Entity SEO: What It Is & How To Use It

Entity SEO is part of semantic SEO - with a greater emphasis on entities.

To optimize your website for entity SEO, you must pinpoint and enhance the conceptual entities in your content, their attributes, and the relations between them.

SEO Entities 101

Think of entities as encyclopedia topics or dictionary entries that are the same for all languages. These entries are in a database. And each entry has a unique ID number.

The Google algorithm uses these entities (or database entries) to understand the topics of a webpage in any language of the world.

Then, it tries to find other entries within the database that relate to the same topic or concept.

The result?

If you search for, let’s say, William Shakespeare (the main entity) - SERPs will include an About text, birth/death dates (i.e.,some attributes of the main entity), his most famous works (related entities), spouse and kids names, famous artists of his time (more related entities), and many other references.

So, if you want to write an article about Shakespeare, you’ll get all the major info at once on your first Google search. It’ll save you from doing more searches to find out who his spouse is or what his most famous works are.

Your search intent is, thus, covered end-to-end.

The New Era Of Google Searches

As Google advances its machine learning understanding of human searches, entity-based SEO is essential for website owners who want to take advantage of the entire scope of targeted ranking.

So, today, along with keywords, entities in SEO offer advanced optimization opportunities and make a website future-ready.

Let’s now delve into more details.

What Is Entity SEO?

Entity SEO is a search engine optimization approach focusing on entities (not only keywords). Entities are universal database entries that define a word's precise concept in a given context. Thus, optimized content must clearly indicate its main entities (or topics) and the relationships between them.

Entity SEO Example

Here’s a simplified example of entity SEO.

Suppose you sell air conditioning and heating units. Your website would contain keywords like: ‘the best a/c systems’, ‘air conditioning for homes London’, etc.

These are actually the keywords your users are looking for.

In contrast, an entity-focused approach would also highlight related terms (or entities) like: ‘home cooling efficiency,’ ‘a/c filters,’ and brand names of ‘A/C systems.’

So, in theory, if your page only included entities like ‘freon,’ ‘air filters,’ and ‘condensate drain’ - Google would still understand it’s talking about a/c systems.

Eventually, that page would rank for your target keywords as well.

The 4 Components Of Entity-Based SEO

To take advantage of entities in SEO, according to Ahrefs, you need to focus on 4 major components:

Entity Identification

Identify entities that Google recognizes and that can exist in your content. Then, eloquently highlight them into your pages and website architecture.

Contextual Relevance

Provide a clear and rich context for your primary entities. Include related topics/concepts (other related entities): historical facts, family members, etc.

Structured Data

Use schema markup to explicitly define your main and secondary entities for the search engines.

Authority & Expertise

Ensure your overall website depicts authority and expertise around your core entities. Add explicit front-end and back-end trust signals.

But why do all this? Let’s take things from the beginning.

Why Google Uses Entities?

Google aims to give the most accurate answer possible to every query. It tries to satisfy the real intent of a search behind the actual question.

To do so, it primarily uses entities to disambiguate search terms and analyze your content.

So, an SEO approach to using entities may not necessarily help you rank higher, but it will help you rank more effectively.

The reason?

Google is trying to decipher every part of your site by breaking it up into entities.

Based on its understanding of these ‘entities of meaning,’ it is able to present a helpful variety of search results. Such results include ads, maps, videos, etc., and - of course - organic results.

From Keywords To Entities

Google no longer understands keywords as mere words (or sequences of words). Instead, it tries to connect the words in a webpage with an entity in its database.

For Google, this is a universal way to describe the concept or meaning behind a word - or image, for that matter.

Google’s Knowledge Base

To streamline the entity comprehension process, it relates each entity with a specific definition, assigns it a code, and stores it in its database called the Knowledge Graph.

Google’s Knowledge Graph is powered by Freebase, a collaborative knowledge base.

Google also verifies what each entity means via other universally accepted databases, like Wikidata & Wikipedia.

Entities Are Language Agnostic

Entities are language-agnostic and media agnostic.

So, it makes no difference for Google whether you write, for example, Big Ben in Latin or བིན་ཆེན་པོ། in Tibetan.

