Article: Search Engine Optimization for Journal Articles: Best Practices for Driving Discoverability

Search Engine Optimization for Journal Articles: Best Practices for Driving Discoverability

Titles

A title should clearly and succinctly state the key finding or result of the paper.

Consider the increase in clarity when a paper originally titled: Modulation of low-frequency song syllable structure in a grassland bird in an energy infrastructure environment is revised to simply state the result: Sprague’s Pipits change their songs in the presence of oil well noise

Titles should be concise and make use of primary keywords.

Good examples:

These titles are as short as they can be while still offering a clear indication of the topic and key terms.

Bad examples:

The first title is far too lengthy, and while it certainly makes use of keywords, the apparent attempt to squeeze in as many terms as possible actually makes it less likely to be discovered in its intended context.

The second title includes no context clues whatsoever as to its subject matter.

Keywords and Abstracts

Keywords should clearly reflect the article’s content with search and discovery in mind.

When selecting keywords, imagine what terms might be entered into a search engine for it to return your article as a top result.

As a general rule, include 1-2 keywords in your title, 2-3 in the abstract, and 5-7 in keyword fields.

Repeat keywords in all three areas wherever possible. Think of the best 5-7 keywords to describe your article and rank them in order of primacy; the top one or two should appear in the title and the top three repeated within the abstract.

An example of an article that makes good use of keyword repetition in its title and abstract:
https://www.sbm.org/scicomm/search-engine-optimization/article-search-engine-optimization-for-journal-articles-best-practices-for-driving-discoverability
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