You’ve heard the term SEO used in various areas, but you may not be wholly familiar with what it includes. Before you write your next research paper, it’s a strategic move to get confident with the practice and how it can help increase the reach of your content.

SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization.” It’s used by website builders to increase the visibility of their site when someone enters relevant keywords in a search engine query. Consider the search engine to be a sort of librarian computer. This librarian computer has access to every digital word on the internet, and when a user comes in to look for information on a particular subject, the librarian points them in a particular direction.

The more a site matches keyword descriptions, the more likely it is that the “librarian” will recommend the site to a searcher. In terms of your research paper, the more keywords you can connect between your paper and the search engine, the more attention your paper will receive when someone queries those terms.

How Your Paper’s Visibility Impacts You As a Scholar

The fact is that you don’t have to understand the logistics and complex formulas that drive search engine algorithms. You just have to know how to use them to increase the influence and impact of your research. Your scholarly reputation depends on it.

As a scientist, much of your career is spent developing your reputation. This becomes your standing within the research community, and it can determine how well you qualify for funding, particular jobs, tenure, and more. Your scholarly reputation relies strongly on the quantity and quality of your published work. The more visible and high-quality your work is, the better your reputation becomes.

At a certain point, your previously published work drives your reputation for the rest of your career. Provided you don’t do anything to tarnish that hard-earned reputation, you don’t have to work as hard in the “publish or perish” culture to keep a solid name for yourself as an expert in your field.

Using SEO to Make Your Job Easier

We understand that your job is already significantly busy. You’re juggling so many hats that even one more can be too much. But if you get to know SEO, it becomes something you do in line with writing your paper. It doesn’t have to be anything extra, yet, doing it makes your marketing job easier when it comes to increasing the reach of your paper.

As a researcher in a competitive field, you want your paper to stand out from the crowd. Aside from your publisher, no one knows you’ve written your document until you tell them. Word-of-mouth doesn’t work quite as well in a field like research, where your niche connects to your inner circle, but might not connect with anyone else nearby. You need to expand the knowledge of your paper to the whole world.

SEO does this for you, as long as you use these simple tips:

●      Take advantage of keyword research tools. They’re already there, designed to tell you which terms you should highlight to improve and drive organic traffic to your paper. Use a word or two in your title, subtitle, and abstract, and mention these as the keywords at the beginning of your paper.

●      Use those keywords to build your content. Add them into the discussions you have about your paper, whether it’s through email, blogs, or social media feeds. Include them in visual content.

●      Pay attention to what the competitor articles are using as keywords. Are there any that match your paper, as well? If you can naturally include them without doing too much, you may be able to get your paper seen before the competition.

●      Think about how your audience will search for your information. If your audience includes your peers, then you can simply use keywords and phrases as you normally would. However, if your audience is a general person, you may have to adjust your SEO to meet the words and terms they’ll be searching for, which likely won’t be on a graduate school level.

Follow Your Work’s Influence on Impactio

You’re building your reputation, and you want to follow your work to ensure it’s taking you in the right direction in your career. To do that, you must stay on top of the metrics on your published work. Impactio makes this easy to do with our data analysis reports. Follow your quantitative and qualitative metrics, and see how your work is influencing your audience and your scholarly reputation.