What do I need to learn while creating my personal academic website?

Online presence can be as vital as your published work. A personal academic website acts as a central portfolio showcasing your scholarly contributions, providing a platform to engage with peers, students, and the wider public. Whether you're looking to elevate your professional profile, disseminate research findings, or connect with global academic communities, your website is a crucial tool in achieving these objectives.

This post serves as a comprehensive guide on what to learn when creating your personal academic website on your own. From the fundamentals of web design to the final touches of website maintenance, we've covered the essential spectrum of knowledge required for an impactful online presence. You will find insights into:

Our purpose is not to transform you into a web developer or designer—rather, it is to demystify the process of website creation and provide you with the foundation you need to represent yourself authentically and professionally in the digital space.

1. Understanding the Basics of Web Design

To craft a personal academic website that effectively represents your professional and scholarly identity, you'll need to delve into the following critical areas of web design:

Web Design Concepts

An understanding of the core principles of web design is essential. This involves comprehending how to structure a site, implement visual hierarchies, and strategically use design elements to showcase academic content compellingly.

User-friendly Interface

Gain insights into designing a site that centers on the user. This includes creating intuitive navigation and a layout that facilitates users in accessing desired information with minimal effort and maximum efficiency.

Layout, Color, Typography

The layout must be thoughtfully structured, balancing aesthetics and functionality. Color has the power to draw attention and affect mood, while typography dictates the legibility and tone of the textual content on your site.

Responsive Design

With an array of devices used to browse the web, knowledge of responsive design principles is mandatory. It ensures your website is accessible and maintains usability, irrespective of the device's screen size or resolution.

Readability

Effective communication is at the heart of any academic website. Focusing on the readability of content—using clear headings, bullet points, and concise language—is pivotal in making academic work accessible and understandable.

By acquainting yourself with these facets of web design, you're not necessarily aiming to be a design expert but rather ensuring you have a reliable foundation to present your academic work in the digital realm effectively.

2. Domain Registration and Hosting

Selecting a domain and deciding on a hosting service are foundational steps in creating a personal academic website. Here's what you need to know:

Registering a Domain and Managing the Configurations

Your domain name is your digital address, and it should ideally reflect your name or the essence of your academic brand. Registering a domain requires searching for an available name and going through a domain registrar to purchase it. Once acquired, managing the domain configurations involves directing it to your hosting server and setting up any necessary redirects or subdomains.

Hosting Options

Choosing a hosting service is about finding the right balance of costs, reliability, and features. Hosting can range from shared services, which are cost-effective, to more expensive dedicated servers. For an academic website you’ll most probably need a inexpensive hosting. Maybe you chose to use a CMS like WordPress, in those cases there are also hosting services with dedicated support for WordPress.

Considerations for Privacy and Online Security

The online realm is fraught with security risks. When setting up your website, privacy and security should never be an afterthought. Privacy considerations might include opting for a private domain registration to protect your personal information. For online security, look for hosting services that offer robust protection measures such as SSL certificates, regular backups, and security protocols to defend against cyber threats.

Understanding these components of domain registration and hosting will help ensure that your academic website is not only visible but also secure and reliable.

3. Get to Know Content Management Systems (CMS) and Website Builders

When constructing your academic website, choosing the right tool for the job is crucial:

Learning What a CMS Is and What Are the Popular CMSs

A Content Management System (CMS) is software designed to create, edit, organize, and publish digital content. For academics, popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal offer flexible and diverse features which can support a range of content types, from articles and blogs to multimedia galleries. Each CMS has its unique advantages and community, so exploring their ecosystems can help decide which suits your needs best.

Study Pros and Cons of Using Website Builders Like Wix, Squarespace, or Google Sites

For those less inclined towards technical website setup, website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, or Google Sites present a user-friendly alternative. Website builders typically offer drag-and-drop interfaces for easy design and content updates. While they provide convenience and ease of use, they may lack the customization depth that a CMS offers. Balancing the pros and cons of these tools is key, especially in considering long-term flexibility and control over your site.

