kind of working on it here and there, and I love collaborating with you as of late. So that has been a really good kind of easing back into the web design business.

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    Online presence as a graduate student

    Jennifer: That’s really fun. And I love hearing about your grad school experiences on social media. What was it like to start sharing that part of your new lifestyle in your online space that was kind of different from how you were showing up before?

    Brittany: When I was showing up before, I was mostly just sharing a lot of tips and information on Twitter at the time. That worked for some time. But once I got to grad school, I thought, first of all, I don’t want to just be known for websites anymore. But I also had to take a break because I wasn’t really sure about my scientific identity yet because I just started grad school, and even though I had worked in industry for some time, starting grad school made me feel like a beginner again. And actually it took me probably the last three-ish years or so to finally feel a little bit more confident about posting things on social media regarding grad school.

    Because for me personally, I just didn’t really want to be just a PhD influencer. There’s a lot of PhD influencers. I follow them too because I like their contents motivating and things like that, of course. But there’s just certain aspects of it that I didn’t really align with. And, I didn’t want to create that type of content. It took me a really long time up until maybe last year to finally figure out, “Oh, actually I still do want to talk about some things about grad school and about being a scientist, being in STEM and all that. But it just looks a little bit different than how a lot of people are currently doing it.” That’s because a lot of people are also science communicators, so they’re communicating their research, which is great. But for me personally, that wasn’t exactly something that I wanted to do.

    Jennifer: Oh, that’s so interesting because the way that I see websites is part of science communication. At least for scientists, it’s a way to communicate who they are and what they’re doing. And that’s something you’re so great at. It’s totally okay that it’s not an interest of yours when it comes to the other areas of your life. That’s so interesting to me. I’m curious if you’re open to it, would you share with me what aspect of influencer life maybe didn’t appeal to you? Because there may be people who are listening to this who are considering the same thing and hearing your thoughts might be really helpful for them.

    Brittany: Yeah, I guess for me, a lot of it was just hearing the over romanticizing the lifestyle was one thing that I wasn’t really a fan of, especially without context. I love the aesthetic. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with study aesthetic and everything. So, I get it. It’s very appealing to see that type of content. But I think that when you create that type of content and you share that without sharing the context in which a PhD program happens. I guess what goes on in a PhD program, it can be a bit deceiving to say the least, or just a little bit. I don’t know what the right word is, but I just didn’t feel like that’s something I wanted to do. I think that it’s a good thing that they’re inspiring younger people or anybody who wants to pursue a PhD. I think that’s good to be a source of inspiration. But I think that for me, I didn’t want it to just be an aesthetic look like a lifestyle.

    Jennifer: Yeah, I absolutely understand that. And what’s interesting to me is that if I came across your channel and didn’t know that you didn’t want to be an influencer, I would think that you’re quite realist in what you share about your PhD life. And, you even have a podcast about what it’s like to be in grad school. I think that there’s a difference between influencer in terms of the intention of creating partnerships and brand deals and maybe even gaining a certain type of following for being an influencer in that space. And then also just having influence over a space because you are more open about sharing your story. And I think that your openness is really refreshing because you do share maybe some of the negative experiences too, some of the struggles and some of the highlights. It feels very real every time I check out your social media stories. Yeah, I don’t know. That’s so refreshing for me. What was that like for you to decide to actually start posting about these things?

    Brittany: That was kind of hard, actually. For the first two years, I think the way I described it to people was that I felt like I was kind of ‘in a shell.’ I was very withdrawn because a lot of my PhD struggles took up a lot of my mental capacity. I just really didn’t have the desire at all to show up and to be seen, and honestly, to be that vulnerable to so many people online and to show them I’m struggling. Because a lot of people, again, like I mentioned, were set up the aesthetic. Everyone looks like, “Oh, they’re having such a good time in their PhD, they’re accomplishing so much. Why don’t I feel that way? Why am I not doing X, Y, Z?”

    What I realized recently was that I guess I could go through those times, but I didn’t have to share it in real time. I can still share it now, which is what I’m learning to do right now, which is part of this project I’m working on for my podcast. I’m trying to write a series or make it episode, whatever series of episodes of all the different struggles I’ve kind of gone through. And sharing my thought process through that and what I did, what I wish I did differently, so that hopefully people who listen to the podcast or future people who encounter the podcast can learn from it. And can see, I wouldn’t say the bad side of things, but just these are things that people don’t want to openly talk about. And I think that it does take time to get over it so that you have fully processed it in a way that you can talk about it in a more meaningful way than just, I guess venting about it. Because I never really want to come off that way, even though in real life in the moment, I’m just like, “Oh my God, this was so stressful. Why are things like this?”

    But when I talk to other people, younger students and things like that, I have to actively reframe it in my mind. How do I make this useful or helpful to them? Or what can I take away from it? How can I improve through this experience? Which has been happening a lot recently.

    Jennifer: You’ve been doing more mentoring yourself, haven’t you?

    Brittany: Yeah, a lot of mentoring in terms of in the lab. I’ve had four undergrads so far, and I have two right now. And then I also do some mentoring for first year students. So when they come in, they have a lot of questions about how do I join a group? How do I talk to a professor? Which group should I join and what are things I should look out for and stuff like that. Whenever I give advice, I always preface it with, this was my experience, because I never want to come off as I know everything. I’m just being like, I’m just sharing my experience, and you can take away what you want to take away from it. Honestly, I feel like that’s the same approach I have for my podcast as well.

    Beyond Your Science, a podcast for grad students and early career scientists

    Beyond Your Science Podcast cover with Brittany Trinh

    Jennifer: So who should subscribe to your podcast? What’s it called, and where can people find it?

    Brittany: My podcast is called Beyond Your Science. It’s available on Apple Podcast and Spotify. It’s really for any graduate student or early career scientist who wants to explore the intersection between science, creativity, and entrepreneurship. And so those are some of the core pillars I talk about on my podcast. Grad school is just a part of it for now just because I’m in it, but that’s not giving advice on how to get into grad school or anything. One thing I really would love to focus on more in the future is kind of small businesses in STEM, just because I think that’s a really niche area that we don’t really hear a lot about when we’re in grad school. In grad school, we hear about becoming a professor or going to industry, and we also actually hear a lot about people going into startups and entrepreneurship and stuff.

    But at least on the grad school level, I haven’t really heard a lot about people choosing a small business route after grad school. But because of getting to know so many academics on online over the years and seeing where they’ve gone, a lot of them have started their own businesses and things like that because of the flexibility, the freedom to do what they would like to pursue their own ideas. I think those are all things that we as graduate students, we really value. And so I kind of want to show more people that this is a possibility for you if you could consider it. Yeah.

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    How Brittany’s thinking about academic websites has changed

    Jennifer: Oh, that’s so cool. That’s really exciting for me to hear. And that’s kind of the first time I’m hearing about this too. So I love that you shared that. Now, I’m curious, how has your thinking about websites changed since our last interview? It’s been a while. I know we’ve worked on websites together. Overall, how has maybe your thinking changed over time?

    Brittany: Oh my God, that’s such a good question because let me tell you, when I first started, I had just gotten out of undergrad and I was starting my job. I was trying to convince grad students to create websites for their work. And at the time when I started four years ago before coming to grad school, I was just really baffled. I was like, why don’t you want to create websites for your work? Why aren’t you proud of your work? Because you’re doing cool stuff and you’re super qualified. But no amount of me encouraging them could really get them to change anything. So I would just be like, “Oh, well, whenever you’re ready, this information is here for you.” But now that I became a grad student, I understand why.

    Jennifer: Oh, wait, wait. Tell me a couple of reasons why. Because there’s definitely grad students listening to this that are like, ‘I think that might be me.’

    Brittany: Yeah. Okay. Because I have my website and my website has all my website design stuff, my podcast stuff. But for the longest time, I didn’t really want to talk about my research at all. I didn’t want to share it with people.

    Jennifer: What’s your research on?

    Brittany: My research is focused on polymer chemistry specifically. Right now, I’m learning or developing a method to make more make up this polymerization more environmentally friendly. Before that, I was learning about how polymers can be made stronger and tougher for high impact materials, aerospace equipment, military equipment, things like that. So I’m just really interested in polymers and how their mechanical properties are useful. But now, right now I’m mostly focusing on how to synthesize polymers in a more eco-friendly way.

    Jennifer:
    I love that! And I love the environment, so that’s my favorite. What about that felt like you wanted to hold it back or hold that part of yourself back from sharing on your website, and have you shared it?

    Brittany: I think it was because I just didn’t really have the tangible result to show: because I didn’t have a paper. I still don’t have a paper. I’m a fourth year student PhD candidate. I have no papers. It just reminded me of that Pride and Prejudice quote, “I’m 27 years old and I have no prospects.”

    Jennifer: I love it. We’re both readers. We both love classical music. Brittany and I are good friends, and there’s so many reasons why.

    Brittany: But seriously, that’s the reason why I feel so, I don’t want to say ashamed, but just a little bit hesitant to be like, ‘This is my research.” I haven’t published anywhere. I maybe presented at a conference, but that work is unpublished and I don’t know if that will be published anytime soon. All those reasons combined. Plus, just the way that just by the nature of the PhD experience. I just naturally feel more inadequate than before. Imposter syndrome, right? All those reasons combined makes me not want to own up to it. I guess at least professionally, it’s easy for me to just say, “I’m a Graduate Research Assistant, because that’s what I am on paper. But to be like, “I’m a scientist.” I don’t really know about that.

    Jennifer: It feels like a stretch, even though that’s not true. You’re mentoring future scientists already [laughing].

    Brittany: I’m doing science, more science than a normal person does. Even if I don’t feel that that way, I am already doing it. That’s kind of what I had to tell myself. Yeah.

    Jennifer: So did you put it on your website?

    Brittany: I finally did put it on my website.

    Jennifer: Oh my goodness.

    Brittany: Yeah, because I was like, oh, my bio has nothing about chemistry. So it’s just in my bio, it’s like a little blurb. It says, Brittany is a PhD candidate in chemistry. Her research focuses on synthesizing high impact polymers in a more eco-friendly way and leveraging their tough mechanical properties into industrial applications.

    It was really hard to condense what I do into a couple of words that are easy to understand. On one hand, it felt like I was oversimplifying, but on the other hand, I was like, I’m not going to go into the details. If someone was really interested, they could ask. But that was also really hard because I was like, it makes it sound like what I do sounds really, I don’t know, noble and great? But I don’t feel that way on the day to day. You know what I mean? At least I assume a lot of graduate students probably feel some type of way about their research.

    Jennifer: Oh my goodness. Professors feel that kind of way about their research. Let me tell you, that feeling of being unsure about how you’re talking about your research and the things you care about most? That doesn’t go away when you become a mid-career researcher or a senior researcher, and you might even struggle to talk about it the way that you feel when you’re retired. So I think that it’s something many people struggle with it. And I love that you shared what you wrote with us because it sounded great.

    Brittany: Yeah. I used your tips from a previous podcast interview, I think with Dr. Echo Rivera.

    Jennifer: Ooh. For anyone who is listening, we do talk about how to write an amazing conference speaker bio. That’s great for academics writing any kind of bio. So I hope you’ll check that out.

    Updating her personal website

    Brittany Trinh's personal academic website homepage on a laptop screen. It says 'Integrate your creativity and expertise to make an impact beyond your science."

    Jennifer: Now, your online presence has changed as your new life experiences and goals have popped up. One of the things that you did was redoing your website, and you just talked about adding in that bio. What prompted you to want to redo your website? I know as a website designer myself, that’s a project I’ve been putting off for so long. I need to do it. So what prompted you to do it?

    Brittany: Yeah. For the longest time, I had started with all my services about website design or workshops about website design. And then as I was realizing I don’t really have the capacity to do this anymore, I started making those pages hidden. I didn’t want to highlight that anymore. And then just throughout grad school, I realized I don’t really know if I want to just leave it open for website design right now. So I kind of want to just make it very clear that I’m trying to build my personal brand instead. That my personal brand still includes website design tips, but that I’m not actively soliciting new clients.

    And I think that has really helped because now on my website, it’s just me featuring my podcast, which is my main mode of sharing and building my personal brand through the podcast and also LinkedIn newsletter. Then also kind of just repackaging some of the things I already had, some of the resources I had so that it’s still useful to people, but it’s more organized. I finally did that a couple months ago. And I also did a podcast episode where I talked about the process of me deciding to do that. But again, it was also something that I had put off for the longest time too. Because school, life, all the other things that come first.

    Jennifer: Exactly. Sometimes we have to prioritize all the other things, and it’s okay to put off the thing with your online presence as long as you need to. I love that Brittany made that list because what she was ready, she knew what she wanted to do.

    Check out my guide to how to update your personal academic website.

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    Best Personal Academic Websites Contest returns in 2025

    Jennifer: Now we have done, since we last did our interview, two annual Best Personal Academic Website Contests. It was so fun to be able to share some amazing websites from grad students, postdocs, early career researchers, people who were in research labs. Oh my goodness. There were just so many people who were curious to submit to this contest. Would you be open to doing another one with me next year? What do you think?

    Brittany: Yeah, I love doing it. I love seeing how people show their research, show themselves through their websites. It’s very interesting to see how people interpret also website tips and then implement it on their website too. And I think also because we do it with Owlstown. Owlstown is [a website builder] made for academics. I think it’s really fun to see how people still are able to customize it to their own needs.

    Jennifer: Brittany and I are both designers, and so we’re thinking about every little detail, but for so many people, all you need is a website. And it is totally amazing that Dr. Ian Li has created Owlstown, a free academic website builder that you can easily make your website in. What is it? Like 15 minutes? I mean, it’s really fast. We did it on that call.

    Brittany: Yeah, it’s very fill in the blank type of [website design]. That’s what I told this to the grad students in my department too. I was like, if you guys need a website, just use this. It’s so fast and easy. You don’t need to think about the design.

