4 SEO Tips for Publications Writers
Although search engine optimization (SEO) has traditionally been heavily used for medical copywriting, medical writers are increasingly incorporating SEO terms in abstracts and manuscripts. The way researchers find relevant articles in the literature is evolving to include standard search engines in addition to literature databases like PubMed. Google Scholar, for example, indexes more than 100 million scientific documents and is extensively used by researchers due to its user-friendly interface and ability to find both research articles and congress proceedings. Including SEO terms within your publications can increase their discoverability by patients and healthcare providers and in turn, citations and impact.
Use relevant keywords: Keyword research is commonly used by website developers to identify the most relevant and commonly used terms that will increase the probability of a user finding the site. As a medical writer, you can perform similar research using tools like Ubersearch and SEMrush to increase the visibility of a manuscript. Google Trends can also help you compare the popularity of terms over time. Incorporate keywords into your title, abstract, and throughout the manuscript in a natural way, being sure to maintain scientific accuracy and compliance with sponsor’s style guides.
Optimize your title and abstract: Make sure your title and abstract are clear, concise, and accurately reflect the content of your manuscript. Use descriptive language and avoid jargon or complex terminology. Not only is this sound practice, but it will also help optimize the discoverability of the manuscript by search engines.
Use simple language: Use simple language and avoid complex sentence structures and convoluted phrasing. Write in a way that is easily understood by readers, especially those for whom English is not their first language. These are factors that are considered by search engines when determining rank.
Use subheadings: Search engines “crawl” through text to index web content, including open access journal articles. Subheaders help the search engine understand the structure and depth of the article and rank the content that appears in the search results. Journals will likely require headers to delineate the main parts of a manuscript (introduction, methods, results, conclusions), but incorporating additional subheaders increases the manuscript’s rank and could lead to the article being featured as a “snippet’ at the top of the search results.
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Pam Harvey, Lead Medical Publications Writer
