Optimization for Publication and Funding
15 | Four Search Engine Optimization Tools to Boost a Paper’s Citation Rate
Key Point
Best Practices
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process for helping a webpage appear closer to the top in a list of search engine results, which can drive more traffic to the content. When computer bots crawl over a paper’s abstract on PubMed or the journal’s table of contents, they will look for things like keywords and backlinks from your institutional biography page. Using the four strategies described below will help to ensure that a paper’s abstract is indexed properly (i.e., how the data are categorized and stored by a search engine) and ranked highly in search engines like Google, Google Scholar, and Bing.
- Choose good keywords. Start by selecting three to four suitable keywords or keyword phrases for your research, along the lines of what an interested reader may use to search for similar content in PubMed. Then, test those keywords in a keyword finder/planner (e.g., Google Ads Keyword Plan tool, Wordtracker, which can be accessed by signing up for an online account)—these planners show the number of times a particular phrase and its synonyms have been searched for over a set timeframe. Lastly, use this information to optimize the paper’s keywords. Ideally, those keywords should correspond to the most popular, relevant terms being used during internet searches, which will improve the paper’s rank in search engine results.
- Write a search–friendly title. Include your most important keyword in the first 60 characters of the title. Computer bots are programmed for speed and search only the first 60 or so characters of titles. If the first portion of a title lacks this keyword, the bots may give it short shrift. Because title keywords are weighted heavily during the crawling, indexing, and ranking processes, you want the most important one to count.
- Reword the abstract. Repeat your most important keyword 3–4 times in the abstract, and use the other keywords in the first two sentences, i.e., content that the bots will focus on. Repetition of keywords teaches the bots that these phrases are important. However, don’t stuff the abstract full of keywords. Attempts to cheat the system in this way can actually hurt a paper’s SEO ranking.
- Build links. Link to the paper’s abstract from your institutional biography page and social media accounts (e.g., LinkedIn). As the bots crawl over the paper’s abstract and discover backlinks, these signal that the content is credible and thus deserves a higher rank.
The above SEO strategies will make your paper easier to discover online and may even boost its citation rate and impact.