    Jennifer: Even if you do eventually want that fully designed website in the future, if you know it’s not on your list this year or next, I mean make an Owlstown website, it will create a stronger online presence for you like today.

    Brittany: Yeah. And I also met Ian, around the same time I met you or reached out to him around the same time. I also had to test it out for myself before I recommended it to people. When I tested it out, it was in its early stages, and even in its early stages, I was like, wow, this is really good. And then over time, he started developing more features and things and I was like, sold. This is so good now.

    Jennifer: Right? I love how responsive he is. If you have a question about it or a suggestion, some kind of feature that you want to see, if he thinks it’ll help people, he’ll try and make that feature happen. It’s so cool.

    Learn how to set up your personal academic website with Jennifer van Alstyne, Brittany Trinh, and Ian Li (replay of our live event).

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    Research Lab and Research Group Websites

    Jennifer: Now, research lab and group websites, that is something we’ve been teaming up on for VIP days where professors get a done-for-you website in one day. I mean, seriously, we gather the materials in advance. We have a Planning Meeting. We talk about things like website aesthetics and colors and stuff and what you want. But then Brittany and I, and my husband, Matthew, we team up, we create the website for you in just one day. Oh my goodness. Brittany teaming up with you on this has been amazing. It’s been so transformative. I’m honestly shocked by how much we’ve been able to get done in one day.

    Brittany: Yeah, me too. I think it’s really nice to work in a team like this because before I had just been working on my own. I think the workflow of gathering all the content beforehand helps so much. Because then you know what needs to go on the page, and it just makes everything go by so much faster.

    Jennifer: Exactly. Now we can totally work together. If you’re looking for that bigger done-for-you research lab website [Strategic Website Design service]. Brittany, and I may still be able to help with that, but Team Website VIP days is what I recommend for most research labs, especially if this is going to be your first website. It’s not like a redesign. So we only have a couple days left in 2024, but please reach out about the new year. We would love to work with you and help your research lab or group. Brittany, what should people know about their research lab website or group website? Do they need one? Who should consider this kind of service?

    Brittany: If you are a professor who’s actively recruiting students, you definitely need a website. I remember even when I was looking for groups and such, or even students now when they’re coming in and they’re looking at professors, they check the website. They go and see when was it last updated? Are students graduating? Is your group still active? Because the student is trying to prepare as much as they can to know about the professor so that when they meet the professor, they can talk about the research or ask about active projects and how they can get involved. Or, talk about what skills they bring to the table and things like that. But it’s going to be kind of hard for them to do that if there’s no website. Or, if you just have a very broad research statement on your faculty page or something.

    The other thing is that students may be interested in the general area of research, but they may not know exactly what the research work entails. Maybe some people will be like, “Oh, just read the papers.” But in all honesty, a lot of students when they’re coming in, they’re very overwhelmed with enrolling in classes, teaching classes, looking for a group, acclimating to their new city. Trying to also parse out which papers are relevant to current projects at the moment is also very difficult. I really advocate for professors to have this on their website: a very clear or recently updated Projects page with publications that are most relevant or recent so that the student can easily pick out. “Okay, let me read the update on this and see where, what they’re doing right now, where could I fit in,” and things like that. So definitely professors of any age that wants to get students interested in their work. And, especially younger professors. I think now a lot of younger professors are, they’re trying to build a personal brand and everything in addition to the research.

    Jennifer: This is a great use of startup funds. You can pay with your university monies. So please don’t hesitate to reach out if you are interested in having a VIP Day website for your research group or lab.

    Jennifer: Brittany has been so much fun to have you back on The Social Academic podcast. Is there anything you’d like to chat about or add before we wrap up?

    Brittany: No, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed working on the VIP days with you because it lets me still be a part of the helping academics with their websites, but kind of more on the back end of things. That just helps me as a graduate student right now because I’m just not able to do the front facing stuff at the moment.

    Jennifer: Yeah, we’re perfect partners on this. And Dr. Makella Coudray, whose research lab website we did recently. We just had a workshop with her research group and she said that she now feels like her online presence is a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s a 10, and her website is a huge part of that. It makes her feel really good about her research and it makes her lab really excited to help share it. So I’m just so proud of the work that we’ve been able to do together so far, and excited for all the work to come.

    Brittany: Yeah, me too.

    Jennifer: Brittany, thank you so much for coming on today’s show.

    Brittany: Thanks for having me, Jennifer.

    Check out this throwback to our interview together back in 2020.

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    Bio for Brittany Trinh

    Brittany Trinh on The Social Academic podcast to talk about Website Design for Academics and Research Labs

    Brittany Trinh is a Vietnamese-American website designer and chemist. She helps enterprising scientists, science communicators, and academic entrepreneurs create a website that integrates your creativity and expertise. Brittany knows when your website reflects the awesome things you do within and beyond STEM, it helps you forge your own path.

    She hosts the Beyond Your Science Podcast, where she talks about integrating science, entrepreneurship, and creativity within and beyond STEM, from her own experiences and interviews with other scientists and small-business owners. Listen to the Beyond Your Science Podcast.

    Brittany is a PhD candidate in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on synthesizing high-impact polymers in a more eco-friendly way and leveraging their tough mechanical properties into industrial applications. She received her BS in Chemistry with a minor in Psychology from the University of Houston. Follow her research on Google Scholar.

    When she’s not in the lab, she’s probably playing piano or violin, watching slice-of-life anime, or cooking some kind of noodle.

    Back to the chapters list.

    Read testimonials about working together on your academic website project.

    Graduate Students Interviews Resources for Grad Students Share Your Research The Social Academic Women in Academia

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  • Set Up Your Personal Academic Website with Jennifer van Alstyne, Brittany Trinh, and Ian Li

    Set Up Your Personal Academic Website with Jennifer van Alstyne, Brittany Trinh, and Ian Li

    Jennifer van Alstyne, Brittany Trinh, and Dr. Ian Li talk about the best personal academic website hosts. You’ll get a demo of Owlstown. Watch our fireside chat about personal academic websites where we answer your questions.

    Thinking about a personal academic website? Whether you want a do-it-yourself website or you’re thinking about hiring help, we hope the replay of our live event helps you. Have a photo of you, your bio, and your social media links? You have everything you need to set up a simple website with Owlstown, a free website builder for academics. Once you make your website, enter it in our Best Personal Academic Websites Contest to win one of multiple awards.

    This event was recorded live on August 1, 2023 as part of The Best Personal Academic Websites Contest to help you set up your website.

    Jennifer: Hi everyone! My name is Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to Setting Up Your Personal Academic Website. My name is Jennifer. I’m talking today with my friends Brittany Trinh who makes websites for scientists, and Dr. Ian Li from Owlstown, which is an academic website 

    builder for you all to check out. We’re going to have a demo of that today. We’re also going to talk about the most frequently asked questions when it comes to having your own personal website. Just to get us started, my name is Jennifer van Alstyne. I own The Academic Designer LLC where since 2018 I’ve been helping professors have a strong online presence so they can talk about their research and teaching. To really feel comfortable when they show up online. I help people with social media, bio writing, and websites. And I really love my work. But there’s so many people out there who want to D.I.Y. to do-it-yourself for your website. I was excited to put this event together with Brittany and Ian as part of our annual Best Personal Academic Websites Contest. Brittany, would you introduce yourself?

    Brittany: Hi, everyone! My name is Brittany Trinh. I am a website strategist and designer for early career researchers. I’m also a third year PhD student in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I’ve been doing this since 2019, and I just really love helping the grad students and early career scientists, even like anybody at any stage, create their website. I think it’s really important for your personal development and your career development. As well, it’s a great place to show off your skills a little bit more about yourself. I also have a podcast called Beyond Your Science, so you can check that out. I’m really excited to chat with you all today.

    Jennifer: Ian, please introduce yourself and let us know all about Owlstown too.

    Ian: Sure thanks Jennifer hi I’m Ian and I’m the creator of Owlstown. I finished my PhD a long time ago, about 10 years ago now. I remember being in grad school and working on my website. I thought it was a good way to share my work with others. I thought that I could help others make their websites so they can share their work easily. About five years ago, I started working on Owlstown as a hobby. And also a way for it to help other people build their website. Owlstown’s mission has been to make it super easy to make an academic website. I will demo that later and also I’m looking forward to answering questions that people might have about how to share their research online and what things to share about the academic work. Thank you.

    Why should academics have a website?

    Jennifer: Thank you. You know the biggest question that comes up from academics kind of whatever stage they are in their career is: Is a website right for me? Should I have a website? Why should I have one? Let me know what do you guys think? Why should academics have a website?

    Ian: I can answer that first. One reason is we’re in 2023 and people are gonna look for your name on search engines. You want something that you control that will show up on those search engines. If they search for your name, you want it to be a website that you have control over what content shows up. A website is a great way to share what you want to share, like your papers, your posters, an introduction about yourself, and a lot more content about your research.

    Jennifer: Brittany what about you? Why should early early career researchers, why should people have a website?

    Brittany: I think that early career researchers should have a website because, like Ian said, people will search for you on search engines and things like that. Having a LinkedIn is good. And your CV has a lot of things that you do. But it’s not everything that you do. And there’s a lot more sides to you that you can’t necessarily fit in your LinkedIn or CV because it may not be as relevant or something. But your website is a way to kind of show off that creativity. And it’s also possibly a way to maybe venture into an entrepreneurial side hustle or things like that if that’s something you’re interested in which is like what I did for myself prior to going to grad school and a little bit even right now too. I think that having the website opens you up to like so many more possibilities and opportunities for people to connect with you, with your work, and then maybe learn about services or things like that if that’s something you choose to offer. I think it’s just mostly a space that you can create and make your own and do whatever you want with it. And also right now we’re really in the content creator era I guess. Making a personal brand and just like becoming known for something is also important. Showing people not just what you do, but what you really value, what you’re passionate about. That is something that you can also showcase on your personal website.

    Jennifer: I love that. You know I think one thing that you both talked about is having control. Having control over what people find about you when they search online. But also, having control that they’re finding the things that you value and care about, not the things that you know are standard in a CV or that you’re going to find necessarily on your faculty profile. I really feel like having your own space like a personal website having your own space that’s outside of your University, outside of your affiliation, makes such a lasting difference. I even have retired academics reach out to me because now that their faculty profile is just gone completely, they need somewhere to still share  the hard work that they’ve done and the ways that they’re helping people. So it’s not like it’s ever too early or too late to create a website for your research, your teaching, the service that you do, and the things you care about. There are so many reasons to have a website, so many different ones that have surprised me whether it’s wanting to share your book, share your research, and connect better with your students. I mean there’s just so many options. I have a poll for you all, for everyone who’s in the audience.

    I want to know how long have you wanted a website? Answer this poll. Let me know how long have you wanted a personal academic website. Is it something that’s been on your to-do list for a while? Or, is it something that’s new? Maybe some of you are like, “I don’t know if a website is right for me, that’s why I’m here.” That’s okay too.

    All right, let’s see. For some of you, this has been on your to-do list for a long time. You’ve been wanting a personal academic website, and my guess is there’s something that’s been holding you back from making it. Feel free to let me know in the chat. If you’ve recently been inspired to want a website, I’m so glad you’re here. I mean this is the perfect event because we’re gonna help you make sure that you approach this project with a strategy, a plan in mind and think about your long-term goal. I’m excited. A few of you already have a personal website. Let me know how long you’ve had your website for in the chat.

    Will my university be angry if I make my own website?

    Jennifer: Okay, now one thing I wanted to ask you both before we move on. It’s a fear or anxiety that I’ve heard multiple times from a few people: Will my University get angry at me? Will they get mad if I make my own website? Do they not want me to do this? I have an answer based on my interactions with University Administration and with people who run social media and marketing for universities. But I want to hear from you both. In your experience, have you ever seen anyone get mad at someone for having a personal website?

    Brittany: In my personal experience I don’t know about university, but I do know from working in Industry. This wasn’t directly related to my website, but I wanted to do something more in the online space and I asked for permission, which was not the way to go. I should always ask for forgiveness. But I would also say that I don’t know if the university would care. They just seem quite large unless you were very prominent or something. Then maybe they would care. But, I think Jennifer you might probably have the most expertise in this area.

    Jennifer: No, that’s fine. I think that’s a perfect example because sometimes if you have an employer or a partnership outside of the University, they do have a strong opinion about it. One of my professor clients, for instance, worked for the military. And the military did not want her specifically to have a website. That’s fine. We found other ways for her to have an online presence. But when it comes to your University, mostly they want their professors to have a stronger online presence because you represent the university and the research that you do is awesome for the University. They want more people to know about it. They want more people to know about the awesome teaching you’re doing and how you’re affecting students. I mean it makes a big difference for them in terms of revenue. I mean I’m not gonna lie, it’s definitely about marketing and money for them, but it’s also about championing the resources that they give you, your lab, your ability to do research on campus, the teaching that you do.

    If they give you innovative classes they get really excited about that. I am not going to lie to you, they are looking at your website because they want to see how it helps them. They’re not going to look at your website to see how it makes them mad. Now, one caveat to that is if you have highly confidential information that you’re not allowed to share. That’s something that you might want to check with your University about. One example of that is from a research lab, they had some specific equipment that their University didn’t want them to list as being in their lab just for security reasons. And so there may be some opportunities where you do want to ask permission. But other than that, I agree with Brittany. Go ahead and make your website. And if someone has a problem you know they’ll let you know and you can decide where to go from there. Ian, do you have anything you’d like to add? 

    Ian: Yeah. From my experience, I had a website in undergrad. And then in grad school, I went to a different school. I also started a website there. I used initially the servers that were provided by the university. And then at some point, I got my own domain name just so that in case I did move, I’d still have control over my own name. I think the university provides the space to share your work so I think they do want you to share your work online. They provide a space to do that. Now, whether it needs to be under the institution’s name or your own domain name, I think that could be up to you. In my case, I was shifting institutions. I wanted to have my own space so I didn’t have to move it. And also, the spaces that I had at my undergrad and my grad school eventually disappeared.  It was good that I had my own domain name to kind of hold all that information.

