Hello and welcome to SEO Is Not That Hard. I'm your host Ed Dawson, the founder of the SEO intelligence platform KeywordPupeopleUser.com, where we help you discover the questions people ask online and then how to optimise your content for traffic and authority. I've been in SEO from online marketing for over 20 years and I'm here to share the wealth of knowledge, hints and tips I've amassed over that time. Hello, welcome back to SEO It's Not That Hard. It's me, Ed Dawson, as usual, and today we're on part four of our series on entities. In the last episode, we went inside Google's knowledge graph. We learned that it's a massive dynamic trust ledger, and it's constantly cross-referencing facts from across the web to build a confident understanding of real-world entities. We also learned that what the key things is consistency. You need to ensure the information about your brand is accurate everywhere it appears online. It's critical for building trust with Google. So imagine you've done the work, you've cleaned up your online presence, you're providing clear signals, and Google is starting to build a strong, confident profile of your core entities in its knowledge graph. So what's the payoff? Why is this worth doing? Now if you think the ultimate prize is just a number one ranking on Google, then you know that's really not it. And this is just on Google, okay? A strong entity profile doesn't just help you rank, it makes you eligible to get pieces of prime real estate on the search results page that you're not going to get access to otherwise. In ways that go far beyond the traditional list of links. That's why today we're talking about what is beyond those 10 blue links. So I want you to think about the last time you searched for something on Google, did the results page look like a simple clean list of 10 blue links? It's probably not. For years that was the standard format. But the modern search engine results page or SERP, it's dynamic, it's feature-rich environment. In fact, according to some data from August 2024, only just under one and a half percent of Google's first page results were just plain blue links, something else. The other 98.5% were filled with what we call SERP features. And these features like info boxes, image carousels, and direct answers are the most direct and visible way that you will see the knowledge graph at work. They Google's attempt to provide users with rich contextual information and immediate answers. And they're all powered by entities. Getting your brand to appear in these features is how you're truly going to get the most out of your SEO. So let's break down the most important ones. First up, the one we've touched on in the episode, the last episode, was the knowledge panel. And this is like the flagship, it's like the crown jewel of entity-driven SERP features. It's that large box of information that typically appears on the right-hand side of the desktop search result. Sometimes it'll be on the top. And it's almost like an official business card for your entity, and it's going to display a really curated summary of the facts, images, and other related information pulled directly from the knowledge graph. It's not pulling from a single web page, it's pulling that and synthesizing information from a huge variety of trusted sources like Wikipedia, your official website, social media profiles, and all sorts of places. And the appearance of a knowledge panel is an automated process. It's Google's way of saying that we've gathered enough consistent information about the center team and we're really confident in its identity and attributes. The next one to look at is rich snippets, which you might also hear some people call rich results. And these are visual enhancements to a standard organic search result that display extra helpful information. And you'll see these all the time, even if you don't know what they're called. So things like star ratings under a product, that's a rich snippet. If you search for recipes and your cooking times, calories and a picture before you even click, that's a rich snippet. If you see a price and an in-stock availability for e-commerce item, then that's a rich snippet. And yeah, seeing those little expandable QA sections under a result, that's also an FAQ rich snippet. And these snippets are really valuable because they really make your results pop. You will stand out compared to others. And they take up more space, they provide immediate value, and it can really improve your click-through rate compared to just all those plain blue links around them. And the best part is you have direct control over these. Rich snippets are generated when you add specific structured data using the scheme.org vocabulary to your website's code. A topic we'll go into in a future episode. Now let's move over to the most coveted area of real estate on the entire page. And that's the very top. This is where people are always going to pay the most attention. This is where you'll find featured snippets and the newer AI overviews. A featured snippet, sometimes people call it position zero. That's a direct excerpt of text that Google pulls from a single web page that its algorithm has determined is the best answer for the user's question. It might be a paragraph, a bulleted list, or a table. And for many years this was what people really aim to go for. But now the new player, the new kid on the block, AI overviews. Now these are the AI generated summaries that are becoming more and more common at the top of the CERT. The key difference is that an AI overview is synthesized from information across multiple top-ranking sources, not just one. Now, eligibility for both of these top-tier features is really heavily influenced by having a strong entity profile. When Google recognises you as a trustworthy and authoritative source on a topic, it increases the likelihood that it will select your content for these really highly visible positions. So having well-structured entity-rich content that answers questions clearly and concisely is the way to get to the top of the page. So we have knowledge panels, rich snippets, and top of page answers. It's clear that a strong entity profile is going to have huge benefits for you. And here's the big kind of takeaway from today's episode: these SERP features are not just prizes to be won, they're your most direct public-facing, almost like an API for understanding how Google perceives your industry, your topic area. So while the inner workings of the knowledge graph and all the rest of Google are a bit of a black box, its outputs are there to see every time you do a search. So if you're a strategist, this is a kind of a reverse-engineered map of the knowledge profile and the Google algorithm that you need to see and understand. So you can use it to diagnose real critical questions. Which of my competitors does Google deem authoritative enough to grant a knowledge panel? What attributes and related entities does Google consider most important for my main topic? Look at the people also search for section for this. And most importantly, and one you're not going to be surprised when you're talking about, the specific questions that appear in the people also ask boxes. These are not guesses. This is Google telling you the exact questions and information needs of people and the subtopics people have around the query that you are searching for and your topic area. The answers to these questions, they will provide you a proper data-driven roadmap for your content strategy, your schema implementation, and your entire entity optimization plan. So this brings me to what your takeaway, what you should go do next from this is. Go to Google and search for your main product, your service, topic area, whatever it is that is important to you and your site. But this time, ignore the rankings. Instead, look at the features on the page. Who has rich snippets? What kinds are they? Is there a feature snippet on an AI overview and what sources are they pulling from? What are the top three, four questions in the people also asked box? And obviously you can use keywords people to use if you want to delve down further levels of that. And write them down. You know, that isn't just a list of questions. This is your next content plan. It's handed to you on a silver platter by Google itself. Now, next time we're going to change up a bit. We're focused on how Google understands the world, but there is, do you not need me to tell you, there's a revolution happening with large language models. So we're next time we're going to look at how large language models like ChatGPT think and how you can optimise for the AI-driven future of search. So until next time, keep optimising, stay curious, and remember, SEO is not that hard when you understand the basics. Thanks for listening, it means a lot to me. This is where I get to remind you where you can connect with me and my SEO tools and services. You can find links to all the links I mentioned here in the show notes. Just remember with all these places where I use my name, the Ed is spelt with 2Ds. You can find me on LinkedIn and Blue Sky, just search for Ed Dawson on both. You can record a voice question to get answered on the podcast, the link is in the show notes. You can try my SEO intelligence platform KeywordsPupleUse at keywordspeopleuse.com where we can help you discover the questions and keywords people asking online. Post those questions and keywords into related groups so you know what content you need to build topical authority. And finally, connect your Google Search Console account for your sites so we can crawl and understand your actual content. Find what keywords you rank for and then help you optimise and continually refine your content. If you're interested in learning more about me personally or looking for dedicated consulting advice, then visit www.eddawson.com. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SU is not a hammered.