For the Freebase library that Google uses for reference, London’s famous landmark is seen as /m/026ydc. The same applies to a photo of Big Ben.

History Of Entities In Google Search

So, how did entities get into the SEO game?

Google Acquires Freebase

Back in 2010, Google bought a company called Metaweb. They had a product called Freebase which was an “open, shared database of the world’s knowledge.” Google’s aim was to incorporate that data into their own systems.

So, about two years later, Google announced that it was moving from “strings to things.” They had already started migrating data and so, in 2012, they inaugurated their own, powerful knowledge database called The Knowledge Graph.

Schema.org Is Created

Schema.org also rolled out around that time. It was when all search engines got together and decided to come up with a vocabulary to support the semantic web.

Since then, schema markup, among other things, has been a tool for website owners to indicate the entities within their content - i.e., the People, Places, and Things.

Thanks to schema markup, bots can easily elicit information and use it in a variety of ways, across different search engines.

A New Way Of Search Is Paved

Thanks to the Knowledge Graph and schema markup, search engines went from measuring and understanding the mere words on a page, regardless of context, to understanding the People, Places, and Things that are represented on that page. The ontological meaning of terms, that is.

They started finding links and relationships between entities in various sources - texts, images, social posts, videos, etc. - and grouping them in meaningful ways to help users get the most out of their search.

This was the beginning of a new era in online searches that went beyond language barriers.

The Knowledge Graph Grows Bigger

In 2016, Google finished integrating the Freebase data into its own powerful database. They announced that the Knowledge Graph held over 70 billion facts! (By May 2020, this had grown to 500 billion facts on 5 billion entities.)

They also shut down Freebase, though its content is still online for reference purposes.

Google’s Knowledge Graph database was rolled out as a new resource for connecting knowledge and language.

Google also synced much of its entity data with Wikidata. This helps the Knowledge Graph database connect with external sources like Wikipedia or physical libraries’ databases across the world.

To expand their repository even further, they have integrated RDFa, Microdata, and JSON-LD content extracted from indexed web pages.

Today, the Knowledge Graph keeps growing, and entity SEO is growing with it.

What Are Entities In SEO?

In the real world, an entity is a ‘thing’ (concrete or abstract) that is distinguishable from other ‘things’. A magazine, a person, a season, or a color are all separate entities.

In databases, each entity is also a piece of data (i.e., a data entry) that’s clearly distinguished from other entities.

Also, every entity has attributes. If the entity is a person, its attributes would be the person’s name, age, phone number, and address.

Additional attributes for the entity: 'Person' could be job title and company, spouse and kids’ names, etc.

Now, all these attributes are related. Also, the entity ‘Person’ is related to the spouse name attribute of another person entity (the spouse, that is).

SEO Entities & The Knowledge Panel - Example

When you Google: Sigmund Freud, Google’s Knowledge Panel (the featured info panel that comes up for some searches) presents the entity “Freud” along with related entities such as:

• his spouse: Martha Bernays (related entity with name attribute, relationship type: married to)
• his children, like Anna Freud (another related entity, relationship type: father of).

All the members of the Freud family, as well as other prominent psychoanalysts of the time like Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan, are all entities related between them via Sigmund Freud. So, for this search, they are all part of the Freud entity set.

Thanks to its vast database of entities and its intelligent networking of relationships among entities and facts, Google now presents informative Knowledge Panels, as well as other rich results with a multitude of information related to the primary search term.

Its ultimate aim is to satisfy the exact user intent by presenting multiple info that most commonly match it.

The information on Google’s Knowledge Panel comes from Wikipedia but also from contextual references on other pages.

How Does Google Recognize Entities?

Google mainly recognizes that an entity exists when this entity is included in an entity catalog (and most often has an assigned ID).

Entities include people, places, things, ideas, and concepts.

Wikipedia, Wikidata, and DBpedia are among the most popular entity catalogs.

How To Optimize Your Website For Entity SEO

Google SEO entity optimization relies upon a fundamental principle:

Showcase and endorse your ideal entities and strongly demonstrate the relations among them.

Now, how can you do this?

