A quick and easy way to communicate your science online and grow your own profile is to create your own website or blog.
A website allows you to showcase your work as a researcher and share what you care about with others. A blog allows you to write longer form content than you would on social media posts, which can be useful for science communication.
Some examples of websites maintained by scientists and researchers are:
- Dr. Zoe Todd, Fish Philosophy (link): Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Carleton University
- This Lab Mayfly (link): ECCC research lab webpage
- Monica Granados (link): Food Web Ecologist, Policy Analyst and Open Science Advocate
Websites are not difficult to set up, and there are a few different tools that you can use to make the creation of your website easy. Most of these tools will allow you the option of hosting a blog on your site. The following tools can help you to easily create a website with or without a blog:
- WordPress (link) is a common format used by many people, which means there are an abundance of resources available on YouTube and by Google search to help you customize your site. WordPress also allows you to install a custom theme to get a unique look on your site. Themes are relatively cheap to purchase, and some come with a limited amount of tech support.
- Wix (link) is a website builder with templates and responsive design built in, meaning it works equally well on mobile or regular computers. Its basic plan is free, but with a monthly fee, you can connect to your own domain name and use other features that allow you to do more with your site.
- Squarespace (link) is another website builder with templates and responsive design built in. It has no free plan, but the cost of the basic personal plan is quite reasonable.
Food For Thought: If you’re setting up a website, and want a custom domain name like the websites shown above, you’ll need to pay for domain name registration and web hosting. The service providers above will help you with both of those tasks, but you can also go to Canadian Domain Name Services (link) to register a .ca domain name. And you can check out this article on the UBC student blog for reviews of web hosting services: Top Canadia Web Hosting Reviews 2019 (link).
Once you have a website set up, or even without one, you can set up a blog. Blogs are frequently updated spaces which allow you to write a longer form article than you would normally see on social media. The next section will discuss blogs and blogging best practices.