    How do I choose the best host for my personal website?

    Jennifer: I love that. I feel like space is disappearing is a key reason why some academics reach out to me. I work with academics on really planning strategically their website.

    Many professors are thinking about much more extensive websites than the typical person is looking for. But it’s always about, “what do I do? How do I not make the wrong decision when I’m first getting started?” And that’s why I wanted to talk to you both about personal academic website hosts. Because the first question people have when it comes to making their website is where do I even host my website? Ian, I know you’ve created a wonderful option with Owlstown, but there are a few different options that people can choose from. What are the options, Brittany?

    Brittany: Yeah. For me, the two that I usually like to champion for people who are starting out would be Google Sites, which is free and it’s available in your Google Drive account. You can start making one there. It’s really good because you can still have some customizability. But everything is pretty like drag-and-drop, so if you know how to use PowerPoint or something like it, you’re good to go. You don’t need to worry about coding or anything. And then the other one I like to recommend is just like the free WordPress.com. That’s what I started out with when I was an undergrad because I wanted to blog. I think it’s good for blogging. And it’s a good introduction to what websites can do. But then of course once you kind of want to level-up then there are even more options. But maybe that’s a little bit further down the line. But yeah, those are the two I would recommend. Of course, Owlstown too. But we’ll see that later.

    Jennifer: That’s great! Yes I love Google Sites, especially a beginner option. But I like Owlstown for academics more. Especially if you’re looking for something simple because Owlstown already makes it easy for you to drop things into that are specific for academics. But when it comes to free sites, WordPress.com I totally agree with. That’s my number one pick for academics. It’s what I recommend for all of my clients. Now, some people like using Squarespace. That has great features as well. I don’t typically recommend Wix.com. I know Brittany and I have talked about this before on my podcast, The Social Academic. Wix has issues. Many of my clients come to me with an old Wix website that is just practically impossible for them to update. I don’t recommend it for those reasons. What about you? Anything else that you don’t recommend when it comes to making your own website?

    Brittany: Also in my personal experience, Weebly was not the greatest. It works. And I know a lot of people have made websites on Weebly, but I would say that if you haven’t made one yet, maybe not to try. It’s because with Weebly, there’s a lot of functionality that’s usually extra like you have to pay for it. But from other websites, it’s already included which kind of bothers me on principle. So, I don’t recommend [Weebly] for that reason.

    Jennifer: Great. Ian, do you have any website hosts that you just don’t recommend?

    Ian: I don’t know if I have ones that I don’t recommend. It’ll depend on how much time you have and how much effort you want to put in. I think some people choose to set up their own server and make their own website that way, like I did in undergrad. I guess I didn’t set up my own server, but I made my own website. I had too much time on my hands and in grad school I did set up my own server. Again, I think I maybe had too much time.

    But it just depends on how much time you have and how much effort you want to put into it. I think there’s outside of Squarespace, Weebly, WordPress, some people choose to do like GitHub pages. My own personal website I think is GitHub pages. There’s a lot of free options like that. I think that when you’re thinking about when making the website you want to think about how much time you want to put into it, how much money, on top of what you want to share on your website. What I would recommend is focus on what you want to share rather than focusing on what would be the technology that you would use to make the website. Because learning HTML, JavaScript, and CSS can take up a lot of time. I know it. I do websites all the time so I know how much time it takes. You don’t you don’t want to get your PhD in HTML and CSS. You’re working on your PhD in whatever field you’re in and you want to share that and as much as possible spend the time on how you want to present your work and focus on that.

    Jennifer: I completely agree with everything you said. Yeah. If you don’t want to learn CSS, JavaScript, or HTML, you don’t want to learn how to code for your website. Don’t try to build it from scratch. It’s not worth your time and honestly it means that you have to go back and make changes and updates using that same method. That can be okay now, but maybe you won’t have that time in the future. When it comes to exactly what Ian was talking about: time, effort, what do you want to focus your energy on? I agree, focusing your energy on what you say, why you’re saying it, and who you’re saying it to is what’s going to make the difference for your personal academic website. And I think that’s why Owlstown is such a good solution. Now I want to caveat and say that if you’re going to have a blog, I really do recommend WordPress and WordPress.com is a great option. That’s because blogging has been done by them for so long they’re going to continue to have very focused blogging Features. But Owlstown, if you want a website and blogging is not guaranteed something you want to do this year.

    A demo of Owlstown, a free academic website builder

    Jennifer: Let’s talk about Owlstown because this is an academic website builder that is meant to be easy so that you can focus on what you’re seeing and who you’re saying it to. And not on learning how to make your website.

    Ian, can you tell us about Owlstown?

    Ian: Owlstown compared to the other tools out there is only for academics. The idea is that it has templates that are focused on academics. So you can post your publications, your projects that you work on, courses that you teach, people that you collaborate with, and some blogging features. And also, you can post your CV and other pages that you might want to add on top of your publications and projects. As much as possible, Owlstown tries to get the way of fiddling with the design and the HTML so that you can focus on the content that you’re sharing. I’ve been working on it for about 5 years now. It’s a passion project and I really enjoy working on it. I’m looking forward to sharing it.

    Jennifer: That’s great. Will you actually share your screen and give us a little demo of it now? Because if you did bring your bio, headshot, and your social media links with you today, this is so fast to set up. You’ll have time to do it while we’re talking today. Ian, why don’t you show us a demo of Owlstown?

    For those of you who are listening, if you have questions drop them in the chat. We’re going to have time for Q&A after our discussion.

    Ian sharing his screen: Okay. We’ll make a website. You can find it at Owlstown.com. First, we’re just gonna go through the ‘Create your free website’ [button] here. It’s going to welcome you with a Welcome Page.

    Let’s get started. First, when I make this website I’ll put my own information. But you can put in your own information here. As you can see, as I’m filling out the fields here, the website is changing. I’ll set up an image here, but for now I’ll just set up a letter so we can go through this quickly. Here I can just do a short bio. I won’t spend too much time on this. This is something when you’re starting out you can probably just do something quickly. The note here is this is the 1st thing that people will do. This is the first page that people will see, so it might be good to kind of describe what you’re working on and something more about yourself.

    Next and here’s one of the things that also when you’re creating a website is that you also have your social links. You might want to share several of your social links here. I have an example of my Twitter account, but you can share your ORCiD [identifier], ResearchGate, your Google Scholar page. If you have Instagram or a YouTube channel you can share it here. You can add those links. And, there’s more options here, for example, if you have Academia.edu, if you have a GitHub page, and so on and so forth.

    The next one here is when you start creating an Owlstown website, it randomly picks a theme. Right now the theme it’s using is Flannel. But you can quickly switch, one of the things I mentioned earlier about reducing the friction of fiddling with your website. With Owlstown, changing your theme is just a click away. I click on a theme and it changes immediately. I don’t have to set up any HTML or any CSS. And then I can pick a color. I can also change a font. Again, I’m just clicking through and picking which ones I like. For now, I’ll pick out one of the fonts I like, Lotto. The other thing that you can do is also add your publications. And it’s just another just a click away. I’ve typed in my name, I searched for it, and then among [these entries], I have to figure out which one is mine. This one’s mine right here. I can just click on my name and my publications are automatically included. Okay, and done!

    In this case, I have a website with some information about myself, an introduction and some publications. Then, if I want to edit some more things, I can. For example, I can add descriptions from my projects, people that I work with, courses that I teach, and blog posts.  Then, if I want to publish this website I can create an account. Then, I can select the domain name that it will be published in.

    Jennifer: That was so much easier than any other website creator that I’ve seen. I love how tailored it is for academics. Even when you get to the end and you get to the site editor, it’s giving you options that academics typically need like adding collaborators. That’s wonderful!

    Let me ask this question because so many people feel like when they find a website host there’s not really a customer service on the other end. Let’s say you’re creating an Owlstown website. What can people do if they have a question?

    Ian: Good question. One of the things that people do is they can contact me through Twitter or email. I try to respond quickly. Usually people email me. Most of the ideas for features for Owlstwon came from suggestions from users. They would email me: “I would like this feature on Owlstown.” If it fits with the goals of Owlstown, I usually try to add it. Also people contact me through Twitter. Just either post mentioning me, or sending a [direct message] D.M. and I answer. I try to answer as quickly as possible, usually there’s a turn back to time of within a day.

    Jennifer: I love how personalized that is! So many of my clients, I have them at WordPress.com and they upgrade to the point in which they get good customer service. But it doesn’t always come with that free plan. One of my recent sales calls actually said she loves her small website host because of that personalized experience: when she emails she actually gets a response. That’s the experience you’re gonna get with Ian over at Owlstown for academics. That’s excellent! I’m so glad I asked you about that. Thank you for giving us a demo.

    If you want to set up your Owlstown website now you know how. Based on our time, we’re going to keep going and talking about questions. I have another poll for you. Let’s open it up [not seen in replay]. Okay, we’re going to talk about website page ideas. What pages do you want for your personal academic website? Look at this poll and let me know. Check all of the pages that you’re kind of interested in having for your personal website. There’s so many options! And on Owlstown you can do a lot of these pages and add your own. There’s a lot of flexibility to grow your website over time but remember you can start with just one page (I’ve most recommended the About page).

    Answer the poll. Let me know what pages you are interested in for your personal academic website. If there’s a page you don’t see here, let us know in the chat. This was the maximum number of options that Zoom let me add. Alright, looks like everyone has responded. Let me share the poll with you all. 

    Yay! Everyone definitely wants an About page. That’s exciting. Research and Teaching are super popular. Yeah. Many people want to share their Writing and Publications. That’s great! One of the things that I like about Owlstown is that you can add information to your Publications. You can add an abstract. So don’t think that just because it’s just letting you add those things in the list that you can’t make that even more engaging with abstracts. Okay, people are also interested in sharing Speaking Engagements and maybe some News and Media mentions. Definitely Contact. I love it. I love it. This is great.

    Where should I start when adding pages to my academic personal website?

    Jennifer: Brittany and Ian, where should people start when it comes to what pages should I add to my personal academic website? What would you say is most important? Which should people prioritize?

    Ian: I have a particular opinion about this one. My opinion here is that having a description of your projects, so not necessarily your publications, but the projects that you’re working on. I think I’m pushing on this because sometimes people hesitate to have a website because they don’t have a publication yet. When I was in grad school, I didn’t publish until my 5th year. So they took a long time, but the ideas that I was working on started in my 1st year. I think being able to share those ideas and the stuff that I was working on was good. And it led up to getting published at some point.

    But I was able to collaborate with people even before I was published because I was sharing my ideas on a website. I would say you have a website. You introduce yourself and then have descriptions of your project, including those project descriptions. You can add posters that you’ve shared, where you’ve shared those projects, and then eventually if it gets published then you can add publications on those project descriptions. But it’s okay to start out with just the description of the projects or ideas and then share that.

    Jennifer: Brittany, what about you? Where should people start when it comes to what to prioritize for my personal academic website? 

    Brittany: I think actually Ian said it perfectly. 

    And also, if you have anything that’s outside of your research as well that you’re very passionate about, like some type of cause. A lot of people in the research, or at least in the sciences, there’s like science communication, science policy, advocacy, outreach. Any of those things that you do, especially if you’re particularly passionate about it. If you can feature that in some way like on your website. If you already have photos on hand, or just like to write a story about yourself. To Ian’s point, when you write your description about yourself, kind of root it in the why you’re doing this. The why you’re interested in research, or all the things that you’re doing. That’s I think really important in terms of creating that personal connection with somebody in the online space. Then people again can get to know you beyond just whatever they can read like in your CV, or your LinkedIn, or whatever.

    Jennifer: I love that so why you’re doing what you’re doing is so important for helping people to connect with what you care about. And with the work that you’re doing now. When it comes to your personal academic website, making sure that why is in your bio and also in your project descriptions is great. Actually, if you only have one sentence for your bio and one sentence for each project description, it should probably be about why you’re doing it.

    Now when it comes to helping people find your research on your website, make sure that you’re actually using the words that people are going to Google. If you have a specific phrase that you know that is related to your research, I can’t even think of one. Let’s see, for my recent client, she’s looking specifically at ‘immigration in the United States.’ So, she needs that specific phrase to be on her website so more people can find her research about that specific topic. Make sure you’re being descriptive in how you’re talking about your research as well. Include the why. And, include the words that people will actually use to search for your research topic. That would be my top suggestions for getting up your website.

    Do I need a photo of myself on my website?

    Jennifer: Let me ask what about a website photo. Do I need a photo of my face on my website? That is a frequent question I get. What would you say?

    Brittany: I personally think that you should have at least one photo, if it’s just like a selfie. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Something that again kind of showcases who you are a little bit. And also, I think for a lot of universities, you do also upload a photo for your department anyway. But I think that also helps with the personal connection and such.

    Jennifer: I really liked how Owlstown gave you different options so if you’re first getting just getting started you can have like your letter instead of a profile photo. What do you think, Ian, do you need a profile photo on your website?

    Ian: Yeah, so Owlstown gives you that option but most people actually just put up their own photos. I think it is helpful to have your photo on there because eventually if they are interested in your work, in your research, you’re going to meet them eventually. The people who visit your website, you’ll meet them eventually at conferences, in talks that you do. When I was in grad school, people mentioned things that were on my website. That was kind of a way to start conversations. It’s probably good for them to associate my face with the content of the website so that when we do see each other at the university or at conferences, they know to associate it with my face.

    Jennifer: I completely agree. I think having a photo of yourself is super helpful. If you really are uncomfortable with it, having some kind of avatar, a little cartoon version of yourself, is a great alternative. You could also use a different kind of graphic that is specifically representative of your research. So, a little icon or something I have seen people use. But overall, I just think a photo of your face can make a really big difference. And if you record a short video for your website? That goes such a long way to helping people really recognize you as a human being, as a person, and for remembering your research. Even if you’re like, “Ah, I can’t write a lot for my website, I don’t have a lot of time now. But, I can hop on zoom and record a 1-minute “Hi My Name Is video,” that could make a really big difference too.

