What is Entity-Based SEO?
In it’s early days, SEO used to focus on keywords and phrases – finding the right words and phrases that users might search for and making sure they’re found across your website. However, as the internet has grown and user expectations have evolved, so has SEO.
Instead, entity-based SEO is about understanding and optimising for the actual concepts, meaning or context behind those words.
Rather than just matching keywords, entity-Based SEO focuses on the relationships between concepts, people, places, and things (or entities) so that search engines like Google can provide more accurate and relevant results.
How Does Entity-Based SEO Work?
In SEO, Keyword refers to specific word and phrases that a users will enter into a search bar when they are looking for specific information on a product. While this is the foundation of every SEO campaign, keywords can be ambiguous. A keyword can refer to more than one subject and topic.
For example: A user might search for “Paris” but what are results are they looking for? The city? A person? A movie? This is similar for if a user searches “Apple” do they want the fruit or the tech company?
That’s where entity-base SEO comes in.
Put simply, Entity-Based SEO is all about helping search engines understand the deeper context and relationships within your content. An entity is defined by something that is unique, distinguishable and definable – a person, place, noun or thing. It can also be an idea or concept.
- For users, it offers better results based on previous knowledge and context
- For website owners, entity-based SEO offers better discoverability
- For e-commerce, it connects products under a single-entity
Implementing Entity-Based SEO
- Identifying Entities: The first step is to pinpoint the key entities relevant to your content. For example, if you’re running a travel blog, entities might include destinations, landmarks, local businesses, and travel influencers.
- Building Contextual Relationships: Once you’ve identified your entities, the next step is to establish how they relate to each other. For example, if your blog post discusses a travel location, it might also be beneficial to mention the city it’s in, the local cuisine, and notable historical events related to the area that help define the primary topic.
- Utilising Structured Data: Structured data, or schema markup, is a way to tell search engines about the specifics of your content. This clear labelling enhances your content’s visibility in search results and can even lead to rich snippets or even entries to Google’s knowledge graph.
- Building Authority: Link to and from other authoritative sources related to your entities. This can be referencing reputable sites, collaborating with influencers, or getting mentioned in industry-related publications. These help to reinforce the relevance and authority of your content.
- List on relevant directories: Ensure your business or content is listed in relevant directories and local business listings like Google My Business. These help establish your presence and provide additional context, helping create a known entity. Pro tip: These listings are often based on location, so its important to be aware where you are creating profiles.
