This Blog is the first of a series of posts about Entity-Based SEO Optimization.
Search engine optimization (SEO) used to be defined by the number of keywords and keyword synonyms across your website’s content. In the early days of SEO, keyword stuffing, which involves adding your chosen keyword far too many times or including largely irrelevant, popular keywords, was used constantly.
At the time, search algorithms needed to see specific keywords repeatedly to rank content correctly. It encouraged marketers to stuff keywords into articles, whether appropriate or not, because it was all about building traffic numbers.
When Google launched its knowledge graph, SEO shifted away from simply relying on keywords, and search engine crawlers began prioritizing rich snippets and entities on search engine results pages (SERPs).
These days, Google has more systems to identify the true meaning of keyword searches and queries. By categorizing ideas into “entities,” Google revolutionized its search proficiency.
While keywords are still important, SEO experts now also use entity-based SEO to further their ranking efforts. Context and relevance are increasingly important in search engine results, and entities can help improve these factors.
Entity-based SEO uses context, not just keywords, to help users find the information they seek. While keywords are an essential part of your SEO strategy, they don’t fully reflect how humans search for information. Humans drill down, and typically we look to find something from the general to the specific.
For example, a person who searches for “Posts” may be looking for Blog Posts, or fence posts, or delivery times for snail mail.
To enable this, Google has developed Google’s Knowledge Graph.
Let’s say that you’re writing about “bugs.” To a large extent, your success depends on how well you can guide the search spider (no pun intended) to interpret that word correctly. Are you referring to “errors in a computer program”? Or, do you mean” viral or bacterial infections which cause illness”? Or “giving someone persistent trouble”? Or, “insects.”
The word “bug” could mean all of the above. With Knowledge Graph optimization, Google can tell exactly which meaning you’re using, based on your meta description, title, keywords, and content. They can then sync your content with the appropriate user intention.
The Google search spider moves from broad to narrow and helps to improve the search experience. To be clear, improving the search experience means making the user’s search results precisely what they were seeking, all without seeming to—all behind the curtain. Or, as a science fiction author Arthur Clark put it, ‘any technology, sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.’
Entity-based SEO is that magic.