    Whats my 1st step when making my website?

    Jennifer: When it comes to getting started with your personal academic website, where should people start? Ian, Brittany let me know what you think. Brittany, why don’t you go first. Where should people start, what’s their 1st step like physically, where should they start? Everyone here probably either has a website already or they are looking to actually make their website. Owlstown is a great solution. Now we know how to make it. We know how to use that.

    But, what about people who are going to use Google Sites or WordPress.com? Where should they start when it comes to their website? Is it their domain name?

    Brittany: Yeah, I would say besides the technical things, I think the most important thing we kind of touched on earlier: making sure you’re very clear about your goals for your website. What are you trying to do? How much time you want to put into it? That way you don’t feel like it’s something that you didn’t finish or whatever. Just say, “Okay, I just want to get my website out because of X, Y, Z reasons. And, for this time period, if it’s just like a one-pager website, that’s fine.” That’s better than nothing.

    Being able to clarify your reason for creating your website at this point in time will help you feel less mind drama about whether you finish it or not finish it. Then, of course, choose your website builder. Definitely get a domain name. Get it in your name because a lot of the website builders if you use a free plan you are technically a subdomain under like their website name. But a domain name is quite inexpensive, like on Google Domains. I just like Google Domains because it’s simple. A subdomain is like YourName.WordPress.com, which is okay. But personally I really just wanted MyName.com. I have multiple domain names, just in case of other things in the future. You just go on Google Domains and like to buy one for about $12/year. It’s a pretty nice investment and then, it’s pretty simple. It’s just like buying anything else on the internet: you add it to cart and then there are some technical things that you have to figure out, but you basically just follow directions on their F.A.Q. page or Help Guide or something like that.

    Jennifer: Ian, can you set up your own domain name on Owlstown?

    Ian: Yeah. You can add your own domain name. Owlstown is free for what you mentioned, the subdomain (YourName.OwlsTown.com). But if you want your own custom domain, you have to get a paid plan. On Brittany’s point about where to start: I think having a one-pager is a good way to start. Sometimes people think that they have to have a complete website with multiple pages to feel like they have a website. With just one page I think you already have a website. If you have information about you, you can think of your website as a central place to direct you, or a central place to put your online content. If you have like an introduction about yourself, your contact info, your email for a way to contact you (because people are going to try to contact you about your work), and then maybe if you have links to where your publications are listed on Google Scholar, Academia.edu, or ResearchGate. If you just have links to those, that’s sufficient. Your academic website can act as a hub for people who are interested in your work to get connected to other things that might give more information about your work.

    Should I add my middle initial to my domain name?

    Jennifer: Asha asked a question. Perfect timing so we can do all of your questions. Drop them in the chat. You’ll also be able to unmute yourself and talk with us.

    Asha’s question is: Should we add our middle initial to our domain name? That’s a great question. Ian, what do you think?

    Ian: Yeah, I don’t think that’s a problem. I think it’s one way to kind of differentiate yourself if your name is common. For my name, I have two middle names. I was able to get IanLi.com, but I think if I were to try to get IanLi.com now, I wouldn’t be able to get it. I could probably use my middle initials in my domain name. I think that’s probably going to be one way that people are going to be looking for me also. So, Ian A. R. Li is one way to look for me, so if that’s on my domain name then they can find me.

    Jennifer: Okay, Brittany what about you? What do you think about adding your middle initial to your domain name?

    Brittany: I would say that I was also lucky, like Ian. I have BrittanyTrinh.com.

    But I think again there’s a lot of things that play into it. One, do you want your middle initial in there too? Do people know you by your middle initial? I recently found out that I should include my middle initial when I publish academic papers. I didn’t realize that before. It’s just again to differentiate myself. Then the other thing, is it available? Right? You might also come to find out that you can use your name with your middle initial and the URL is still not available. Which is why I think it’s really important to get your domain name as soon as possible. So if there’s nothing else you do today, look up your domain name.

    Jennifer: That’s great. One thing I would add to that is that if you have been publishing for a long time and you haven’t used your middle initial, adding it in now is fine. But, you’ll probably want to switch to publishing with your middle initial from now on. Your website is going to be the hub where all of that comes together. But when it comes to how people search and how people look for things, honestly copy/paste. Type in exactly what they see or what they’re looking to expect. If they type in your name without the middle initial and way too many people come up and it’s hard to find you, that’s when you want to add it in. And if you don’t have a middle name, which is true for so many people.

    If you don’t have a middle name, that’s okay. A lot of my clients will add like one word or a short phrase that represents their research to the end of their name. That’s an easy way to differentiate yourself. Some people also add their title, like DrYourName.com or YourNamePhD.com to differentiate themselves. There are options. You don’t have to go with your middle initial just because you think that’s what other people are looking for. If you just want to go with your name without the middle initial, because that’s how you feel, that’s how you’re presenting yourself, that’s how you publish, and how you want to share your work with the world, go ahead. Don’t feel like you need to add it unless it becomes problematic for you in the future. But you know, when you build an online presence, things like that happen less and less because people are already able to find your website when they search for your name.

    I’m thinking about leaving academia, can I still have a website?

    Jennifer: Alright, next question. Would a website still be okay if transitioning away from academia (but not to industry) for a chemist? Is a website still okay if you might be transitioning away from academia? I would say yes. Definitely. What about you two?

    Brittany: I think I just wanted to clarify: by ‘not industry,’ do you mean you’re not working in industry, but you’re doing something else? In general I think having a website is fine. I was just curious because I’ve had my website, I started technically, officially started my website while I was working in industry. So, I guess it also depends on what you mean by…Okay, [responding to a text comment], you will not will not be working in industry. Yeah, I feel like there’s nothing to lose with having a website. Except maybe $20, or however much it costs to host a website depending on what you get. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s like your creative space. You can use it for whatever you want. So if you want to use it as a portfolio of sorts for your projects and to get a career in a different field or something, that’s also a really good place to showcase some of that more in depth as well.

    Jennifer: I’ve also created a website for someone who was leaving academia, and they were not going back into the workforce. They weren’t at retirement age, but they just weren’t going back. They were taking an extended time away from working and they still wanted a website because their work was still important to them. They still wanted readers for their book. They really wanted to keep in touch with their past students. They still wanted to be part of the community even though they weren’t going to be actively working or receiving employment from a university. And that made a really big difference in their lives and how connected they felt. So if you are feeling like you want a website, no matter what you’re doing after academia, or if you’re staying in academia but switching what you’re doing–say you’re moving into a leadership position. It’s all okay. And the best part is exactly what Brittany said, which is that your website can adapt with you over time. It can be your creative space and it can also be your professional space to showcase what you want when you want. And you can even get rid of those pages if they no longer align with your needs. Ian, what about you?

    Ian: Yeah. I have been out of academia for 10 years now and I still have my website up because people still cite the publications I had from grad school. I make the PDFs available on my website so if people are looking for examples if it’s cited and they’re looking for the paper, they can find it on my website.

    Jennifer: I just want to note to check your publication contracts or get permission before doing this.

    Ian: Also, my dissertations there if they want to see it. I also have some talks, posters, and so it’s great for people who are finding my name on citations that they have a way of still different content related to that work.

    Jennifer: I love that. So it’s definitely been something all of us have experienced both in academia and outside of academia. And, our website has been helpful to each of us personally during that time. We definitely think it’ll be helpful for you as well.

    How do I know if I should hire help for my website or do-it-myself (D.I.Y.)?

    Jennifer: I have a question for you two, how should people know when they should hire help? Like when they don’t want to D.I.Y. [Do-It-Yourself for] their website.

    Brittany: Since I am a website designer and I have done this for a couple of clients, I would say usually it’s like a time issue if you are just very busy. The people who have normally hired me, some are more like mid-career professors hire me too which is really funny I think. Everything else is just higher priority than their website. They have to teach their classes, run their research group, write a textbook. They’re running their own business. Everything else is a higher priority, and they just need to delegate. I think that’s just a personal call you need to make: when can you delegate? When can you do it yourself?

    The other important thing is making sure that whoever you choose to work with, if you choose to work with somebody, that they also like to show you how it works and stuff. And that they’ve set it up for you in a way that is easy for you to manage, especially if you don’t have a lot of time on your hands to do that later on. Either that, or if you have the funds available to just have someone manage it, I think that’s the important thing. It’s just like how important and how much time can you put into this?

    Jennifer: Ian everyone on Owlstown is doing it themselves, is that right?

    Ian: Yeah, that’s correct. With Owlstown, it’s all D.I.Y. in that you’re adding the content yourself. If people are asking for help from me, it’s mostly the features of the website rather than the how the content is being added to the website.

    Don’t wait, you can publish a 1-page website and grow over time

    Jennifer: Yeah, that’s a great point. I really find that when academics come to me, they’re exactly kind of the same as Brittany. They don’t have the time or energy to make their own website. And they know that whatever amount of time it’s gonna take it’s just more than they can afford. Not just in terms of their personal life and their research, but in terms of their attention and what they want to focus on. It makes a big difference if you can be writing your book or working on your dissertation. Focusing on the things that you need to be doing instead of your personal website.

    Now, Owlstown makes it really easy. If you have the content, you can just drop it in and have your website published so fast. I just love that as an option. And if you’re like I want a really extensive website, but I don’t have time for it this year, go to Owlstown because maybe it’s gonna meet all of your needs. But, when it comes to hiring help, it’s okay to hire help if you feel like you want support. If you know that having support is going to make your life easier. And it’s okay to go out and reach out to people and ask questions to see if they’re going to be a good fit to work with you. A lot of professors find working with someone locally, a local website developer, works well for them because they already know what they want on their website. But when it comes to your website don’t let the what-should-I-put-on-it hold you back from publishing a one-page website.

    We were talking about that earlier but it is so important that you know you don’t need a perfect website. It doesn’t need to be exactly the way you thought of it in your head to hit publish. Launching it now is great. And it also means you can enter our Best Personal Academic Websites Contest. This is our 2nd year running the contest where we’re giving away multiple awards for the best personal academic websites. We are definitely giving an award in the Owlstown category. So if you do decide to build your website with Owlstown, we hope that you’ll submit! But, we also give an award for one-page personal academic websites. So if you can create your website before September 10, 2023, when the deadline closes, we would love for you to submit to our contest. Okay, if you have questions about personal academic websites be sure to drop them in the chat. Or, raise your hand and you can unmute yourself. Brittany, Ian, is there anything we haven’t talked about that you feel like we should definitely talk about?

    Share your website with people once it’s live

    Brittany: I guess the other part of having a website is once you make it, you gotta share it with people. Put it on your LinkedIn. I know that on Google Scholar, you can also link a website on there, so that might be helpful. You gotta start putting it on things so people can find it beyond just Google Search. On your social media profiles too. Just throw it on there.

    Jennifer: Yeah! That’s great. Also in your email signature and on your faculty profile. Those are pretty easy updates for how to share your website. Also in your bio! If you’re presenting at conferences, adding your website to your bio is going to help all those people attending your talk (and the people who can’t attend your talk) find you and your work.

    Updating your personal academic website

    Jennifer: Oh, we had another question. How often should we be updating our websites? How often should you update a website?

    Ian: Yeah. I think if you have new information that you can add to your website. You can add it then. I wouldn’t say it has to be weekly or monthly. As long as you have new information, you can add it in. I think the important thing is that the information on your website is up to date. I’m of the opinion that the worst websites are the ones that are not updated. So if you go in there, you think that they’ve last published 5 years ago but really, they had something published like a year ago. People are looking for information on your website. You want it to be up-to-date now. Whether you need to update it weekly with new information? I don’t think you have to as long as it’s updated with the information that you want them to know.If I’m gonna rank the importance of how the website looks or how updated the website is, I think the how updated the website is is more important. I’ve had too much experience going to an academic website and finding really old information. It just becomes a problem when you’re looking for research or collaborators and things like that.

    Jennifer: I like that. Typically with my clients, I tell them that updating your website can be a nice kind of celebration. Every time you were gonna add a line to your C.V. [Curriculum Vitae] or something, add it to your website too. Because it’s actually going to help people when it’s on your website. People will actually be able to learn about it, whereas with your C.V., not a lot of people are going to be reading it on a regular basis. Your website is going to show up when they are Googling your name, so it does make a difference. But on a minimum, I typically recommend it annually. So, if you are so busy and you’re like I know I’m not going to have time to update my website. Even if you’re like, “Yeah, I have publications, but I don’t have time to add them.” Add it into your calendar now to update your website in a year. That reminder will be really helpful to make sure you actually get that done.

    Many of my clients have come to me 6-7 years after making their website, and they haven’t updated it since then. So it’s typical. It’s normal. It happens all the time. But, we don’t want that to happen to you. That’s why we’re suggesting updating it more often.

    Can I add book review to my personal website?

    Jennifer: Next question is: “Can we add book reviews? Even though I’m in theology, I enjoy productive books.”

    Yes, definitely. You can add book reviews. You can add any kind of writing that you want. Book reviews may be a good thing to add to a blog, something where you’re regularly updating it, and you can add links to it, you can help share it. People can even subscribe to [your blog] to get more of your book reviews. You could also just publish it as a page and continually update it and add as you have new ones. So definitely add book reviews.

    Jennifer: Next question is: “Do we still add when the page was last updated in the footer, or no?” Typically not unless it is relevant to the information that you’re sharing. For example, I have a blog post about the different social media platforms academics typically consider for themselves. At the very bottom of the page, I write that this has been recently updated on this date and that the information is coming mostly from the specific websites of each of the social media platforms. I want to keep that updated because it’s actually important for my readers to know when I’ve updated that. But if it’s not important for your readers to know when you updated a page, it’s probably information that they don’t need. That’s what I would say.

    Alright, we are a little bit over time, but if you have any other questions we would love to answer them. Brittany, Ian is there anything I haven’t covered that we should definitely chat about?

