Keywords in Research Article is a Strategic Approach, Do You Know?

Last updated on Sunday, October 11th, 2020

Traditional researchers always focus on the research analysis, quality, and presentation of the research papers not keywords in the research article. In the present time research scholar search papers detail information using academic search engines, like Google Scholar, which is commonly known for this purpose.

Next Dimensions app and Scinepse are some more popular and organized academic search engines. Every scholar uses some specific words for their target search and finds the relevant article information. There are some words by which some specific area or content is searched, search engines note that and make that keyword to find the same information.  So which keywords you are using in your research articles matters. 

In this article, I will share that information with you, how to use it, and which keyword you have to use in your research article?

 Keywords in Research Articles and its Uses

The academic research in different disciplines keeps academicians and researchers up to date in the concerned area(s). It helps education institutions to maintain the pace of industrial growth and knowledge delivery. For qualitative research, a good research topic is a must. In general practice, the researchers first do some theoretical and/or experimental work to create the data for the defined research objectives. Then they write scientific research articles to publish an online journal’s website.

The Research Paper Style Components

Every journal has a defined research paper writing style, this is different from essay writing in the education system. Irrespective of the paper writing style of a research paper, parts of the research paper remain the same in every journal paper format. The first part of the research paper includes;

1. Title of the research paper
2. Author(s) name
3. Affiliation
4. Abstract and
5. Keywords

Then the second part includes the main body of the research paper.

1. The Introduction
2. Research methodology (or research methods)
3. Result and analysis
4. Conclusion or summary
5. Collaboration or grant acknowledgment
6. And in the last references.

Types of Research Journals & Keywords in Research Article

Academic journals are of two types one is open access and the second subscription-based. The third one is known as hybrid journals, that include open access research articles along with subscription-based (or paid articles). As you know some of these journals provide content both in print as well as in online form. While some only in print or online form. This information is provided by every journal on the first page of the journal in terms of International Standard Serial Number (ISSN number). These ISSN numbers are different for the print version and online version of the same journal.

The Website of the Journal

The journal website provides all information in detail about all related issues of the publisher, author, and reviewer in the information section. I am not going into that detail my purpose is to tell you how your content is useful for the search engines. Are, really they optimized for the search engines?

You may be a good researcher, scientist and had published research articles in reputed journals but somewhere are might be more other points rather than scientific skills. You know now that every research journal website gives one page to your article known as the web page. That includes all metadata (that discussed above in the first part of the research paper e.g., your name, affiliation, etc.) for the indexing and search engine purposes.

Here, I want to clarify that there are two indexing,

#1. Indexing of the journal and

#2. Indexing of the website in different search engines

My focus is on the second one, indexing of your page in search engines, that website owner provides/submit to the different search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Now your page (at which your article details are available) is indexed in various search engines. What is the use of this indexing? Suppose, now I search for some specific information from any of the search engines. Right, what I will do about this? I will use some specific words to get relevant information. It may be a single or in the form of phrases (a combination of two, three, or more words).

A search engine will provide me the relevant information by checking those words from the indexed pages. Now, a question about the priority to the web info that search engines provide to you and me? Which is the first, second, third info at the first page of the search engine, and why it is preferred by the search engine algorithms? These are some technical questions and digital marketing managers use that in terms of search engine optimization (SEO).

Role of Keywords in Research Article

So, in your research article that is now a digital content for the search engines, what is the role of words that you are using in your explanation? In terms of the title and abstract mainly; because a journal provides it to the search engine, in general (discussed above). Are you using the keywords effectively in the text as you mentioned in the KEYWORDS section? A scholar provides 3-5 keywords in the article to categorize it. These are based on the domain of study.

These keywords are the path definer to the search engines, so they reach your web page on the journal website. Suppose, if you are not using the keywords in your title and abstract of the research paper. How difficult will be it for the search engines to bring your page to the one scholar’s desktop, who was searching the content relevant to your article? Now you can imagine the power of these keywords in your research article.

Personally, I am in favor of the basic knowledge of the SEO for the research scholar in all institutions in the age of information. Now the point about how many times you have to use a particular keyword in your first section of the research paper. My mean in the title and abstract of the research paper.

Keywords density in Title and Abstract of a Research Paper

You have to use at least two keywords in the title that have a large volume per month and one quality keyword that have a large Cost Per Click (CPC). In the abstract, you have to use one keyword 5 times at least that have a large volume per month. Second and three keywords at least 3 times with large volume but of the subdomain. So in this way when you will use keywords in the title and abstract of your research paper, it becomes optimized for the search engines. This will enhance the probability to appear your paper in the search of specific keywords in search engines. Obviously, if it is searchable, then you will get citations too.

Conclusion:

In this article, my focus was to explain the role of keywords in the research papers and how it basically play the role in search engines.

1. One has to use large volume keywords in the title and abstract, along with the quality keywords.
2. If you are not aware of how to find CPC and Vol per month, use the search engine box to see the volume of keywords that you are using.

NOTE: For the CPC or volume per month of the keywords you can ask me for help. Leave a message in the comment box and subscribe to the Newsletter for updates.

If you are interested I can provide the demonstration of the keywords tool for your research articles.

Contact: Dr. Sushil Kumar

sushilk17[at]gmail[dot]com

Twitter: @apniphysics

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