Brand Entity SEO – Whiteboard Friday

Comprehensive organization schema markup

But for Google, you need to go a step further into semantics. Everything you just said about your brand with on-page text, say it again through comprehensive schema markup. This brand-splaining of your entity to Google reconfirms its key attributes and is a critical step to Google accepting that information as facts in the Knowledge Graph.

So don’t limit your organization schema to just logo and URL as Google recommends for their rich snippet requirements. Highlight all valuable connections by going beyond the Google recommended fields to use the full scope of organization schema. Make it explicit that people are employees of the company, markup awards you’ve won, organizations you’re a member of, founders or a parent company. Use their popularity to boost yours by association. But organization schema doesn’t only help you build relationships on site. It can integrate brand equity earned offsite by disambiguating mentions of the brand in text and in imagery. And through same as markup, consolidate all relevant brand assets under that one clear entity. Same as markup is not only for social media profiles. Add your Google business profile, Wikipedia page, directory listings. This should be a long list, and if it’s not, then it’s time to arrange more get togethers with Google. On average, an entity needs over 30 meaningful touchpoints to become Google’s friend.

Arrange meaningful connections

So let’s look at the ways you can orchestrate these encounters under the condition that every connection should consistently corroborate what you’ve already said about yourself. This gives Google greater confidence that the knowledge about you is accurate. So be sure to support your brand entity bio on all of your social media profiles, your legitimacy with listings in company or industry directories, your notability on Wikipedia or on Wikidata, your positioning on ranking and review sites, your offering with a Google business profile Publisher Center or Merchant Center account. Think of expanding your format coverage with apps, podcasts, and videos. Become an authority in your industry by submitting for awards or joining relevant organizations or hosting physical events or get your CEO interviewed or publish a research report or any brand-building initiative. And none of this is done for backlinks, but to give you the opportunity to make those meaningful connections with Google and with your audience. And as soon as you see that knowledge panel appear for your brand entity in the SERPs, claim it and curate it, and then go to the Knowledge Graph API to see if you have made a friend of Google. Because if Google has a choice between recommending two equal pieces of content, one from a friend who they know is an expert on a topic and one from someone they’ve just heard of in passing, of course Google will prioritize the source that it trusts.

Only once your brand is an entity can EEAT signals be fully applied. Only once Google understands who your brand entity is and connects it in the Knowledge Graph can topical authority be fully applied. So work to befriend Google and become an explicit well-connected entity in the Knowledge Graph. This makes the brand more likely to be included in Google’s consideration set. And since Google acts as the gatekeeper to visibility across their entire Google ecosystem, also the end user’s consideration set.