    Brittany: Just to add on to what we were talking about with updating websites, I also think another good time to update your website is when you decide that whatever’s on your website is not what you want on there anymore because your goals have changed. Or, your intention for your website has changed. When that time comes, you can change out whatever you need to change out.I think earlier we were saying you want to showcase your projects. But I’m also of the opinion that you want to showcase more. Let’s say you’re a science writer and you have a portfolio of sorts. I would want to update or feature the type of science writing that you want to do in the future, that you currently have that you want to do more of, rather than let’s say a blog post that you wrote years ago or something like that. Because that’s something one of my clients had an issue with. She was like, “What do I do with all these blog posts that I’ve written for external contributions?” And I was just like, “Well, is this the type of writing you want to continue to do?” And she was like, “No.” I said, “Well then, this doesn’t necessarily need to be front and center. Instead, let’s focus on the things that you really want to highlight. That’s something to keep in mind when you’re updating your website.

    Jennifer: That’s great! That’s so important. Yes, thinking about what your goals are and if your website is going to meet them before you do the updates. You can save yourself time by thinking about what your goals are. That’s great! Anything else we should cover that I haven’t chatted about?

    Adding social media links

    Ian: I’d like to add to why we might want to add links to our website from social media. I think that helps with discovery of your website. One thing we noted earlier was that people would look for you in search engines. But people will probably encounter your name from Twitter, or they looked at Google Scholar, or other websites. So if they find your name and they have a link to your website, that’s a good way to introduce them to your other work. For example, in Google Scholar you can add a link to your home page. Twitter is the same way. And, Jennifer mentioned this earlier, putting your website on your email signature. So if they forward and see your email, they’re like: “Oh, there’s a link to a homepage I’d like to find out more.”

    Jennifer: I love that. Well, thank you all so much for coming to Setting Up Your Personal Academic Website. I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. I’ve been talking with Brittany Trinh and Dr. Ian Li, creator of Owlstown. We’ve had a lot of fun talking with you about websites and we wish you so much luck making your own website. We hope that when you do, you’ll enter our Best Personal Academic Websites Contest. I do want to share with you this resource at the bottom of the contest page on my website. If you scroll down, there are going to be many articles, interviews, and resources from the 3 of us to help you set up your personal academic website. We do wish you the best of luck with this project! And, hope to see you again at our next event. Bye!

    Bios

    Brittany Trinh is a website strategist and designer for STEM leaders. She helps grad students, scientists, and academics create impact-driven websites so they can level up in their careers & get paid for their expertise. She’s currently a chemistry PhD candidate at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    In 2024, Jennifer and Brittany team up for VIP Days for professors and research labs in need of done-for-you websites. Schedule a no pressure Zoom call with Jennifer to talk about working together on your website project.

    Ian Li is the creator of Owlstown, the website builder for academics. Owlstown websites are easy to make and maintain, so you can focus on your research. With templates for various research artifacts, Owlstown allows you to present your research in various ways to inspire and inform others.

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  • How To Make A Personal Academic Website

    How To Make A Personal Academic Website

    For professors and scientists, a personal website is a big project that’s well worth your time. It’s the best way to manage your online presence long-term. Your personal academic website can include a portfolio of pages that showcase your

    • teaching
    • research
    • publications
    • speaking engagements
    • service

    I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to my my blog, The Social Academic. Now also a podcast and YouTube channel. This article was updated for 2024.

    A personal website can be life changing professors, grad students, and researchers like you. In this guide, discover the 7 steps to an academic website:

    You can make your own personal academic website. You’ve got this. When you do, your website will help people explore your research, teaching, and the things you care about. I’m excited for you! And this guide is here to help.

    P.S. Bookmark this page so you can come back to it.

    7 steps to take your website from start to launch

    Creating a personal academic website is a long-journey. It’s not a 10-minute project like some articles claim. A website is typically a multi-day project. It may take you months. And that’s ok.

    Professors often come to me when they need a stronger online presence. Their reasons are unique and varied. Your website can be a hub that invites people to engage with your research and teaching in meaningful ways.

    Some professors reach out to me for an academic website that

    • brings it all together for professors who “wear many hats” or feel like it may not be possible to “bring my identities together”
    • highlights their new book while helping past publications better reach new readers
    • invites aligned partnerships or relationships (i.e. with researchers around the world, community organizations, corporate partners, funders, and the people your research helps most)
    • creates a legacy for their work for a retired professor
    • celebrates their new position and prepares for their future for professors who transition to a new role
    • shares their research so people can engage in meaningful ways
    • helps them have a stronger online presence that supports a new goal or achievement
    • redesigns the website they made themselves years ago that “doesn’t feel like me anymore”

    When you’re intentional about creating space for your online presence, you can help more people. For many of the professors I work with, a stronger online presence helps them move from the spark of “I can have a website” to “I deserve this space.” We deserve this space.

    As academics, I want you to know that “we can create this space for ourselves.” You don’t need to work with me to have a stronger online presence. A PhD student scheduled a time to meet with me about designing her website for her. She didn’t need to wait to meet with me, “Have you heard about Owlstown? It’s a free academic website builder from my friend, Dr. Ian Li.” I wanted her to know she didn’t need my support. There was an easy solution for her personal academic website. That Owlstown is a solution I trust for most professors.

    I have resources to help you on my website on The Social Academic blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. You don’t need to work with me to make your personal academic website. Here are my website resources for you. I hope this guide in particular helps you move forward efficiently to make your personal academic website a reality. Following it will help you get your academic personal website from start to launch smoothly.

    Let’s get started.

    Subscribe to The Social Academic blog.

    The form above subscribes you to new posts published on The Social Academic blog.
    Want emails from Jennifer about building your online presence? Subscribe to her email list.
    Looking for the podcast? Subscribe on Spotify.
    Prefer to watch videos? Subscribe on YouTube.

    1. Create your website content

    The best way to start making your personal academic website is by planning the structure of your website. If you don’t have an idea about what you want to share, you’ll get stuck.

    Let’s decide what to include on your professor website.

    Planning your website

    The structure and organization of your academic personal website determines the written, visual, and video content you’ll want to create. If you plan on sharing a lot of information, you can have more pages on your website.

    Your personal academic website might include things like

    • About page with your academic bio and headshot
    • Research page
      • Current project
      • Research outcomes
    • Teaching page
      • Course descriptions
      • Syllabi
      • Teaching Statement/Philosophy
    • Publications page
      • Abstracts or descriptions
      • Publication links
    • Speaking Engagements page
    • Contact page
    • Links to your social media profiles
    • Blog

    If you want a simpler website, a smaller structure is recommended:

    • About page with your academic bio and headshot
      • Link to your CV
      • Links to your social media profiles

    The simplest website structure is just 1-page. But it isn’t right for everyone. This tends to work well for graduate student websites. And professors who want the easiest website to maintain.

    The more you want to share, the more pages your site will need.

    Get inspired with the winning websites from the 2023 Best Personal Academic Websites Contest.

    If you’re unsure about what to include on your personal website, let’s talk. I help professors think through who they help and the real people who will visit their personal or lab websites with my Website Strategy service. I’m here to help you too if you want support.

    Gather written content for your website

    Once you’ve decided on a structure and what you want to include, write down all the written content you want to share on your website. If it’s text and you want it on your website, write it down.

    Make a list of the pages you need to write content for. A sample for a simple 3-page personal website might include

    • About Page
      • Academic bio: 150-350 words
      • Research interests
    • Research Page
      • List of current project(s)
      • Longer description of current research topics
      • Important outcomes or other research highlights
    • Publications Page
      • Publication details (not in standard citation format), preferably with an abstract or description

    Write the content for each page in a document to complete this step. You might decide to hire help from a website designer or developer. It’s helpful to have a document with your written content ready to share with them.

    If you can get support with this project, I encourage it! If you know what you want on your website, I’ve got an amazing website development partner who can handle the technical side of launching your website. We can also work together 1-on-1 on your website strategy. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want professional support on your website project.

    Edit your content for the web

    Most professors don’t write for the web automatically. Academics like you may use

    • complicated or dense sentences
    • jargon / specialized terms
    • long paragraphs
    • no headings (or few headings)

    Each of these can be found in academic writing, but you should avoid them when writing for your professor website.

    I’m going to share with you best practices for writing for your personal website. Take the document you’ve drafted and each time, read through to edit with these changes

    • Can you simplify this sentence? For instance, if I make this sentence into 2 sentences, will it be easier for people to understand?
    • Is this word jargon? Is it a specialized term people in my field know but other people may not? Is it a term people in my specialization know, but other people may not? That word or term needs a short definition.
    • How many sentences is this paragraph? Can I break it into shorter paragraphs to make it easier to read on a mobile phone?
    • What heading will help someone find what they’re looking for on this particular page? For instance, if I have longer description of my research, what headings can I add to make this easier for someone skimming this page?

    Photography and headshots

    What images do you want to include on your website? At a minimum I recommend these

    • cover photo (also called a splash image, header photo, etc.)
    • a photo of you

    If you like taking photos, you may have one already that photos that work for your website.

    Many people choose stock images for their cover photo. On my personal website, I have photos I took at the San Francisco Botanic Gardens.

    For your headshot, you don’t need to go out and do a professional photo shoot. If you have photos from your work then that’s an option. Selfies are a good option for your headshot too. You just want your photo to be friendly, like of your smiling face. Here are 3 ways to get new photos for your personal website.

    Are photos required? No, but it really does help. If you’re uncomfortable with photos, consider making an avatar instead. Whichever photos choose, you need to have the rights or license to share those photos online.

    Do you want your academic or scientist website to be super engaging? Try adding a video too!

    If you got to the end of this step and you’re like, can you please just do the set-up for me? Yes. Let’s talk about working together on set up of your academic website.

    2. Pick a domain name and site title

    Once you’ve gathered/written all your content, you want to pick a domain name. Do this before choosing a host because it’s literally going to be the 1st thing most of them ask you to do when you sign-up.

    Your domain name is your main website URL, or web address. For instance, the full URL to this page is https://theacademicdesigner.com/2020/how-to-make-an-academic-website

    So the domain name for the website is theacademicdesigner.com.

    Your site title is what your website is called, in my case, The Academic Designer, which is the name of my company.

    For a personal website, my top recommendation for choosing your website domain and title is to use your full name. My personal website is jennifervanalstyne.com (site name: Jennifer van Alstyne).

    Using your full name will help your page rank in Google and other search engines. Afterall, the keyword most people will use to find your website when searching, is your name.

    An easy way to check if your domain name is in use is by typing it into your internet navigation search bar. If it’s taken a website will show up, and you may need to add a middle initial or keyword (e.g. JenniferSVanAlstyne.com or JenniferVanAlstynePoet.com).

    3. Choose a website host

    Which website host is best for you will depend on your time, budget and technical skills.

    I wrote a full guide to choosing the best website host for your personal website for professors.

    4. It’s time to set-up your personal website

    It’s time to set up your website. This is an exciting day, because when you have the content written already, your website can come together quickly.

    Start by choosing a theme for your website

    Most website hosts have themes or looks to choose from for the design of your website. When choosing a theme for your website look for these 3 things. You want a website that is

    • mobile responsive, which means your website adapts from desktop to mobile screens well
    • a clean design with a top menu and social media menu
    • accessibility-ready, which means the theme has built-in features to help people with disabilities explore your website (Accessibility-ready may be an option depending on your website host)

    Once you’ve chosen a theme for your website, you can usually choose things like font and color. For font, choose a sans serif font for your body font. A sans serif font means that you want letters without the little feet. So, no Times New Roman for your body font. You can use a serif font (with the little feet) for your headings font though.

    In terms of colors on your website, you want something with a high contrast for easy readability. Dark text on a light background is preferred for accessibility.

    Place your content

    Once you’ve selected a theme, you’re ready to place your content. Depending on how big your website is, you’ll want to know how to do these things

    • add a page
    • place text
    • insert a URL link
    • upload a photo
    • make a header

    You may also need to know how to add and edit these site-level items

    • a menu
    • social media links
    • a contact form (Update for 2024: I no longer recommend using contact forms, as they don’t always work across devices/countries)

    Titles, tags, and other metadata

    When you upload photos and other media to your website, you need to add in information like the title of the photo. There are also other options to add information about your media like Alt Text, a written description of your photo. Providing Alt Text for your photos helps more people understand the photo you’re sharing. Especially people who use screen readers to interact with your website. Alt Text also helps Google’s website crawlers better understand your website, so that it shows up in relevant search results.

    When you upload photos or other media to your website, it’s important to check that the metadata and Alt Text are descriptive.

    Write descriptive Alt Text for all of the images on your website.

    For my splash image of succulents the metadata includes

    • title of the photo (Succulents)
    • name of the photo (succulents.jpg)
    • description of the photo (‘Website header photo of many green echeveria succulents’)

    Here are great tips for writing Alt Text from Accessible Social.

    5. Preview your site

    After you’ve placed the writing and photos on your website, preview your website. Check your website for

    • spelling
    • formatting
    • readability

    Preview your website on different screen types if you have the option

    Try your website on different browsers

    • Chrome
    • Firefox
    • Microsoft Edge
    • Safari

    Ask your friends and family to read over your personal website for you. We often miss our own simple errors. You may learn if something is confusing. For instance, if your family notices a bit of jargon, a term they don’t understand about your research, how would you explain it to them in a phrase or sentence?

    You may also learn that something is hard to find. You’d be surprised how many personal websites I’ve come across where it’s difficult to find the name of the person who it’s about. Seriously. I even wrote an article about it for The Social Academic.

    6. Is it time to take your website live?

    If you sell anything on your website including consulting or editing services, you may be required by law to have a Privacy Policy and a Terms and Conditions page. Look to your country’s regulations about this. You will also need a Privacy Policy and Terms page if you are using Google Analytics or other tracking pixels or tools on your website. Do not take your website live until you have those things.

    If that is not the case for you, or if you’ve added those policies…

    It’s time to take your website live!

    Go ahead and Publish your website.

    Congratulations! You have a personal academic website ready to be shared with the world.

    7. Share your website

    Once your website is live, you need to share it with people.

    In the next few weeks, Google will crawl your website (unless you tell it not to, but don’t do that). Then your website will start showing up when people Google your name. But Google and search engines shouldn’t be the only way people find your website.

    • Announce your website on social media. Invite people to check it out.
    • Update your social media profiles to include your website address.
    • Add your new website address to your email signature.
    • Share your website as a way for people to keep in touch with you after a talk or presentation.
    • Update your bio to include your website.

    And, please share your website with me! Send me a direct message on social media, I’d love to congratulate you on your website personally.

    Good luck with your website project!

    A desk workspace with a propped up monitor and laptop screens. On the desk are a mouse and an open notebook with a pen.

    Well that’s the whole process, step-by-step. Good luck setting up your personal website. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can come back and check the steps.

    Please share this guide to making your personal academic website with your friends and colleagues. Ask your university library or faculty development office to share it as a resource. This guide has helped professors and grad students around the world make their website a reality.

    I hope it helps you too. You’ve got this! Make 2024 your year to launch your personal academic website. You’ll be happy you did.

    I’m wishing you the best of luck with your personal academic website. Watch the replay of my Setting Up Your Personal Academic Website live event where me, Brittany Trinh, and Dr. Ian Li answer the most frequently asked questions about websites for you.

    Feel like you don’t want to do this alone? Get support for your personal academic website

    Professors, would you like 1-on-1 support on your personal academic website or their research lab website? Let’s work together on a done-for-you website customized to meet your long-term needs. My most loved website service typically takes 4+ months.

    Some professors choose my VIP Days service, a day(s) where 100% of my focus is creating a website for you that can adapt with you over time. Since I’ve been teaming up with my amazing friend, Brittany Trinh, the personalization we can do in a Team VIP Day is exciting.

    Websites with me are capacity building. When we do it together, you get to “a website ready to take live” with ease. And, you’ll feel confident to make simple changes so you can keep your website updated.

    If you want your academic website done for you in 2024-2025, let’s meet on Zoom. I promise to help you in the right direction even when it isn’t working with me. Schedule a no pressure Zoom call to chat about working together on your website

    My name is Jennifer van Alstyne. I’ve been helping professors make your personal website since 2018. I’m here to help you too.

    Let’s chat about your personal website and online presence on a no pressure Zoom call. I’m happy to help you in the right direction, even if it isn’t working with me.

    Guides and Advice Articles Personal Website How To’s Resources for Grad Students Share Your Research The Social Academic

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  • 3 Ways To Take New Photos For Your Website

    3 Ways To Take New Photos For Your Website

    You want a new photo of yourself for your personal website. What’s the best way to take new photos? Here are 3 ways for you to get beautiful photos for your website.

    Hi! I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to my blog about understanding your digital footprint in research and Higher Education. I help professors have an amazing online presence through my company The Academic Designer LLC. I empower academics to feel confident when showing up online.

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    Listen to the podcast

    Take a selfie

    A woman wearing a hijab and a green sweater holds her phone and smiles at the camera while taking a selfie photo.

    A selfie is a photo that you take of yourself. You can use selfies on your personal website! The most popular way to take a selfie is with your phone camera. You can use the front camera of your phone, but you’ll take higher quality photos if you use the rear camera.

    Look for a space with good lighting. You may find great natural lighting outside in the last hour before sunset. Or, if you’re an early riser (unlike me), try just before sunrise. Photographers call these periods the ‘golden hour’ because the light can be perfect.

    Avoid a distracting background in your photo. When in doubt, you can take a photo against a neutral background like a wall. Then you can edit the photo to remove the background like I did for the selfie above.

    Use a cleaning cloth to gently wipe the camera lens clean before you start your photo shoot.

    Try holding the phone at different angles (slightly higher, slightly lower). You can also hold the phone out to your side and turn your head towards it. Don’t forget to smile.

    Your phone camera may have settings to help you take a better selfie. For instance, there may be a portrait mode. Or, an option to take a wide selfie.

    You can use your phone’s self-timer setting to take hands-free and full body selfies. You may want to prop up your phone using books. You could also invest in an inexpensive tripod or selfie stick.

    A black and white dog wearing blue sunglasses lays on its back on the grass taking a selfie photo with a phone in holds with its paw.

    Devices For Taking Selfies

    1. Mobile phone
    2. Camera
    3. High resolution web cam

    Other Tools To Help

    • Selfie stick
    • Tripod
    • Remote
    • Ring light
    • Books, a box, or other items to prop up your phone

    Ask a friend or family member

    A man holds a phone taking a photo of his friend who is smiling. They are in Los Angeles. The Hollywood sign is visible in the background, but unreadable because the background of the photo is very blurry.

    One of the best ways to get a new photo of yourself for your website is to ask a friend or family member to help.

    If you have a friend who is good at taking photos, great! You may not. That’s OK. What’s more important is that you have someone with you that you feel comfortable with.

    Set expectations by letting them know it may take a bit of time. That you want to try out different poses (or locations). Ask them to try taking photos at different angles. Try watching a YouTube video together about creative portrait photos with a phone.

    My best tip is to ask your friend to take photos holding the phone vertically and horizontally. That gives you flexibility with what you use the photos for.

    It’s possible that this photo shoot may not result in the photos you want. So don’t put too much pressure on your friend. Do encourage them to take lots of photos so you can choose the best ones. If you find photos you like in the set, ask your friend if they’d like to be credited as photographer when you share the photo online.

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    Hire a professional photographer

    Photography and video production studio with a yellow chair, plant, and pink backdrop. There are large lights on tripods.

    Hiring a professional portrait photographer is the best option. The mistake you want to avoid is asking for a headshot when booking your photo shoot.

    Professional photographers have the gear, skills, and experience to take your new website photos. If you can afford a professional photo shoot, it’s your best option. You want to hire an experienced local photographer.

    You may have a place to take your photos in mind. Professionals often include 1 location in your package, or shoot in their studio. Be sure to ask for their recommendations.

    Photographs are the intellectual property of the photographer. You’ll need to sign a contract or licensing agreement for permission to use the photos. Help ensure you get the right license by sharing how you want to use your photos when booking your shoot. Most photographers have professional liability insurance.

    You’re looking for a portrait photographer, not a headshot photographer. Be clear about how many photos you’re looking for, as your photographer may offer a ‘brand photo shoot’ or a ‘website photo package.’

    Portrait photographers can ranges from $100-$400/hour in the United States. Local Facebook groups are often an effective way to find recommendations for photographers in your area.

    Here are 3 ways to get new photos for your personal website

    A graphic for 'New Photos For Your Website' with tips including take a selfie, ask a friend for help, and hire a professional photographer. On the graphic are a cutout of a Sony professional camera, the backs of 2 cell phone cameras, and a selfie photo of Jennifer van Alstyne smiling.

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    My name is Jennifer van Alstyne. I’ve been helping professors make beautiful personal websites to share their research since 2018. I’d love to help you!

    Let’s talk on a no pressure Zoom call about working with me on your online presence and website.

    Personal Website How To’s The Social Academic

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  • How to Update Your Personal Website

    How to Update Your Personal Website

    How to tell your website needs an update

    Does your personal website feel old or outdated? It may be time to update your academic website. This article is about how to update websites.

    Hi there, I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to the new season of The Social Academic blog! Let’s talk about how to update your scientist website or professor website.

    Before we get started, I am here to support you through your website redesign project. Most of the professor websites I’ve worked with have been people who made a website that was no longer working for their needs. I’ve been helping professors launch beautiful personal academic websites since 2018. I’d love to help you!

    6 steps to update your website

    A woman wearing running sneakers walks up concrete stairs

    If you’ve been wondering how to update my website, here are 6 steps to help you.

    These 6 steps will help you walk through updating your personal website. This can be a bigger project than people expect. But, even small changes can make a big impact.

    1. How to tell your website needs an update
    2. 6 steps to update your website
    3. Discover more articles about personal academic and scientist websites

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    1. Audit your website

    Take a look at your personal website.

    • Does the design feel old or outdated?
    • Is the information correct? What needs to be changed?
    • How is your website helping you now?
    • What changes would your website benefit from?
    • Are people able to get in touch with you?
    • Is anything not working? Are there broken links or website elements?
    • Do you need a new profile photo?

    Auditing your website helps you better understand how your website is working for you now. Ask yourself what’s working on your website, and what’s not.

    2. Evaluate your goals

    What goals do you have for your website? Many academics create websites because they feel like they should. Or maybe they’ve been told to. There are many benefits to having a personal website.

    Your website goals might be simple, like

    • Help people get in touch with me by email
    • Encourage people to connect with me on social media
    • Share a list of my publications

    Oftentimes academics and scientists creating websites hope to make greater impact like

    • Gaining media attention for my research
    • Increase readers for my publications
    • Attract engaged students to my classes
    • Improving my career prospects

    What are your goals? What content can you share on your website to work towards those goals?

    3. Plan what website updates are needed

    Plan what changes to make to your website based on the goals you’ve come up with.

    • Help people get in touch with me by email: Check to see if the Contact page or button on your website is working. Make sure it directs people to where you want them to get in touch with you (i.e. email)
    • Encourage people to connect with me on social media: Create a Social Media Links menu that helps people find my profiles online
    • Share a list of my publications: Go beyond sharing your CV on your website with an easy to read list of publications. Sort them by year, topic, or type.
    • Gaining media attention for my research: Create a Media page to share mentions online, provide a bio and high quality headshot
    • Increase readers for my publications: Add abstracts and visuals to your publications, consider videos or graphics to spark curiosity
    • Attracted engaged students to my classes: Create a Teaching page that includes current courses, syllabi, and student testimonials
    • Improving my career prospects: Provide case studies, testimonials, and work experience on your website

    You may find that more website updates are needed than you have time to do right now. That’s ok! Order your list by priority so you get the most important things done first.

    If your website is in need of a full redesign, like if your website is

    • Old and outdated (and looks that way)
    • Unsecure
    • Has been infected with malware or viruses
    • Doesn’t meet most of your goals (and you don’t have time for such a big project)

    You may want to hire help from a professional website designer or developer. We can also work to get it done together.

    Most of my website clients are professors and scientists who made their own personal website years ago that wasn’t meeting their goals. If your website is need of a major overhaul it’s because you’ve grown and changed since you created it. That’s normal! Don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d love to help.

    4. Write new website content

    You’ve decided what updates need to happen for your website by creating your priority list. I like to estimate how long things will take me. Then I add it to my calendar.

    When I don’t take the time to add this step to my calendar, it get’s pushed back. I’m a procrastinator. Maybe you are too! Either way, adding this step to your calendar will better help you get it done.

    Write new content for your website (i.e. bio, new pages about your teaching or research, updated information for pages already live on your website). I typically suggest doing this in Google Docs or Microsoft Word so you can print your writing for proofreading. It’s easier to catch typos and errors on paper.

    5. Implement your updates

    When your written content is ready to go, it’s time to implement those changes to your website!

    If you’re not tech savvy, you can often hire help with implementing changes to your website. You’ll want to have your new content ready to go

    • Writing
    • Photos
    • Graphics
    • Videos

    That way when you talk to the website designer or developer, they can give you an accurate quote for work that needs to be done.

    6. Review changes to your website

    Once your website changes have been made, review your website page-by-page. It’s a good idea to ask a friend or colleague to look through your website too.

    Good luck with your personal website update!

    Want help with your website redesign? I’d love to help you! Let’s talk on a no pressure Zoom call about your website project.

    Discover more articles about personal academic and scientist websites

    A guide to making your website

    Jennifer with a backdrop of social media and online presence icons

    Which website host is right for you?

    An open laptop with a photo of Jennifer and a graphic for "http://"

    Benefits to a personal website

    A photo of Jennifer van Alstyne smiling. Behind Jennifer is a desktop screen with website wireframes, sketches of what a website may look like.

    Website inspiration and content ideas

    Man holds a tablet at a coffee shop overlooking the street with the personal website of Jennifer van Alstyne on the screen

    Website pitfalls to avoid

    Woman looking surprised holding her hands over her mouth

    Why you need an academic website

    Hands holding a tablet with a personal website on the screen, specifically a publications page with articles

    Subscribe to The Social Academic blog.

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    Looking for the podcast? Subscribe on Spotify.
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    It’s never too early or too late to update or create a new personal academic website

    I’ve helped academics at most stages of their academic career, from PhD students all the way to retired, emeritus faculty, through my company, The Academic Designer LLC. Who do I work with most? Mid-career and senior academics. People who have a lot to share but don’t have the time to do it themselves for their website.

    I want you to have a stronger online presence for your research, teaching, leadership, and the things you value most as an academic. Your personal academic website is the best way to do that, a space that can grow and adapt with you over time. A website where you can share your legacy, a usable archive of the work you cared about (even when you’ve moved onto another focus or research interest). A website designed for your past, present, and future. And, designed for the people who will visit your website. To help people remember who you are and the research you care about.

    You don’t have to work with me to create the website you dream about. I have resources to share with you that help you do-it-yourself for your personal academic website on The Social Academic blog, podcast, and YouTube channel.

    If you want professional support for a done-for-you personal academic website, I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. I’ve helped busy professors feel confident showing up online since 2018. I’m here to help you too.

    Let’s chat about working together 1-on-1 to build you the website you deserve. Schedule a no pressure Zoom call with me.

    Guides and Advice Articles Personal Website How To’s

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  • Your Personal Website Can Grow Over Time with Interview Guest Jane CoomberSewell

    Your Personal Website Can Grow Over Time with Interview Guest Jane CoomberSewell

    Jane CoomberSewell started her website in graduate school, now it’s time for a re-design

    Meet Jane CoomberSewell, PhD in this featured interview. She’s been a business owner throughout graduate school. Jane recently completed her PhD in Media and Culture Studies, researching English entertainer Joyce Grenfell.

