How Can We Optimize for Entity SEO?

Entity SEO is all the rage since 2020, Google is leaning more towards entities and topic optimization drifting away from an excessive focus on keyword matching

In the age of BERT, it is all the more critical to optimize for entities.

But what the heck is Entity anyway?

I had the same question, so I asked it to the best person who knows more about it than anyone else

That's what an Entity is, and when Google detects a certain amount of entities to your webpage, it naturally determines the value and completeness of data that you are providing above other people.

P.S. There are two ways Google determines entities

#1. Entity via examining your content

#2. Entity via finding you on other platforms (we will get to this later)

How do you figure what entities is Google detecting in your content?

Google actually has a tool for this, it's called Google NLP (Natural Language Processing) and it's FREE

Take a look at this screenshot to see how it detects entities once the content is scanned

Using Google NLP tool you can detect what all entities Google is detecting in your content vs what all entities Google detects in your competitors content vs what all entities Google detects in Wikipedia article.

This is a really powerful tool to fill the gaps in your content.

As Google wrote, “the best answer to your question is not always a single entity, but a list or group of connected things“. So make sure that your text contains as many relevant entities as possible, in order for it to rank higher! You need to figure out which entities are important for a topic and cover these in your text, so RankBrain and Hummingbird can serve your pages as relevant results!

Coming to the second way of how detecting your content on other platforms Entities can make an impact.

It's more or less related to how it can influence the Google Knowledge Graph.

One of the greatest tools for this comes from the arsenal of Wikipedia

It is wikidata.

It is quite challenging determining the ways to add content to Wikidata

One peculiar thing about the Wikipedia properties is that it comes off as legitimate since every byte of data is backed by instances and citations. This is what makes Google want to trust Wikipedia more than anything.

For example, take a look at all the instances and entities Oracle has leveraged in this Wikidata asset.

In conclusion, I can say that Entity SEO is here to stay and dominate the SERPs, if you're building a brand on Google and are projecting long term growth then it's important to think from an Entity SEO point of view

Some resources that you may find useful

• A Complete Introduction To Entities And SEO (oncrawl.com)
• Using Google's Natural Language API for SEO ? Kevin Indig (kevin-indig.com)
• How to Use Google's Natural Language API to Level Up Your SEO (g2.com)