Entity Building & Google’s Knowledge Graph [Podcast]

Have you claimed your Google Knowledge Panel?

Have you built out the entity of your company in the way that Google can understand who you are and differentiate between you and your competitors?

Jason Barnard, founder & CEO of Kalicube, joins Loren Baker, founder of Search Engine Journal, on the Search Engine Journal Show to discuss the importance of entity building with Google’s Knowledge Graph.

In SEO, the goal is to package our content in a way that educates Google so that it can answer user queries in the most credible way.

As you build your brand, Google considers your entity (preferably your home page) as the first explanation of who you are, what you do, and who your audience is. Once it realizes that, you can present corroborating sources/links to support your brand.

“This is a niche within the SEO industry where the technique might be the same, but the order of priority is quite different. There are certain mistakes that may occur that you have never seen before since it’s such a specific area of work.” – Jason Barnard

“Google is a child that really wants to understand and our job is to educate it.” – Jason Barnard

[0:00] – What the Brand SERP Guy means and why you should be thinking about your brand SERPs
[03:02] – Other opportunities from a front page real estate perspective
[03:29] – If you’re missing this on your home page, Google might have issues understanding your site.
[04:21] – The value of Twitter boxes on brand SERPs
[04:49] – Value of video boxes on brand SERP
[06:09] – What Google is actually looking at in terms of engagement
[06:37] – Why you should be building your brand strategy from the SERP outwards
[07:36] – An example of managing negative reviews on a site
[07:51] – What brand SERPs really provide you
[09:21] – Why brand SERPs go outside of just searching for your brand name
[10:32] – How important is it to look at specific branded product names?
[11;06] – What Jason advises you to take a look at
[11:58] – All about unbranded SERPs
[13:59] – How Jason sees companies compensating for their lack of entity building with paid campaigns
[14:45] – The interesting thing about Google ads and the strategies you need to put into place
[15:42] – What you really should be looking at the end of the day
[15:49} – The concept of leapfrogging
[18:35] – How the knowledge panel is an interesting part of the brand SERP
[20:04] – How Google is like a child
[23:35] – Where your entity home should be
[24:09] – How contradictory information becomes a problem
[25:47] – The concept of reconciliation
[27:01] – Why getting a Wikipedia entry is easier said than done
[27:41] – Other ways that someone can look into their entity besides Wikipedia
[29:29] – What should be your trusted source
[30:30] – How LinkedIn is credible from a knowledge graph perspective
[31:34] – How Bing and Google collaborate
[33:05] – Other good webmaster tools and search engines
[37:53] – Next step in entity building and building it into company culture
[38:36] – How google is centralizing entities into the main knowledge graph
[40:57] – Hot to get your entities understood by Google better
[42:14] – The experiment with Boowa and Kwala
[45:16] – Building up the parallel dimension
[45:57] – How to rank when you pivot to a new identity
[47:11] – What happens when Google trusts you
[53:12] – What Jason advises against
[54:22] – Where listeners can find more about Jason
[56;05] – Jason as a musician and a digital marketer
[63:04] – Jason sings for Loren!
[63:20] – Loren attempts to sing, too!

“​​In the world of SEO, there’s no way that you can learn everything and stay on top of everything. It’s just impossible, but if I can learn a little bit about what everyone else is an expert at, yeah, and also share that with thousands of people at one time, I’ve not only done a little bit better for myself but I’ve helped to educate quite a lot out there and bring
your story to everyone else.” – Loren Baker

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Connect with Jason Barnard:

Jason Barnard (the Brand SERP Guy) is a digital marketer who specialises in Brand SERP optimisation and knowledge panel management. Jason has also variously been a musician, a screenwriter, a songwriter, and a cartoon blue dog.

Connect with him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonmbarnard

Visit his website and podcast: https://jasonbarnard.com/ and https://kalicube.com/

Connect with Loren Baker:

Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lorenbaker

Connect with him on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker