Starting a website doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. In fact, there are great website builders which are free to low cost AND simple to use. In this post, I’ll discuss my top 3 free website builders for personal academic websites.
Owlstown
Owlstown is a website builder made by an academic for academics. The builder is simple – It’s like filling in the blanks: there are sections for an about you section, contact info, CV, publications, projects, etc. By using this format, you’ll even get automatic formatted citations in APA, Chicago/Turabian, MLA, for you.
You also don’t have to worry about designing your website.You can select themes designed specifically for Ph.D. students, post-docs, professors, and labs. Choose your favorite color and font and you’re good to go! You can also add your own graphics or images to give it some more personality.
Owlstown also makes your academic content more discoverable. When you add or update content to your academic website, it is automatically shared to the Owlstown Community. Owlstown makes SEO settings more easy, so your webpages appear with proper titles and descriptions. You can also long-form blogging on Owlstown, although it’s not as full-featured as WordPress yet. Categorization, tagging, RSS feeds are in the works.
Owlstown is a good fit if you want a simple and quick website building experience. You can start with a free plan, or upgrade to add your own domain name for only $2/month. It is an up and coming platform, so go and secure your URL ASAP!
Google Sites
Google Sites is a free app that you can access through Google Drive. Google Sites is a good fit for you if you need a simple website that only needs occasional updates. You can create your own website for free.
If you purchase your domain name through Google Domains, then you can also connect it easily through the Google Sites app. You can also integrate most Google apps such as Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Youtube onto Google Sites.
Google Sites has expanded its customization options to include more color options and fonts since it first started. You can also add your own graphics or images to give it more of your personality.
However, it’s not the best for blogging. You can create individual pages for “blog posts,” but organizing it would be more work than if you used content management systems like WordPress.
WordPress.com
First, I want to clarify that there are two different WordPresses – free WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.org. You can read about the differences here.
WordPress is a content management system (CMS), which is makes it easy to organize and sort your website content, like blog posts. It’s a good fit for you if you’re interested in starting your blogging journey.
I started my first website on WordPress.com (brittanytrinh.wordpress.com, which is now inactive.) At the time, I was not satisfied with their interface, and moved my website to self-hosted WordPress.org. However, their interface is more user-friendly now, and they have many free themes to choose from, so you can spend less time designing it.
WordPress.com has a free plan to start, but you’ll need to upgrade to add your domain name, which starts at $4/month. For certain plugins, you upgrade to use the plugins, which can get expensive. If you want to use these plugins, then self-hosted WordPress.org may be for you instead (but there’s a whole other host of issues with that – pun intended!).
Final Thoughts
If you’re just starting out with your website, any of these free website builders will do. Just choose one and start! If you can’t decide, I recommend starting with Owlstown first. After a few months, reevaluate to see if you want something different.
Ultimately, the website builder does not matter as much as your website content. That’s why it’s important to have a website strategy. Get started on your personal academic website by downloading the Website Starter Kit.