A 5-Step SEO Guide To Establishing Quality Brand Entity

Google’s recent announcement of Google Bard’s release and Search Generative Experience has redefined the ever-evolving digital landscape, implicating many SEO services and strategies. One of which, and probably the most significant of all, is the renewed focus on brand entity SEO.

The thing is that SEO was initially branded for user-centric marketing. However, in recent years, with the rise in AI-based technology, many marketers are also beginning to market to language models, like ChatGPT, to achieve local SEO success.

While it is imperative that SEO evolve and adapt with AI, no matter the end-user, whether AI or human, brand preference and brand awareness are crucial when including the target audiences’ consideration set. Hence, if organic visibility is what you are looking to build and boost, establishing a trusted, quality, and reputable brand entity is vital.

Introducing Google Knowledge Graph and how it helps builds a brand entity

The Google Knowledge Graph is a huge databank of information, enabling Google to provide factual and immediate answers to every search query about real-world topics. Also known as entities, these topics range from people and organisations to animals, foods, concepts, places, and more.

For example, if we were to key into Google Bard “Best Chicken Rice in Singapore,” it does not provide answers based on keywords but rather on the entities. It connects the following:

• Directory brand entities: Food-related blogs, such as SETHLUI and Eatbook
• Restaurant brand entities: Loy Kee Chicken Rice and Katong Mei Wei Boneless Chicken Rice
• Dish entities: Chicken rice
• Cuisine entities: Asian
• Location entities: Neighbourhoods in Singapore

A similar process occurs in the SERPs to generate a generous result consisting of reviews and recommendations.

Depending on the type of business you are running, there are many Knowledge Graph entities you should optimise for. However, the one that brings you the best result is a brand entity. In fact, in SERPs where we see a significant amount of entity-only rich results, brand entity SEOs do make a significant impact for many of the brands and businesses.

We believe that with the release of Google Bard and Search Generative Experience, it will continue to be the vital pushing factor behind search results. This is because the way Google works is that it is less likely to recommend brands that it does not understand explicitly.

Hence, if your brand is not an entity in Google Knowledge Graph, then Google has even less assurance in your brand, affecting your brand’s relevancy to search queries and relationships with other related entities, which ends up affecting your organic visibility on SERPs, Discover, and Bard.

To help you establish a quality brand entity, we have compiled five imperative steps.

Step #1: Secure CMO sponsorship

Establishing a brand entity is not a one-person mission; neither is it just fulfilling SEO requirements. It involves working with your CMO (Chief Marketing Officer). It will be hard to make significant changes if they are not on board with your marketing strategies.

Hence, convincing your CMO to be your brand entity establishment campaign’s executive sponsor not only helps you to secure their assistance and guidance but also their ability to allocate proper resources to your campaign.

To get them aboard your campaign, show them the opportunities by showcasing the following:

• Competitor brand entity presence: Google’s understanding of your competitors’ entities
• Current brand entity presence: Google’s understanding of your brand entities
• Industry-relevant Bard results: Key user intents-related results and if your brand is included in them
• Industry-related entity-only SERP features: Key user intents-related rich results and if your brand is included in them
• Your branded SERP: Are you dominating SERP with a detailed knowledge panel consisting of your brand’s social media platforms and related content

Step #2: Align and define your brand entity bio

In order to establish your brand entity in Google Knowledge Graph, you need to start with your official brand name. While this sounds absurdly simple and straightforward, everybody will have a different “version” of your official brand name. Using “Impossible Marketing” as an example, some will write:

• The brand with different spacing: ImpossibleMarketing
• The brand with different capitalisation: Impossible marketing or impossible marketing
• The partial URL: impossiblemarketing.com

As sensitive as Google’s language processing is towards casing and spelling, all these “variations” will be interpreted as different entities. Hence, it is vital to define a brand entity bio which will help inform Google about your brand in a manner such that Google’s algorithm is able to understand confidently in detail. A detailed and well-defined brand entity bio should include what your brand is about as well as other details, such as core value propositions, key partners, awards, or relevant history.

Step #3: Corroborate topical relatedness

Google assesses entities based on how related they are. If two entities are often referenced together by several authoritative sources, Google strengthens the two entities’ connections in the knowledge graph. Your website should be the most authoritative source for your brand entity, particularly your About page and homepage. With that being said, it is also vital to revisit already published content, optimising existing content and ensuring that every detail about your brand aligns with your official brand name and brand entity bio. This step should extend to other relevant platforms, such as your Google Business Profile and any of your brand’s social media platforms.

However, do note not to spam. Google updated their link spam in December 2022 to ensure quality content for its users. Hence, if a site is authoritative but is not related to your industry, optimising it will not help. This advice includes inactive social profiles too!

Step #4: Markup everything

Use JSON-LD format organisation schema markup on your About page. Consider it communication with Google in their native language. It enables you to confirm key attributes of your brand entity, allowing Google to accept those as facts.

Step #5: Establish related entities

Every related entity on your website should be marked up with structured data so that they can be understood by Google explicitly, strengthening the connections between the brand entity and others. Doing so increases the probability of your brand appearing in various search-related SERPs.

Conclusion

Boosting your visibility on SERPs as well as generative chatbots, such as Bard, is vital for branding. Hence, building a robust brand entity in Google Knowledge Graph is the first step you need to take to do so. With the increase in generative AI, it seems like the importance of optimising for entities is going to skyrocket. Leveraging it will only allow you to maintain control of how Google presents your brand to your potential audience. Do not hesitate. It is time to invest in quality projects like this.