Did you know that over 54% of all articles’ internet traffic comes from search engines? With the number of publications growing rapidly every year, it is becoming necessary to know about search engine optimization ( SEO ) so that your work can be easily discovered by your target audience.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important to market your research, similar to a commercial company promoting its product. The market and users are different, but with the same tools. Thus, Google has made a huge contribution to the development of search engine optimization. It has become almost mandatory if you want to increase the number of readers of your articles, the level of their citation, and generally make them more visible in academic circles. By optimizing your articles, you are sure that the articles will be indexed and will be quoted in general and academic search engines, such as Google and Google Scholar, and others.

In general, the effectiveness of an article depends mainly on how easy it is to find in search engines. In other words, on indexing. Let us recall that this term means adding publications or other documents to search engine databases.

Keyword selection

The entire scientific manuscript is permeated with keywords. To save time, when searching for articles, we often read only the title, abstract, or conclusion. This means that the presence and optimization of keywords in these parts is especially important.

Optimize your article title

• The title of your article should be relevant, concise and contain a key phrase that accurately reflects the essence of the article;

• Make sure your keyword or phrase is included in the first 50-60 characters, as this is what Google will display;

• You can also indicate the results of your research in the title. And for review articles, it is obviously recommended to include the word “review” in the title;

• When writing your abstract and article titles, think about what potential readers will search for about the topic of your article.

Writing an abstract

• How would you use a search engine to find an article about your field of study? What keywords would you use? How would you phrase your query? Include three or four key phrases and words in the abstract, and repeat them throughout the text.

• Possible search terms in the abstract not only determine the relevance of the article to the reader, but also help the article to rank higher in search results. Be careful: write as naturally as possible. If Google thinks that you are manipulating the system by adding too many keywords, it will not index your article!

Using keyword suggestion tools such as Google AdWords , you can find the words that are most popular in searches. This way, you can decide which keywords (and their synonyms) to use in the article title, subtitle, description tags, abstract, and the body of your article.

Important to remember

Besides Google and Google Scholar, there are actually other search engines. Although Google is the most popular service in Europe and America, based on SEO, other search engines have their own huge user base in other parts of the world. For example, Yandex and Naver are leaders in Russia and South Korea respectively, while in China, preference is given to Baidu. And here you will find a list of indexed journal databases.

Data structure and format

Structured data helps to better mark up the information on websites so that search engines can better understand it. A notable type of structured data is JSON-LD , which is the schema type preferred by Google. To use JSON-LD, all you have to do is copy and paste the data you are looking for into the code of your website. Adding structured data not only makes it easier for search engines to understand the content of a website, but it also optimizes the appearance of search snippets.

Grouping related data

Before submitting a publication to a reviewer, authors should consider how easily their research will be found by the public and expand their citation opportunities. Open access articles receive more citations than those available only through purchase or subscription.

Refer to your previous work

Citing previous work by you or your co-authors will also affect how search engines rank your current or future work. But there’s a catch: all cited publications must be relevant to the current paper you’re working on.

Another approach to increasing the visibility of your work is to include graphics within your article . It may not be obvious, but graphical information such as tables and charts also affect your article’s ranking. For example, if you use graphical images based on the .tiff, .bmp, .jpeg, .png, .pdf, .gif, and .psd formats (examples of the most common ones), the text in this graphic type cannot be recognized and indexed by search engines. 

As a result, the text cannot be taken into account in the algorithms used by these search engines. Instead, it is recommended to use so-called text-based ” vector ” graphics (most often represented as .svg, .ai, .eps, .ps file types). Using vector graphics that can be indexed allows you to embed relevant keywords and phrases in these graphics, charts, and tables to improve search efficiency.

Indexing Tactics and Requirements

It is worth noting that a good indexing strategy is not only about the right keywords and well-written text.

A good place to start is by increasing the amount of article metadata you make available for indexing. This means including descriptive HTML meta tags on all article pages for search engine indexes such as Google and Google Scholar.

The technical standard for indexing academic journals is XML, or the Extensible Markup Language (JATS) format. JATS is the preferred format for many academic indexes, including those of the National Library of Medicine (e.g., PubMed, PubMed Central, and MEDLINE).

The sooner you can post metadata for new articles in deposit indexes, the better. Ideally, you should aim to automate posting of metadata where possible.

Special requirements for indexing

Publication scope: While many indices accept journals across all disciplines or journals within a broad set of disciplinary areas such as the humanities and social sciences, some indices accept only journals that publish in a specific subject area (or areas);

Publication history: For example, MEDLINE only accepts submissions from groups that have been publishing scientific content for at least two years;

A certain level of professionalism of publishers: for example, sometimes the readability of published articles and the quality of the content are assessed.

Geographic diversity: Some indices show that editorial boards and publication co-authors are often geographically dispersed.

Tracking a published article

Don’t relax after publishing your article. You can take a few more steps to increase the visibility of your research. For example, the more links your article gets from other sites and social networks, the more your ranking in search engines will improve.

It is worth leaving links to your research on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, Mendeley.

Link your article to your professional web page and to your lab’s website if you are a regular employee.

Finally

So far, we’ve explored how search engine optimization (SEO) can significantly boost the visibility and readership of your research. Ensuring that your articles are indexed by academic search engines is crucial, as top search results are more likely to be read. Additionally, leveraging social media to share your publication within academic circles can positively impact citation rates. Partnering with a reputable SEO agency can further enhance your visibility, ensuring that your work reaches the widest possible audience and achieves its full impact.