There are many different ways to go about it - and much room for experimentation.

5 Tips To Succeed In Entity SEO

Here are our 5 top tips for entity-based SEO:

1. Add Schema Markup

There are many ways to use Schema Markup for entity SEO.

Validate Your Brand

Include various schema validation signals that refer to your brand, like logo, address, and contact information. Add reviews, awards, CEO, employee names and their occupations, etc.

If you run a local business, you can also showcase opening hours, price range, offers, and more.

Enrich your schema markup with your company’s social profiles.

Validate Your Entities

Help Google understand the entities in your content. To do so, you can use schema markup to pinpoint the database entry or ID connected to these entities.

To do so, link each of your main entities to a database URL, like Freebase, Wikidata, BBC Things, Library of Congress, etc.

Here’s an example:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebPage",
  "headline": "Entity SEO: What It Is & How To Use It",
  "about": [
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "SEO",
      "sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "Website",
      "sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35127"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "Google Knowledge Graph",
      "sameAs": "https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/0jwvf5b"
    }
  ],
  "mentions": [
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "SERPs",
      "sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_results_page"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "Google Search",
      "sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9366"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "Wikidata",
      "sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikidata"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "name": "Digital Marketing",
      "sameAs": "https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/02pxfkz"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "Freebase",
      "sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1453477"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Thing",
      "name": "Schema Markup",
      "sameAs": "https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/04s5c"
    }
  ]
}
</script>

2. Highlight Your Entities In Your Content

It’s best to introduce all your main entities at the beginning of your content, close to each other.

Throughout your piece, make sure to include an intelligent variety of related entities and mention the relationships between them.

For example, if you write about Sigmund Freud, your first sentence could go like this: ‘Freud was a 19th-century neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis.’

3. Showcase Authority & Trust

Include trust signals in your front-end content (as well as your schema).

Trusted Author

If, for example, a piece is written by an accomplished author with a strong profile, add their bio at the top of their article.

Further trust signals in your schema refer to the author’s awards, certifications, and contributions, plus a link to their LinkedIn profile.

Fact-Checked Content

You can have your article reviewed by a certified expert and add that under the author’s name.

Use a phrase like: ‘Fact-Checked by’ or ‘Reviewed By,’ and the reviewer’s name linked to a profile page on your website or an external source.

This tactic can give your content a significant advantage. As SEO experts confirm:

Peer-reviewed research can improve its credibility and trustworthiness.
Google Entity Search by Jeannie Hill, Digital Marketing Consultant

4. Make Meaningful Anchor Links

Try to add anchor links to your main entities and most of your secondary entities. Such links can go to other, closely related pages of your website or trustworthy external sources.

Also, as part of your off-page SEO strategy, aim for exact-match backlinks - especially from referring pages with high topical authority to your linked entity.

5. Mimic An Entity Map In Your Site Architecture

To make the most out of your focus entities, their relation to other entities, and how this structure is depicted in your website, design an entity map (even on paper!)

Then, do a thorough research to see how Google crawls and indexes all these related entities. Also, check your competitors along the same lines.

Finally, compare your findings with your own entity map and site architecture. Find the nodes and pieces missing, and start building them up.

Tools For An Entity SEO Audit

There are various tools to help optimize your website for entity SEO.

You can analyze the entities in your existing content with an entity analyzer tool like: inlinks.com. This will show you which entities Google has detected and for which your page is indexed.

Other tools like textrazor.com identify entities used extensively in a piece of content and provide you with entity links to Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Freebase.

Both tools also offer additional entity indexing opportunities by pinpointing related entities and topics you could use in a given text.

An entity SEO audit offers you significant insights for improvements. It can give you ideas on new anchor texts, additional schema markup identifications, and extra tags for your posts.

Plus, you can get new keyword-targeting ideas that will enhance your existing content.

Entities, Keywords, And SEO: It’s All About The Rankings

When optimizing a website for Google searches, your aim is to succeed - whether you use keywords and/or entities.

At Atropos Digital, we give a fresh SEO look to all our projects. Backed with years of experience and a qualified team, we offer personal attention to our clients’ individual needs. Call us today to start your SEO journey.