It is possible to have 2000 downloads and no one citation. 

Articles should be made available easily to researchers.

One way can be to publish the paper/article in online Journal, downloadable free of charge.

There are several methods to popularise our research articles.  The first thing we can do is to post the article in preprint service websites like arxiv.org or CiteseerX.  These websites have links to so many research databases.  Uploading the articles in  the research promoting websites like ResearchGate will also improve the visibility of our article.  There are some other websites like growkudos.com which also will help to increase the visibility of our article.

But the only things that increase the citations to an article is the quality and applicability of that article. If a quality paper is popularised in the above mentioned methods, then there is a possibility of getting more citations.

Thank you Dr Pahlaj Moolio for suggesting online open access journal.

Thank you Dr Sudev Naduvath for very useful contribution.

When a researcher carries out research on much-sought-after topic which has more bearing on wider mass, can increase chances of citations

Citations are primarily rhetorical and serve to be shaped by social relationships, reflected in quantity.  A professional and even moral imperative exists to cite what is relevant to one's work, giving credit where credit is due. Some of citations as “repayments of intellectual debts.” 

David A. Pendlebury (2010), Reflections on Research Performance Measures and the Rise of Asia, International higher education, The Boston college center for international higher education, Number 59, Spring 2010, Pp6. 

For increasing citation, publish in standard Journals.

I agree with Brenda Jacono; Google scholar is very useful.

Dear Subhash C. Kundu Sir,

Do Standard journals mean journals from good publishing house or journals with SCI impact factor.

Thank you Krishnan Umachandran Sir for putting light on worth of an article.

Best Regards.

Thank you Barbara Sawicka for your valuable contribution.

Best Regards.

For increasing the citations of research work, We may:

1. Upload researches on RG

2. Communicate with RG members

3. Communicate on other relevant social media

4. Social Science Research Network SSRN also offers a range of high-visibility, upload researches on SSRN

5. Etc. ... ! 

How do you increase the visibility and citations of relevant research work, for those currently writing papers and journal articles? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_do_you_increase_the_visibility_of_relevant_past_work_for_those_currently_writing_papers_and_journal_articles/1 [accessed Jul 3, 2015].

It is possible to have 2000 downloads and no one citation. 

I don't think that there is an easy way to get more citations. If you take necessary steps to reach your articles to a wider community of researchers, then there is a greater chance to get more citations in due time.

I am agree with  Rita

A lot of downloads but no one citation. So, we try to do good works by hard working and honest way which are practically useful and apply  for the Society, then it is automatically citated. Also, we can use Google Scholar, RG, ResearcherID...

I agree with Subhash C. Kundu these steps may help to increase articles citations

Dear All,

You should publish in the Nature or Science. You should deal with biotechnology. You should put the paper as quickly as possible on RG, and participate in each general thread. (: - )

Dear Rita,

Yes, it is possible because – unfortunately – the majority of downloads are acts of politeness and do not mean the professional interest.  

Dear all,

Yes, we can increase the citations of our articles  with the steps of Subhash

Best regards 

Dear All,

You should be a well-known genius and draft your message popularly.

Be careful, a greenhorn genius does not have much chance. (:-)

I agree with Dr. Subhash C. Kundu and Dr.Rita,A lot of downloads but no one citation. Moreover I have citations in my Google scholar but there is less citation in RG. I tried  to import or add the citation to RG but I can not.

Dear all,

@ Farook Hamzeh 

Absolutely, the good quality of research  written in easy  language, simple to  understand , also have a great influence.

Best regards

Talk about it publically. Make it visible to all by social networking websites eg. facebook and twitter. you can't import citations from somewhere else. It's like building your own reputation again and again on different paltforms.

Communicate among probable authors, teachers, and social media the newly published paper.

All the suggested ways are very useful, but nevertheless it is very difficult to get citations for publications that are not "mainstream".

I agree with all responses but I also believe RG and other platform are good avenue to enhance citations in an article.

Dear Sanjay,

Please go through the attached article. The author recommends the following -  I quote - 

1. Keep the title and key words easy, simple, understandable at they will be pivotal when the author is searching for relevant support articles.

2. Self Citation: you can self-cite your own relevant work in the manuscript. This will not only add to your citation index but also establish your authority over a particular subject. While self-citation of relevant papers is legitimate, excessive self-citation can indicate a manipulation. Thomson Reuter’s resource known as Web of Science, the company which now lists journal impact factors, considers self-citation to be acceptable up to a rate of 20%, anything over that is considered suspect.

3. Promote the article content via twitter which is then cited by other researchers and practitioners depending on their search parameters.

4. To my experience many authors have Wikipedia as the starting point for their research. Search for pages that are related to your article covers and add your article as a reference. If relevant page is not present, you can create one.

5. You can increase amount of traffic to your article via YouTube. Many students just like Wikipedia also use YouTube videos as an initial way of researching a topic.

6. Include your papers on your websites, LinkedIn profile, Facebook or other communities. Also start to blogging and simulate debate on the area of concern.

