Overview
Your online presence usually has three layers: identifier and bibliographic profiles (ORCID, Google Scholar, Scopus), a personal or departmental website, and a professional networking profile such as LinkedIn. Each serves a different reader. Bibliographic profiles prove your record; a website explains your research and teaching in your own words; LinkedIn connects you to people and makes your skills legible outside academia.
This service focuses on the second and third layers — the narrative profiles. We write or edit headlines, summaries and page content with you, recommend structure, and make sure details match your CV. For setting up, merging or correcting ORCID, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science profiles, see our researcher profile setup service; the two are often combined.
Content is always yours and approved by you. We do not post on your behalf, buy followers or engagement, or create accounts in your name.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Doctoral candidates and postdocs about to enter the academic job market
- Faculty whose departmental page is outdated or minimal
- Researchers considering industry, policy or nonprofit roles who need a LinkedIn profile that recruiters understand
- Academics building a public profile for outreach, consulting or media work
Common problems we help with
- Your LinkedIn headline says "PhD Candidate at University X" and nothing about what you can do
- Your website has not been updated since your master's degree
- Your publications appear differently on your site, CV and Google Scholar
- You are unsure what to put on a personal academic website or which platform to use
- You want your profiles to serve both academic and non-academic audiences
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- LinkedIn headline, About section, experience entries and skills written or edited with you
- Framing for academic, industry or dual-track audiences
- Personal academic website plan: pages, navigation and content for research, publications, teaching, CV and contact
- Research summary written for a non-specialist reader
- Consistency check between website, LinkedIn, CV and bibliographic profiles
- Cross-linking plan: ORCID iD, Google Scholar, institutional page, code repositories and datasets
- Advice on professional photographs, contact details and privacy settings
Not included
- Building, hosting or maintaining the website itself (we can advise on platform choice and structure)
- Posting, messaging or networking on your behalf
- Buying followers, endorsements or engagement, or any misleading profile claims
- Search ranking promises for your name
What you receive
- LinkedIn content pack
- Headline options, an edited About section, rewritten experience entries and a prioritized skills list, ready to paste.
- Website content plan
- A page map with draft or edited copy for your home, research, publications, teaching and contact pages.
- Consistency checklist
- A table comparing names, titles, dates and publication details across your profiles, with fixes listed.
How it works
Audit
We review your current profiles and search results for your name, and discuss your goals and audiences.
Plan
We agree which profiles to prioritize and the message each should carry.
Draft and edit
We draft or edit content with you; you approve everything.
Link and check
We provide a cross-linking plan and a final consistency check after you publish.
Platforms and elements we work on
- Headline, About, Experience, Skills and Featured sections, written to show methods and outcomes in terms readers outside academia recognize.
- Personal academic website
- Common choices include static site generators and templates (for example Quarto, Hugo or Jekyll-based academic themes), website builders, or institutional pages. We advise on structure and content; you choose the platform.
- Institutional profile pages
- Concise research summaries and current details within your university's template.
- ORCID and Google Scholar links
- Linking to your ORCID iD and Google Scholar profile lets readers verify your record; setup and clean-up are handled in our researcher profiles service.
- Code and data links
- GitHub, OSF or Zenodo links where you share software and data, presented as research outputs.
What a personal academic website should include
A good academic site answers four questions quickly: who you are, what you research, what you have produced and how to contact you. A short home page with a photo and two or three sentences on your research, a research page with plain-language project summaries, a publications page with links to open versions where permitted, a teaching page, and a downloadable CV cover most needs.
- Put your job market paper or current project on the home page during a search
- Link to preprints or accepted manuscripts only where publisher policies allow
- Date the CV and update the site when your status changes
LinkedIn for academics
LinkedIn is read mainly by people outside your subfield — recruiters, industry researchers, policy teams. A headline that names your expertise and methods ("Health economist | causal inference, R, health policy evaluation") works better than a job title alone. Experience entries should describe projects and outcomes, not just positions. For academic-only audiences, a lighter profile that matches your CV is often enough.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Illustrative LinkedIn headline and About revision
A fictional neuroscience postdoc exploring both academic and data science roles has the headline "Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Somewhere."
Revised headline
Neuroscientist | Python, signal processing & machine learning on large neural datasets | Open to research and data science roles
About section direction
Opening: what you do and for whom. Middle: two projects with methods and outcomes (for example, a pipeline that reduced analysis time for a lab of twelve). Close: what you are looking for and how to contact you.
Illustrative example with an invented researcher and details.
What you’ll need to provide
- Links to existing profiles and your website, if any
- Your current CV
- Your goals: academic posts, industry roles, public engagement or a mix
- Any institutional web or branding guidelines you must follow
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Number of profiles and pages
- Whether content is edited or drafted from notes
- Single versus dual (academic and industry) audience framing
Turnaround depends on
- Timing relative to applications or job market season
- How quickly you can supply materials and approve drafts
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Do I really need a personal academic website?
Not always, but it helps on the job market, when your departmental page is limited, or when you work across fields. A simple, current site is better than an elaborate outdated one.
Will you build my website?
We focus on content and structure. We can advise on platforms, but building, hosting and maintaining the site are outside this service.
Can you post on LinkedIn for me?
No. We help you write profile content and plan posts if you wish, but you publish and interact under your own name.
How is this different from your researcher profiles service?
Researcher profiles covers identifier and bibliographic profiles such as ORCID, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science. This service covers narrative profiles — LinkedIn and websites. Many clients combine both.
Should my LinkedIn match my academic CV exactly?
Dates, titles and facts should match. Emphasis can differ: LinkedIn usually highlights skills and outcomes for broader audiences, while the CV lists your record comprehensively.