Study What Factors to Consider for an Academic Website

The choice between a CMS and a website builder for an academic website will often hinge on a set of factors: the level of customization required, the complexity of content, the desired functionality (such as the need for specific plugins or integrations), budget constraints, and the time and resources available for website maintenance and updates. Understanding these factors will guide you in selecting the most appropriate platform to represent your academic pursuits effectively.

A well-organized website ensures that visitors can easily find the information they need, enhancing their experience and your reputation.

Learn How to Plan Your Website’s Architecture

The architecture of your website forms the backbone of how content is structured and delivered. Academic websites often have several layers of content, from personal biographies and research summaries to publication lists and teaching materials. Learning how to categorize and structure these layers in a logical hierarchy is a critical step. This might involve understanding the creation of main categories, subcategories, and how each piece of content fits within this framework.

Once your site's architecture is planned, the next step is to ensure visitors can navigate through it without confusion. Intuitive navigation means menus and links are placed where users expect them to be, are clearly labeled, and follow a logical progression. This can include a prominently placed navigation bar, a sidebar for subsections, and a footer with additional links. Familiarize yourself with best practices in navigation design, such as limiting the number of menu items to avoid overwhelming users and ensuring that the navigation remains consistent throughout the site.

5. Creating Academic Content

For academics looking to build their online presence, understanding how to craft and present content on their website is essential:

Learn How to Identify the Type of Content to Showcase

Begin by determining which aspects of your professional and scholarly identity you wish to highlight online. Publications, curricula vitae (CVs), teaching portfolios, research summaries, and other materials form the core of academic content. Knowing what to showcase involves assessing which elements are most representative of your academic contributions and how they can be organized to tell your professional story.

Learn the Best Practices for Presenting Your Work

Effective presentation of your academic work online requires an understanding of web content best practices. Learn how to use clear headings, concise descriptions, and organized layouts to make content accessible and engaging. Explore strategies for citing work, embedding publication links, and structuring information to cater to both expert and lay audiences.

Learn How to Utilize Multimedia

Multimedia elements, such as images, videos, and podcasts, can significantly enhance the narrative of your academic achievements and research findings. Develop skills in selecting appropriate multimedia content that complements textual information, understand basic principles of visual and auditory media design, and learn the technical aspects of embedding and hosting these files on your website for optimal performance.

6. SEO for Academic Websites

For scholars and academics, making their work easily discoverable on the web is as important as publishing it. Here's how to get started with SEO for your academic website:

Learn Basics of Search Engine Optimization

A fundamental understanding of SEO principles can significantly increase the visibility of your academic content online. Begin by learning how search engines index and rank pages. Key components include researching relevant keywords, crafting meta titles and descriptions, and optimizing header tags and content for these keywords without compromising the quality and integrity of your work. Discover how both on-page and off-page SEO strategies can drive traffic to your academic site.

Learn Schema and Structured Data

Schema markup and structured data are powerful tools for SEO that help search engines understand the context of your content, leading to richer search results. For an academic website, utilizing schemas like 'ScholarlyArticle', 'Person', or 'EducationalOrganization' can enhance the way your publications and profile appear in search. Learn how to implement this markup on your website to signal search engines about the nature of your academic content, potentially leading to improved visibility and higher click-through rates.

7. Website Performance

Ensuring your academic website performs optimally is vital for maintaining a professional image and providing a positive user experience.

Learn the Importance of a Performant Website

Fast and responsive websites keep visitors engaged. High performance lowers bounce rates and potentially improves your site's SEO ranking. Understanding how performance impacts user satisfaction and accessibility is important. Moreover, the academic community values efficiency and precision; a high-performing website reflects these qualities.

Learn About Web Vitals

Web Vitals is an initiative by Google to provide unified guidance for quality signals that are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web. Core Web Vitals are a subset of these and measure dimensions of web usability such as load time, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads. Learning about these metrics, such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), is crucial to grasp the 'health' of your site.

