The new PI’s lab website checklist: what to set up in your first month

The first months as a principal investigator are a blur of hiring, ordering equipment, teaching and grant deadlines. A lab website can feel like something for later. It isn't: the students you most want to recruit will look you up before they write to you, and a new lab with no web presence looks like a lab that might not exist next year.

The good news is that a first lab website does not need to be big. It needs to be clear, current and easy to grow. Here is what to set up, roughly in order.

Week one: the pages that do the recruiting

1. A home page that says what the lab will do. One or two sentences in plain language, an image, and your name, department and university. "We study how bacteria decide when to divide" beats a list of techniques.

2. A PI page. Your photo, a short biography, previous positions, a few selected papers from your postdoc and PhD, and links to ORCID and Google Scholar. Prospective students are joining you; make it easy to see who you are. Our guide to writing lab member bios has templates for the PI bio too.

3. A "Join us" page. This is the most important page of a new lab. Say what positions you have or expect (PhD, postdoc, technician, undergraduate projects), what you look for, and exactly how to apply. See how to write a Join the lab page that attracts students.

4. A research page. Two to four research directions, each with a paragraph and a figure. It's fine to describe what you will study. Our guide on how to write your lab's research page shows how.

5. Contact. Your email, office, the building, and a map.

What to write when you have no papers yet

A new lab's publication list is your own work so far. List your PhD and postdoc papers under the lab's publications page and say so ("Publications from the PI's previous work"). As the lab's first papers appear, they slot in on top. If you use a tool that updates publications automatically from ORCID and PubMed, the list will keep itself current from day one.

The same goes for people. A people page with only the PI is fine for a few months; add students as they join, and include rotation students and undergraduates — they make a new lab look lively.

Month one: make it easy to keep current

• Use a domain that moves with you. A university subdomain can disappear when you change institutions; your own domain or a builder address stays. See university website vs your own lab domain.
• Let members edit their own profiles. The PI should not be the bottleneck for every bio update.
• Post news. First grant, first student, first paper, new equipment. A news item every month or two signals an active lab to visitors and to Google.
• Check how you appear on Google. Search your lab's name and your own; our guide on making your lab website show up on Google covers the basics.

Choosing how to build it

Your options are your university's CMS, a general builder (Google Sites, WordPress, Squarespace), a static site generator such as Hugo, or a builder made for labs. We compare them in the best website builders for research labs, with deeper looks at Hugo Academic, Google Sites and WordPress.

Labsite was built for exactly this moment: the lab's pages are there from the start, publications update themselves, every member can edit their own profile, and the Join us page comes with an application form and inbox. Browse the templates or start free — most new labs are online the same afternoon.

The checklist

• Home page with a one-sentence description of the lab
• PI page with photo, bio, positions, selected papers, ORCID and Scholar links
• Join us page with positions, what you look for and how to apply
• Research page with two to four directions
• Contact with email, address and map
• Publications (your previous work to start)
• People (add members as they join)
• Your own domain or a stable address
• A news item at least every couple of months