    Jane’s website has always been helpful. Now as an independent researcher, her website has needed to change over time. That’s what this interview focuses on: how personal website can change over time to meet your needs.

    I’m Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to The Social Academic blog, where I share articles and interviews on managing your online presence in Higher Education.

    Whether you’re just creating your website, or need to re-design your outdated website, I hope this interview helps you. Jane and I talk about

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    Meet Jane

    Jennifer: Hello everyone. I am Jennifer van Alstyne. Welcome to the 1st featured interview of 2022. Today. I’m here with Dr. Jane CoomberSewell. We’re going to be talking about how a website can change over time.

    Dr. Jane CoomberSewell created her website when she was in graduate school. And it’s been a journey to figure out exactly what belongs on the website, if the website is going to work long term. Now some changes are being planned, they’re ready to be made. So I thought this is a great subject to share with you.

    Jane, it’s great to talk with you today. Would you mind introducing yourself?

    Jane: I’m Jane. In the networking world in the United Kingdom, I’m now being referred to as Doctor Word Nerd. I run a business with my wife which has two parallel streams. Which is one of the reasons why the website is now websites. Joyce is an autism advocate and specialist.

    Jane’s website was originally shared with Joyce. Now they will each have their own website.

    Joyce’s one of the few people in the United Kingdom who is qualified to mentor autistic people who is herself autistic. While we’ve worked both work words, I am very much moving from 

    • Proofreading
    • Editing
    • Student support

    more and more into being a family and company historian and biographer. Because companies have life cycles and stories to tell just as much as individual’s do.

    Jennifer: That’s right. And websites because they help us tell those stories to a wider number of people, it needs to be changed and updated with time as our needs change. And as the things that we want to share with those people change as well. So I’m really glad that we’re getting to talk today.

    Can I ask, what was your graduate background and what did you do your PhD in?

    Jane: So my, my PhD, it comes under media and cultural studies. But very broadly. It was a 4.5 year–cause I started off part-time and then went full time–adventure into the life of a lady called Joyce Grenfell who is a British entertainer. And really considering her as a sociopolitical commentator, hence the history side of it. And a feminist.

    Was she a feminist? The answer being probably only with the small ‘f.’

    But really looking at the power-knowledge dynamics that she explores in all her sketches which she wrote herself. Now I’m trying to turn that into a book for normal people.

    Jennifer: You want to write a book about that for a general audience it sounds like?

    Jane: Yeah. There’s 2 books at the moment. One is something that be useful to undergraduates, sort of a different spin on feminism. Feminism moves away a bit more from theory into lived feminism.

    And then hopefully something very much more for the general readership.

    I am the only person currently that has ever looked at Grenfell academically. There’s been journalistic approaches and there’s a very good biography by her goddaughter who is also a journalist. But that more general approach I think hasn’t been done yet.

    Jennifer: Fascinating. Well, thanks for sharing that with me about your research.

    Can I ask, is that something that shows up on your website?

    Jane is working toward launching a new version of her personal website

    Joyce: It is. I suppose there’s been 3, no 2.5 versions of the website so far. There was the one that we launched at the very beginning of my grad school days.

    It was fine. Actually, when you look at my website or our websites, they don’t look very much different at all. The colors are the same. The logos haven’t changed.

    We’ve updated the photos cause because you get fat, you get thin, you get fat, you get thin.

    [The websites] They’ve become a lot more focused I think.

    The 2nd version, which was launched about 18 months ago was about giving us a lot more on control our end. It’s when I started blogging.

    I have a love-love-bit-of-hate relationship with blogging. In that I would love to spend more time doing it. And I think I could make it better work better than I am. But you just keep rethinking how you blog all the time.

    I think that’s my big thing, not just with the blogging, but with websites is that it’s not something static. With the 1st version of the website, the major mistake we made was it was static. It didn’t change it. Didn’t have a blog element. And I may be looked at it once every couple of years. And I sent off a note to our web designer. She would charge me £15 to change 2 words on a page.

    The way it is, or the way version 2.5 is that all the actual text and layout I can control myself. It’s only when we want to do more technically advanced things like changing pictures and adding new drop downs that I have to contact my designer for. And that’s the level I’m comfortable with.

    Jennifer: And you like, you like being able to do some of those things.

    Can I ask, did you work with a designer on version 1 of the website?

    Jane: Yes and no. Accessibility was always important to us. I come from a disability services background. That’s what I did when I was a civil servant. For most of the times the civil service disparity employment advisor. I was always aware of making things accessible in terms of scaling font and it still looking good.

    We had a young designer to do our logo for us. And I love our logo. Would I change it? Probably not. I might tweak it a little bit, but I don’t think I’d actually change it.

    But all the text I’ve always written. Partly because I’m quite…Okay. Yeah, let’s be honest…quite arrogant about my use of English language.

    Search engine optimization for academic websites

    Jane: That has its downside. Because of course, search engine optimization (SEO) wise, I dislike…balancing got to get 5 versions of the keyword into the box pick-it-up vs. flow. I find that a tricky balance. And getting all your metatags right. I find all those things I find quite tricky. So sometimes I will get a bit of help on that side of it.

    Jennifer: For some of our readers, they might not know what SEO is. SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s something that people with websites do in order to help more visitors actually find their page. There are specific keywords or phrases that you might go search for on Google.

    If those phrases or keywords match up with the phrases or keywords on Jane’s website, for instance, it will help you find her website.

    Jane is saying that it’s difficult to balance the number of keywords she puts into the copy she writes for her website and actually writing it. I think that’s something that many people with websites struggle with.

    If you’re brand new to websites, this is your very first website, you might not be doing so much SEO work as Jane is. But you do want to have keywords, like your name in there.

    Being able to put your name on your website is so important for helping people find it.

    Subscribe to The Social Academic blog.

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    Jennifer: Thanks, Jane. I appreciate you bringing that up.

    Jane: I think there’s also something really important about keywords in that. Often the keywords we end up having to use to get found and not words we’re comfortable with.

    My wife’s previous business was that she ran a telecoms billing platform. She wanted her website to say ‘value.’ Okay, but people don’t type into Google value. They type in ‘cheap.’ So she had to change this whole page…to ‘cheap’ to get her SEO to work, which is not the image she wanted to portray. But it’s what she needed to get people to then come and have that conversation with her.

    Jennifer: Yeah. I think with academics in particular, keywords might even be a little bit easier than that because they’re looking for a really specific audience. So if your research is on a specific type of microbiology, for instance and you include that phrase in there, it’s pretty likely to, you know, show up in Google.

    It’s definitely harder when you’re looking at a keyword that’s as general as ‘value’ or ‘cheap,’ because there’s only one word. It can make a really big difference in the types of visitors you get.

    My recommendation for anyone reading is try to be really specific when you’re thinking about the keywords that are going on your website.

    Remember, you’re looking for a specific audience. In this case, you may not be needing money that’s tied to that. Maybe you’re just looking for readers for your publication. So there’s lots of options for keywords.

    Jane: Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. And it’s very industry specific. You really have to think through a strategy. Which is why it’s useful to use a designer sometimes.

    Curious about SEO for your personal scientist website? Watch my YouTube live conversation with Patrick Wareing.

    It’s time to update an old or outdated personal website

    Jennifer: Tell me more about what your old website was like. It sounds like you really didn’t like that you couldn’t do update yourself. And that you had to pay for updates. What else didn’t you like about it?

    Jane: I think it was mainly just the staticness of it. It was very difficult and expensive to keep it current as you know. Obviously when you start a business, especially now, you can’t start a business without a website.

    But in those first 2 years–I mean, I think businesses are always evolving and changing–but in those first 2 years, that’s probably when they move most.

    Therefore, if you’ve constantly got to be sending information to somebody else to tweak your content…

    The layout was very current, which meant of course, it very quickly became very dated because just like clothes, just like hairstyles–there’s style, and then there’s fashion.

    Jennifer: Hm.

    Jane: Because I don’t do the graphic aspect of it, I find it very difficult to pinpoint what that is. But it’s things like a Hermès scarf is always stylish. There are other things that are very fashionable for a very short period of time.

    I think there are elements of website design, which I hope we’re getting now, which is much more about a classic style. While still being able to bolt on [things like] on Joyce’s site, she’s got the live transcription so that she can vlog rather than blog which connects in with the fact that she’s dyslexic. When she vlogs it will transcribe it live. Speaking as somebody who does audio transcription, it’s good. It’s still not as good as me sitting there and doing it for her will ever be, but it’s a lot quicker than me doing it. Cause it does it live.

    Jennifer: So live transcription is one of the ways in which your separate websites revisioned the blog that you were, you were both working.

    Jane: Yes.

    Jennifer: So you still blog. And [Joyce] vlogs.

    Jane: Yes. Well, she’s learning to vlog.

    How you blog on your personal website may change

    Jane: It’s one of those things like the blogging. I always feel that I’ve got more to learn and I could always do more of it.

    And as a writer there’s a great discipline in blogging because it keeps you writing and it keeps the ideas flowing.

    Jennifer: Right.

    Jane: Often, I don’t know about you, but the ideas always come at the most inconvenient moment, you know? When you’re in the car I can’t really scribble an idea down. And then unless you have something like Otter AI on your phone so you can give yourself a quick note, the idea has gone.

    Jennifer: I feel like I have a lot of blog ideas. I keep a list of them on my computer. And then I have time to write a lot of them. [Laughs]. That’s my problem.

    Are you in grad school? Consider starting a blog about your research. Read my interview with Dr. Chris Cloney of Gradblogger.

    Jane: When we first relaunched a new [website], we were religious. One of us blogged every single Monday. But we’ve been so busy. I’ve been so busy writing books. I haven’t had the emotional energy, I think, to blog as well.

    Jennifer: That’s interesting. Can you tell me a little more about that? What do you mean by emotional energy to blog?

    Jane: There are lots of different approaches to blogging, aren’t there? You can be your intellectual expert, or you can be a raconteur. Cause it’s all about engaging with your particular audience.

    Because particularly when I’m doing the family biographies, people are telling me things. It’s not supposed to be a therapeutic thing, but often it becomes therapeutic. Often people will tell us things–cause Joyce does the interviewing and I do the writing–very personal and perhaps stuff they haven’t talked about for years.

    So I want my blogs to be quite open to. And I often reflect on something that has happened during the week. If I have been very busy writing, I perhaps haven’t had time to process that myself.

    I don’t feel I can blog about it until there’s a little bit of distance.

    I think the last blog I did was about the phrase ‘self care.’ I really struggle with the phrase ‘self care.’ I think being middle-aged and British…And anything foregrounded with self gets linked just to words like ‘selfish,’ which is not how I feel about it but it’s kind of like a kick reaction. It took me ages to write that blog because I had to kind of balance it out.

    And I think if you blog from the heart, which is what I try and do because I want our customers to know us because we feel very strongly that integrity is something that is impossible to attain, but must be your strongest goal. Sometimes those blogs take a lot of emotional energy.

    When I used to copywrite blogs for another company, you know, I can churn out 500 words on why certain photocopiers are the best on the market. Really I can probably do that in about half an hour.

    And the other thing I find quite time consuming when I’m blogging is sourcing the illustrations. Cause I always try and put in a couple of irrelevant illustrations.

    And I think it was you or somebody in the same meeting we met at who told me about Unsplash.

    Jennifer: Yeah!

    Jane: And that has made that a lot easier, but actually again, we’re back to keywords. Finding the right keywords to get the image you want…

    Jennifer: It can be difficult [chuckles].

    Have a personal website you can control

    Jane: It’s a constant learning thing, isn’t it? I think that’s that’s the biggest message is if you can always have an element of your website that you control. Even if it’s not the techie stuff. Because it’s an absolutely live document. You will never finish your website.

    Jennifer: That’s right. That’s what I teach all of my [website design] clients. The process that I worked through with them, you know, we go through an intensive planning process for their websites to figure out what they actually need.

    Then we sit down and we create the copy for the website or they do it on their own. Once that copy is placed, I actually teach them how to

    • update pages on our website
    • add new pages
    • navigate the backend so that they can find what they’re looking for

    And they get a recording of that so that they can do it themselves afterwards.

    Learn more about working with Jennifer on your personal website.

    I actually don’t do long-term management for websites that kind of nickel and diming that you were talking about changing two words for £15 pounds, I don’t do that. I want to help as many people as possible. That means that I can’t manage websites long-term.

    I really need the academics that I work with to be able to do some of that work themselves. So I think that’s really important having some of that control yourself.

    It sounds like it’s making a really big difference for you on your website.

    Jane and Joyce used to share a website, now they’ll each have their own

    Jane: I also find it much easier to help Joyce. So what we’ve done now is we’ve separated [our websites]. I’ve retained CoomberSewell.co.uk.

    And Joyce now has Autism.CoomberSewell.co.uk.

    We’ve done little things so some of the pages mirror each other totally. And others, obviously her autism pages are a lot more detailed than mine. My pages is like a condensed version on autism, but it links to her website.

    So silly things like I know for a fact at the moment because I’ve spent more time on her website than mine, her price list for proofreading as much more up to date than the one on my website, but I’m the one who does the proofreading!

    In fact I’ve got a list of jobs to do at the weekend. And it’s this knowing that I was going to talk to you. That led to #6, being “Update price list.”

    Do this when preparing to update your old or outdated personal website

    Jennifer: It’s good to actually create a list like you’re doing right now. Like what are the things that I need to change on my website?

    If you are approaching a website update project, I do recommend make a list of all the things that you

    • don’t like about your website
    • do like about your website
    • things that you need to change.

    Then once you have that list, go ahead and schedule it in your agenda.

    Maybe you don’t have time to accomplish all the things on your list right away, but if you space it out over time, you’re going to get those updates made.

    You don’t want to wait 1-2 years between updates on your website. Things get outdated more quickly than you think.