Learn to Diagnose Your Slow Website

Identifying the causes of a slow website can be complex, but there are tools at your disposal to make this task manageable. Learning how to use resources like Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, and WebPageTest can help you analyze your site’s performance and pinpoint problems. From optimizing images to reducing server response times, these tools offer actionable feedback that you can use to improve your site's loading time and overall performance.

8. Analytics and Tracking Progress

The deployment of an academic website is the beginning—not the end—of your online branding journey. Learning about web analytics and interpreting visitor data will guide you in enhancing your site's performance and impact over time.

Learn about Website Analytics

Website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, are essential for understanding how visitors interact with your site. Familiarize yourself with setting up an analytics account and integrating it with your website. Learn about key metrics like page views, session duration, bounce rate, and traffic sources. These tools not only track how many people visit your site but can also reveal patterns in how users navigate through it.

Learn How to Interpret Visitor Data

Data becomes valuable when you can interpret it to extract meaningful insights. Get to know how to read analytics reports and dashboards, discovering what the various numbers and graphs mean for your website's performance.

Learn How to Use Insights to Improve Your Website

Once you've got a grip on the data, the next step is leveraging it to make informed adjustments to your site. Analyzing visitor trends can help you identify what content resonates with your audience and what might need tweaking for better engagement.

9. Accessibility and Compliance

Creating an inclusive academic website means ensuring it can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities, and that it adheres to legal standards.

Learn Basics of Accessibility

Gaining knowledge in web accessibility principles is important to ensure that your academic content is reachable and usable by individuals with diverse abilities. Familiarize yourself with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which outline how to make web content more accessible to people with impairments such as visual, auditory, physical, or cognitive disabilities. Learning the basics includes understanding how to use alternative text for images, ensuring keyboard navigation is possible, and providing transcripts for audio and video content.

Learn About Legal Requirements

In addition to moral imperatives, there are often legal requirements for website accessibility. This could involve complying with laws and regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the U.S. or other similar legislation globally. Understanding these requirements helps prevent legal repercussions and promotes an ethical online presence. It's also essential to familiarize yourself with any institution-specific policies that may affect how you present content online.

10. Maintaining and Updating Your Website

A well-maintained academic website is essential for sustaining your professional presence and ensuring your content remains relevant and accessible.

Learn How to Maintain Your Content

Regularly refreshing your website's content keeps it current and engaging. You'll need to learn how to update publications, CVs, and project descriptions, as well as how to remove or archive outdated materials. Learning content maintenance involves both the practical aspects of making updates and the strategic approach to content lifecycle management.

Learn How to Keep Your Website Running Long-term

For the longevity of your site, you must understand the ins and outs of technical maintenance. This includes ensuring software and plugins are up to date, monitoring site speed, and troubleshooting issues as they arise. Recognizing the importance of consistent user experience and website performance monitoring is key to a professional and functional academic website that stands the test of time.

Learn About Backup, Exports, and Disaster Recovery

Implementing a strategy for backups and exports is crucial. Learn how to schedule regular backups, store them securely, and understand how to restore your site from a backup if necessary. This knowledge is your safety net against technical mishaps and cyber threats, ensuring you can recover your academic portfolio should the unexpected occur.

Conclusion

Creating a personal academic website includes many decisions making tasks, from choosing a domain name to selecting a CMS, structuring content, and optimizing for search engines. Generic website builders like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress can help you get started quickly, but they can get you only so far. There are still many concepts you need to learn, be aware of, and understand to build a successful academic website. That's why on Nature's post, the author says that it would take 2 to 4 weeks to set up a website¹.

Faculty.bio tries to abstract away much more of the complexity of creating a personal academic website. We provide a platform that is specifically designed for academics and researchers. We take care of the hosting, the domain, the design, the content, the SEO, the performance, the accessibility, and the compliance. We provide a platform that is easy to use, and that is designed to help you create a professional academic website in hours, not weeks.

References:

Nature: Build-your-own website for scientists ↩