Entity-Based SEO: Why Google Now Cares More About Topics Than Keywords
In the search engine optimisation (SEO) landscape, when we mention an entity, we are mentioning anything that is singular, well-defined, and distinct that helps search engines understand and recognise.
An entity in SEO could be a place, company, event, person, or a concept. Entitles are essential as they are more than keywords, they have contextual meaning that search engines understand in order to provide users with relevant results.
While entities and keywords are similar, they serve different functions:
Now this may sound confusing, but to give you an example:
Using the keyword “Apple” in your content could refer to the fruit, an e-commerce website, or the technology company we all know. When used as an entity, the meaning is based on actual context.
Entity based SEO helps search engines connect users to the correct meanings, which means that search engines results are improved and more relevant.
Entity-based SEO is a process where you optimise your content for specific keywords and the entities the keywords represent. When focusing on entities, you improve the search engines ability to understand your content, aligning with Google's shift to semantic SEO. It also improves your chances or increasing your ranking, even grabbing a spot in rich snippets and Knowledge Panels.
Many digital markets have now changed from keyword based SEO to entity based SEO. In the past, we all focused on keyword optimisation, carefully placing keywords throughout the content. With major advances in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML), algorithms now prioritise entities and their relationships over keyword frequency.
Google's Knowledge Graph is a vast database of interconnected entities, along with their attributes. If you do a search for “Bill Gates,” for example. The Knowledge Graph will pull up all related entities, that can include “Microsoft” and “Meta,” helping Google provide accurate, complete, and relevant results.
Entities are important to how Google understands search intent and provides relevant content, whether it’s social media, voice search, or a physical product.
Optimising for entities can improve your placement in search results, such as rich snippets and the Knowledge Panels. These are enhanced SERP features that rely on data, pulling from authoritative sources.
When you incorporate structured data, you increase your chances of appearing in this prime spots. Appearing in these prime SERP spots, helps to:
Entity-based SEO is the future and Google is now caring more about topics than keywords to ensure it provides accurate and relevant results to users. By doing so, Google is effectively filtering out websites that have relied on keyword stuffing and manipulative techniques. Remember, Google and other search engines, are constantly striving to provide their users with the best search experience. If you need help with entity-based SEO, get in touch with the professional team at Genie Crawl today. Complete our online contact form now to secure a free evaluation and quote.
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