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    Asking a close friend for valuable feedback

    Jane: And that is very, very true. I also think it’s good to have an honest friend. A really honest friend. I had a very amusing phone call today, a video call actually. My longest term friend, we’ve known each other since I was 5 months old, contacted me today on video call.

    She’s just about to launch a professional photography website. The one thing that she’s not good at is photos of herself.

    Jennifer: Right.

    Jane: She said, Jane, choose between these 2 [photos] for me. She showed me 2. And I said, “Oh, dear God. It’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie vs. The Famous Five on crack.

    [Laughter].

    And whilst, perhaps that was a little over blunt, it did help her choose the pictures that she was going to choose. And acknowledge the fact that it’s only going to be a holding picture till she can get some new ones done.

    Jennifer: Yeah. That’s important. And having that honesty and that rapport with you, it helped her move forward in her thinking of it.

    Jane: I think particularly on the visual side. And on the text side, because I mean, as a proofreader, there’s one rule that I have. It’s just proofread to proofread thyself. Because it is almost impossible when you’ve written something and edited it and re-edited it…

    I mean, you know, where I’ve been sort of trying to convert my, my thesis into a book, I am aghast at the mistakes have slipped through as I’ve put it to bed for 6 months and then come back to it.

    Really, did I say that? Was I on said drugs at the time?

    Jennifer: [Laughter]. And you’re a professional, you’re a proofreader.

    Jane: It’s the hardest thing in the world to proofread your own work.

    Jennifer: That’s so true.

    Jane: So having a trusted friend who is good at being straight, but also kind is really, really important.

    I think in business, we get very hooked up on should I be paying for this? Should I be paying for that? 99.9% of the time, I would say, Yes. But occasionally it’s okay, especially if it’s just a quick check to ask a friend for a favor because this guarantee there’s a bit of skills barter that can go on.

    Jennifer: I think so. That I explain it to my clients is that your friend, they love you and they care about you. They’re actually going to be reading and examining your website with greater depth than your average visitor.

    They’re going to stay on it longer.

    They’re going to read into it more, try to understand it more so that they can talk with you about it. And that’s more than your average website visitor is doing.

    If your friend is telling you that something’s

    • Confusing
    • Distracting
    • That it shouldn’t be there

    well that’s something that you should listen to because other people aren’t even going to give you as much time or attention as a friend is. So it’s worth listening to what they have to say.

    You don’t have to, you don’t have to respond to it. You know, you don’t have to do it, but getting that opinion is so helpful.

    Do it while you remember (or write it down so you don’t forget)

    Jane: And I think, I think also we’ve talked about planning and making sure we prioritize, but I think there’s also some times merit in striking while the iron is hot as well.

    I mean a year ago you said to me, “Jane, you need to make more of the fact that your ‘bilingual.’” Do you remember this conversation? It was, it was a, it was a comment about my proofreading, the fact that I’m being of Canadian heritage, that I can proofread in

    • Canadian English
    • American English
    • English English

    You said you need to make that much clearer on your website and you should blog about it. I still haven’t done it because I didn’t do it in that moment. And if I had done, it would have been very much more impactful.

    I am going to get round to it. I am going to blog on it, but I don’t think it will be as good a blog as if I’d done it within 24 hours.

    Jennifer: Oh, I don’t know that that’s the case. It’s possible that even that you’re thinking about it for the last year is going to add even just one sentence to that blog that is emotionally in a better space now than it would have been then.

    So you never know that. I think it’s totally going to be awesome when you do it now.

    Jane: Interestingly though, I have remembered to use the phrase when I’ve been talking to people.

    Jennifer: Wonderful.

    Jane: And I think I’ve pretty much got every American PhD student at my university now sending me their theses for proofreading.

    Jennifer: I love that. I love that. I remember that conversation so well, and you were telling me about all the amazing things you were doing. And I was like, oh, I just read your website and it didn’t say that. Like, that was so awesome how you have a skill that really is going to help people that are English language speakers bet the proofreading that they need.

    I also think that the way that you go about updating your website to meet your needs is so awesome. It sounds like version 1 and version 2 were both joint websites. And now version 2.5 is like separating that a little bit.

    But what it does is it gives you each more space. So it’s like your website is growing. It’s like your needs are growing, your website’s growing and all of that copy, all of the things that you know, can be updated, hey–everything gets updated with time. That makes sense.

    Jane: I think it also provides a lot of clarity. We were trying to be all things to all people. And although we work together and our sides of the business compliment each other. They’re not the same.

    Joyce, certainly couldn’t do what I do. I know, I don’t have the patience, I think, to do what she does.

    At the moment, they’re very similar. I’ve done a way updates, but I think over time as she grows the vlogging side of it…I’m teaching her how to edit. It’s going to be hysterical cause she’s even more of a Luddite than I am…And as I continue to blog, I think it will give me the room.

    How Jane shared her thesis and publications on her personal website

    Jane: One of the other things I did based off the conversation you had with me is that I changed one of the pages entirely. You said to me earlier, I’ve just remembered this, you know, is your thesis on your website?

    Well, I took a sidebar. And that now has every journal article every, every time I’ve contributed to a podcast. It’s all on there. There’s a publication sidebar. So you don’t even have to go to a separate page for it.

    If you’re interested in having me write a biography for you. You can get a sample of my writing by clicking on the sidebar. It was actually me being tight because I didn’t want to pay to have another page created. Actually it works really well.

    Jennifer: Well I love that innovation can cause you to adapt. It sounds like you didn’t want to pay for another page so you needed to find another solution and that creative solution ended up working out for you.

    That’s what websites are all about: experimenting to see what’s going to work well for you long term. And if it doesn’t, well, that’s something that needs to be changed.

    I think that adapting with your website, making room for it to grow, it’s not going to happen all at once.

    Jane: Right.

    Your website will change, and that’s a good thing

    Jennifer: You’ve had now 2.5 versions of this website, and you can still see it changing in the future. So for anyone who’s reading this interview, I definitely want to let you know that your website, it’s probably is going to grow or change over time.

    Even if he just have a simple 1-page website that has your bio and a photo on it. Those elements are going to change. Your bio will be updated over time. Your photo. You’re going to want to change that over time so that it looks like you.

    I think that being open to that is such a great quality to have when you’re building a website. And when you’re approaching a big update.

    Jane, I just want to thank you so much for your candor in talking about how that website change has been for you.

    What’s it like to work with multiple designers on your website over the years?

    Jennifer: I want to ask a little bit more about what it’s like to work with someone since you worked with, it sounds like multiple designers on your website.

    Jane: Two, yeah. So we had our original website designer. There were some design elements that came from other people, but as such, we had our original website designer and then we’ve got our current website designer.

    And I think there’s something really important to say about I current website designer, not so much about his technical skills as a designer, although they’re very strong. It’s about personality matching. You know, particularly for, for joy as an autistic.

    Choosing a website designer

    Her technical skills are very different from mine. Actually, they’re great, but she worries about them. And so we needed a designer who got how you talk to this person on the spectrum. Because actually once you’ve met one person on the spectrum, you’ve met one person on spectrum.

    A lot of the problems with our previous version is that I’m not convinced our previous designer was quite on particularly Joyce’s wavelength.

    From that point of view, I would encourage people that if you feel like somebody is talking a load of jargon and your constantly running to catch up, they’re possibly not the right designer for you.

    Jennifer: Oooh, that’s so important. So picking a designer is not just about budget. It’s not just about location or what their portfolio is. It’s also about how they get along with you and how well you communicate with each other.

    Jane: I mean after all. I think we both know that you can go and buy a product. You could go buy website product. Most of my Canadian and American friends tend to use SquareSpace. If they’re building it from scratch and over here, it will be something like GoDaddy. But ultimately if you’re going to invest in that tailored service…People buy people. They don’t buy a product. They buy people. So get to know your designer.

    I am fortunate in that our designer is the partner of a friend of ours. And he will come and train Joyce in exchange for a handmade pizza. But, from that point of view, it is worth spending the time not just getting quotes, not just finding out what particular language they’re skilled in, or design they’re skilled in…

    You know, have a coffee with them if you can in these days of masks. Take your time. It might not be a big investments in dollars or pounds, but it’s a big investment in terms of your business. Or your future in terms of the academic reputation that you want.

    So take your time. Yes, you can change later on. Because we’ve been talking about keeping the websites updated, constantly.

    But actually, if you’re going to move that whole relationship to another designer, it is a bit of a hassle. You know, getting them to shift domain names from one host to another, it’s not a big job, but it is a hasley job. So take your time picking your person.

    Jennifer: Oh, well, wonderful advice. You know, meeting someone in advance can make a whole difference in how you understand them. Seeing their facial expressions, seeing how they respond to questions or how they ask questions of you can make a big difference for people’s comfort levels.

    Thank you so much for sharing that with me.

    Jane’s new article on Sara Paretsky’s Guardian Angel

    Jennifer: Speaking of academic reputation, you were telling me about a new article that you have out about your favorite lockdown read. Tell me a little bit more about that.

    Jane: Oh, that was wonderful. I think that again is something I’ve learned about academia this year. I’ve written or half written or even sent off terribly intellectually worthy articles. And they tend to fall over.

    I’m often always telling my students, don’t overcomplicate things. Go with your first instinct. Build on your first instinct. If you’ve made the right choices, it will flow.

    I just happened to see this call for paper and I drafted out this article in about 40 minutes.

    Jennifer: Pretty quickly.

    Jane: It didn’t even have a single edit on it. Because it was passionate. I’m probably underselling my skills here because that’s what I do.

    It’s a piece in the South Central Review. They did a lockdown special. I think they chose 25 articles in the end. They ask people to write on their favorite lockdown re-read. I chose a book by Sara Paretsky.

    Jane: To be honest, I could have chosen any book by Sara Paretsky because I love them all. It was a joy to write, and I think that’s what comes through in the reading of it.

    My major message from it was about independent researchers. I find Paretsky a very brave writer. She’s always gone with the flow and she’s changed publishers when she’s needed to. If she believes in something, she goes for it. Even if people tell her not to.

    Read “A Favourite Among Favourites: Sara Paretsky’s Guardian Angel” by Jane CoomberSewell in the South Central Review from John Hopkins University Press, volume 38, numbers 2-3 (2021).

    And I think to be an independent researcher, which is what I am, and to an extent what you are…

    Jennifer: That’s right.

    Jane: …is a brave place to be. And I think academia needs to take us a little bit more seriously. Because actually for us to stick our necks out with no institution backing us, with no access to other funding. You know, there used to be this attitude and I think there still is this attitude that if you’re not sponsored, you can’t be any good. But actually I think it’s the other way round. I think if, if you survive without an institution backing you or without permanent post, you are brave. You actually you’re showing your metal.

    I was self-funded through my PhD. You don’t set out to spend £25,000+ unless you’re sure you can produce the goods or at least you’re brave enough to find out.

    I think that was my big message in this article is academic world, you’ve really got to stop underestimating and putting barriers in the way of us independent researchers.

    I’m doing a piece of research next week which I feel rushed on because it’s the last piece I was able to get ethical approval on before I finished my PhD.

    I have more options in the arts than my wife does in the sciences because there are publications who will take me without being without ethical approval as long as I’ve gone through my own kind of ethical quality assurance.

    But stop putting barriers in the way of us independents, because we’ve got plenty to say. Because we’re independent. Sometimes we can do things that you can’t.

    Jennifer: I think that academia does need to listen up to independent researchers and where they’re at because so many PhD students that are graduating these days will end up as independent researchers in some way or another.

    There are not enough teaching positions to go around at the university level. And the adjunctification of the university is prolific. And it’s and it’s not changing. It’s not going to go down. I mean, I hope it does, but that’s not what the trends are saying.

    We do need to have more conversations like this. We do need to talk about things like open access and journals accepting independent researchers and appreciating the contributions that they make unfunded, frankly.

    I’m so glad that this kind of lockdown reread inspired you to just kind of jump into a new article and get it out into the world.

    Which book did you choose by the way?

    Jane: I chose Guardian Angel (1992). As I say, I could have chosen any. There was another one I didn’t choose because I realized the specific remit was what’s your favorite re-read? I could have chosen one of the others.

    But I realized it was my favorite purely because I’d won my copy in competition.

    And bless her, Sara Paretsky had posted to me herself. And being daft enough bless her—sorry, Sara—to leave her home address on the envelope.

    Which I promise you faithfully, Sara I’m not going to come and stalk you. But I do still have the old envelope and it is very carefully preserved.

    Jennifer: That’s sweet. It meant a lot to you. And that’s why you felt so strongly about the book.

    Well, the people who ran the organization or the competition for that book are like, “Yes! Our competition really inspired someone to love this book.”

    Jane: I really hope. Yes, I really hope so.

    Jennifer: Well, Jane, thank you so much for our conversation today. I have really loved talking with you about your website and how it’s changed throughout the years.

    Is there anything else that you’d like to add before we wrap up?

    Jane: No. I think I would just, just underline: your website is never finished and that’s okay.

    Jennifer: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Jane! We’ll see you again in 2022. Bye, bye.

    Jane: Lovely. Thank you for inviting me, you take good care.

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    Bio for Jane CoomberSewell, PhD

    Jane CoomberSewell, PhD

    Having had a previous incarnation as a Civil Servant and public sector manager, Jane CoomberSewell (@JaneCoSe) is an independent researcher/biographer based in Kent, South East England. Jane completed her Doctorate in 2020, with a thesis re-examining the socio-political contributions of monologuist and entertainer Joyce Grenfell. Jane’s research interests include reception theory and female-led detective fiction.

    Jane is an advocate for change in the way independent researchers are viewed by the establishment, believing that those who succeed in publication without the support of a University may be some of the strongest researchers in their field, certainly in terms of determination. When not working on one of the several biographies and other research projects she has under way at the moment, Jane can be found walking with her wife Joyce, an autism advocate or working in the garden to progress the couple’s drive for self-sufficiency. This may or may not include having lively conversations with her chickens about the history podcasts she plays to them.

    Connect with Jane on LinkedIn.
    Visit Jane’s website.

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