2. Entity SEO: What, Why, How
Hello!
By the end of this webinar, you’ll:
Understand what is entity SEO and why it’s
important
How to incorporate Entity SEO concepts into
your SEO workflows
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learn the right mindset to approach content
today and in the future!
3. What is an Entity
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“An entity is a thing or concept that is singular,
unique, well-defined and distinguishable.
● person,
● place,
● item,
● idea,
● abstract concept,
● concrete element
Generally, entities include things or concepts
represented linguistically by nouns.” ~ Google
An Entity Not an Entity
Beauty Beautiful
Running Shoes Best running
shoes
Book Books
4. Why We Need to Think of Entities?
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5. Once upon a time…
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Around 10 years
ago, the SERPs
were filled with
low quality results!
6. So…
Panda was designed to reduce
the rankings for low-quality sites
(“sites which are low-value add
for users, copy content from
other websites or sites that are
just not very useful”) and reward
better rankings to high-quality
sites (“sites with original content
and information such as
research, in-depth reports,
thoughtful analysis, etc…”)
Panda
2011
A.k.a web spam algorithm
update, was created by Google to
help reduce the number of sites
appearing in SERPs that were
using black hat SEO techniques
to manipulate results with link
schemes. probably the biggest
algo. update ever. very big
impact… there were tons of
penguin updates till 2016
Penguin
2012
Google announces knowledge
graph and moving towards
“things not strings”.
The Knowledge Graph
2012
Hummingbird signaled Google’s
commitment to an increasingly
sophisticated understanding of
the intent of searchers’ queries
with the goal of matching them
to more relevant results and
arguably marked the beginning of
the semantic search era.
Hummingbird
2013
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7. From an Information Engine
to a Knowledge Engine
Language can be ambiguous. Are we looking for monument,
or Taj Mahal the musician?
Find the right things
if you search for “when was diana born”, Google will
understand that you are talking about “princess diana” and is
able to provide the answer to your question directly in SERPs.
Get the best summary
Finally, the part that’s the most fun of all—the Knowledge
Graph can help you make some unexpected discoveries.
Go deeper and broader
01
02
03
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8. Things, Not Strings
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A knowledge graph, also known
as a semantic network,
represents a network of
real-world entities—i.e. objects,
events, situations, or
concepts—and illustrates the
relationship between them. This
information is usually stored in a
graph database and visualized as
a graph structure, prompting the
term knowledge “graph.” ~IBM
9. Things not Strings
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“Some of the actors for the
Avengers movie include, Robert
Downey Jr. who played Iron
Man in the movie along Mark
Ruffalo who played the popular
Hulk.
Robert Downey Jr. is also
known for portraying Charlie
Chaplin, the famous comic, in a
previous movie.”
Text/information Graph
10. sara-taher.com
About this result
Google used to show other
terms/entities that would
naturally be present along side
the main target keyword. Can you
write a recipe without talking
about “ingredients”?
11. Keyword Research Vs. Entities
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Topic: Road Trip to Florida
Keywords
● Road trip to florida,
● florida road trip,
● road trip fl
Entities
● Map
● Travel
● Itinerary
● Planner
Topic: 7 day Dubai Itinerary
Keywords
● dubai itinerary
● dubai trip itinerary
● 7 day dubai itinerary
● dubai itinerary 7 days
Entities
● tour
● airbnb
● Tourist attraction
● United Arab Emirates
● Burj Khalifa
● Dubai Mall
Unlike keywords, entities don’t have
to include the same words as the
main topic”
12. What does using entities mean for SEOs?
01 02
It doesn’t matter whether you
use “color” or “colour”, etc…
Spelling
Density; The repetition of
exact match keywords “buy
shoes online” all over the
content is less important.
Keyword difficulty and
search volume also matter
less.
Keyword Metrics
Google understands that a
puppy is a dog, so using
either or both in content is
totally fine. Same as with
things like “robert downey
jr” & “rdj”
Variations
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04
03
Topical Authority
Topical Authority can be
achieved by focusing on
entities rather than
keywords, as One cannot
exist without the other.
24. Entity SEO
Zion national
park
Hiking
Cable
Mountain
weather
hotels
map
Topic: Zion National Park
Keywords:
● Main keyword(s): Zion national park
Long tail keywords (attributes):
● zion national park weather
● zion national park hotels
● zion national park lodge
● zion national park map
● zion national park airport
● zion national park trails
Entities:
● hiking,
● cable mountain,
● the watchman mountain,
● horse ranch mountain,
● great white throne mountain,
● Camping,
● Lodging
Note:
Bottom of funnel pages & pillar
pages usually are matched
with 1 main entity. Also
glossary, what is, who is pages.
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25. Schema & Entities
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "ENTER PAGE URL HERE",
"mainEntity": {
"@type": "Park",
"name": "Zion national park",
"openingHours": "Mo,Tu,We,Th,Fr,Sa,Su
11:00-20:00",
"telephone": "+155501003344",
"sameAs":
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_park"
}
}
</script>
● Use mainEntity if the
webPage is about a specific
entity.
● You may also want to add
schema referring to other
entities on the page as
follows if there’s no
schema.org type for your
entity:
{“@type”: “Thing”, “name”:
“Tour”, “sameAs”:
“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Walking_tour”},
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28. sara-taher.com
Using Entities to Disambiguate the Location of a Local Business
● Used google maps to find and note
local any key entities, such as state
parks, lakes, or other features in the
area.
● Created and edited content by
referencing landmarks as well as
adding driving directions from to the
client location from famous landmarks.
Example:
"XYZ Contractor is located in Old Town Fort
Collins, just east of Horsetooth and minutes from
Colorado State University..."
● The website received 32% lift by simply adding
geographically relevant terms to the page and
linking to driving directions.
Source: Brian Kato @
https://www.link-assistant.com/news/entity-case-study.html
29. How related the entity is to the search
term.
Relatedness
Ranking Entities on Search
Notability is an entity's relative
importance. Entities are more notable in
low-competition categories. They’re also
more valuable when they have more links,
reviews, mentions, and relevance.
Searching for Apple, the company or the
fruit?
Notability
Contribution refers to an entity’s
contribution to a topic and focuses only on
a particular niche. In other words, this
measures how much weight an entity has
in its industry.
Contribution
It measures relevant prizes an entity
received, such as the Nobel Prize or
Academy Award. The more prestigious the
prize, the higher the value attached to the
entity.
Prizes
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30. sara-taher.com
Tools
“Sara Taher is a Canadian
based SEO consultant with
over 8 years experience in the
field. She is most known for
her SEO tips and riddles that
she shares on her Linkedin
account.”
Link: https://www.textrazor.com/demo