Dear all,

Good day,

@ Nilotpal Bhattacharjee 

Absolutely,  The good work  will be cited. 

Best regards

The effective & fast way to increase citations is to do & publish research of high quality after which citations come in a natural manner. Some "scholars" play this dishonest game to increase citations: they will form a net from different places & they agree upon (You cite me, I cite you). That is why a careful reviewer ought to look at the references very well in order to see if there is relevance of source or not.

Dear Mario,

Theoretically, I agree with your decision but it would be better to stay and to follow your own goals and interests.  Fortunately, there is here fine freedom and nobody is forced to assist in silly and superficial threads. Yes, both, RG purposes and scoring mechanism are obscure but I suggest to take them easy, and focus on the advantages. I personally would be sorry if you left. Nobody should follow and imitate the answering hysteria.  

33 Ways for Improving Citations

1. Use A Unique Name Consistently Throughout Academic Careers

2. Use a standardized institutional affiliation and address, using no abbreviations

3. Repeat key phrases in the abstract while writing naturally.

4. Assign keyword terms to the manuscript (Sarli and Holmes 2011).

5. Make a unique phrase that reflects author's research interest and use it throughout academic life. 

6. Publish in journal with high impact factor (Vanclay 2013).

7. Self-archive articles.

8. Keep your professional web pages and published lists up to date (Jones and Evans 2013).

9. Make your research easy to find, especially for online searchers (Jones and Evans 2013).

10. Open Access (OA) increases citation rate (MacCallum and Parthasarathy 2006).

Free access increases citation rates, searching online is more efficient and following hyperlinks quickly leads

11. Deposit paper in Open Access repository (Frost 2009).

for 22 more ways, please refer to

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257986378_Effective_Strategies_for_Increasing_Citation_Frequency

Article Effective Strategies for Increasing Citation Frequency

For publishing any article it is natural & clear that we must have original thinking ,concept  ,& outlook so that we may offer the justice to our publication .We feel in our publication we should not move in haste as in such cases we may loose  the link & line of action .

Our publication becomes the need of the readers accordingly  to the need of their requirement & to gain the information .Very often in the line with taste ,it becomes the documents for their personal library .

Very often for the good publisher & writers ,choosy readers & interesting readers of their liking wait for their publication & this becomes the light of the publishers .

For publishing any article it is natural & clear that we must have original thinking ,concept  ,& outlook so that we may offer the justice to our publication .We feel in our publication we should not move in haste as in such cases we may loose  the link & line of action .

Our publication becomes the need of the readers accordingly  to the need of their requirement & to gain the information .Very often in the line with taste ,it becomes the documents for their personal library .

Very often for the good publisher & writers ,choosy readers & interesting readers of their liking wait for their publication & this becomes the light of the publishers .

Dear all,

Yes, in the paper of "Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan" we can  find interesting ways for improving citations.

Best regards

Dear Fateh,

I am glad that you find the the paper interesting, however, the paper is not mine!. here is the citation:

Ale Ebrahim, N., Salehi, H., Embi, M. A., Habibi, F., Gholizadeh, H., Motahar, S. M., & Ordi, A. (2013). Effective strategies for increasing citation frequency. International Education Studies, 6(11), 93-99.

I think RG is a good forum do that 

I also think you look at material Dr Behrouz suggest for better explanation 

Dear Behrouz,

Thank you for this detail.

Best regards

Good Quality of Paper, Uploading on research gate

Effective communication by using multiple sources.

Certainly, quality of research paper and effective communication are very vital.

Best regards.

Brief of papers may be communicated to media for wide publication.

I did a quick review to the useful techniques to boost your citations.  I classify them as before, during, and after submission.

First: Before submitting

a. Before writing

1. Write high impact paper (Creative; Across disciplines; Hot topic;  )

2. Publish with international authors.

3. Team-authored articles get cited more.

b.While writing

4. Cite your relevant past works (preferably at the first two sentences).

5. Make title short.

6. Carefully choose your keywords (indexed better) and use them in your title and  abstract.

7. Use a consistent form of your name on all your papers.

8. Publish your article in one of the journals everyone in your discipline read.

Second: When submitting

9. Publish in journal with high impact factor.

10. Make your paper easily accessible (consider good open-access journal.)

Third: After submitting

a. Before Acceptance

11. Post your pre- or post-publication prints. Find publisher’s copyright and self-archiving policies.

b. After Acceptance

12. Ask for e-print from the journal or green open access.

13. Buy open-access right if possible.

14. Promote your work to well known researchers in the area.

15. Use social media. Make sure there are as many links as possible to your article, e.g. from your institute's website, Wikipedia, LinkedIn (used by 65 percent of the researchers)

16. Elsevier's Scopus is the world's largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Keep it up-to-date so others can find your article.

17. Keep your professional web pages (personal & university) and published lists up to date and keyword your article.

Excellent guidance from Mr Alkhader. In addition, I discovered that journal articles that cover a comprehensive review of the literature in the area being studied tend to get more citations than other type of research articles.