SEO Company Entities Guide
In this SEO company entities guide, we will provide you with an actionable guide about the role that the less-discussed entity optimization plays, why they deserve a greater understanding and appreciation, and how to approach content having entities in mind.
SEO Company: What Is An Entity?
According to a definition by Google, an entity is composed of a thing or a concept that can be distinguished, is tangible, clearly defined, unique, and singular. Per this definition, an entity can be in the form of an idea, a book, a domain, a brand, a place, a company, even a person, and so many more. An SEO company would then use this in content planning.
But be careful though, this is not the same as the definition for a keyword. What is the difference then?
Unlike a keyword, an entity is not limited by spelling or language. This is because it is a concept or thing that offers a universal understanding. Aside from that, an entity’s ability to interact with other entities can be considered to be a core feature. An SEO company uses entities to look at “thing” in “4D”. As an SEO Cape Town, we know that this “view” will only increase.
For example, with a simple search on Google, Google explains entities by using an illustration of “edges” and “nodes,” with relationships as the edges and entities as nodes.
How Do Search Engines Use Entities?
Google uses a model to break down entities and map them to a graph while assigning each of the entities a unique identity. In other words, Google uses this mode to sort of turn every search language into a mathematical computation. An SEO company would call this vectorisation.
This enables Google to clearly identify concepts as well as mapping them in the way almost all traditional models cannot map – and this is regardless of language. This is why SEO services should keep abridged of this drive by Google.
Relatedness is one of the biggest factors that enables entities to fit into search results. Therefore, the frequency with which two entities are put together simultaneously, the greater the relatedness becomes. SEO companies would see this as an opportunity to optimise for more than just a keyword.
Is An Entity A Ranking Factor for An SEO Company?
At least, in a traditional sense, an entity is not necessarily a ranking factor according to an SEO company. Plus, it is not entirely certain how much weight an entity carries when it comes to quality signals. However, when it comes to ranking factors, there are three main categories, among others, that are significantly influenced by the entity graph.
These are content, RankBrain, and links.
SEO Company Content
In the past, SEO companies worked out that the quality of content and its relevance was heavily judged or weighed by keywords. And although the use of keywords has not necessarily died away, the relationship between the words in a particular search is used by an entity to offer a much better insight to search engines.
So, for example, instead of single keywords, an SEO company would notice almost every search is now shifting towards semantics. Consider a search like “best cheap restaurants in New York.”
Although we can put the whole key phrase in a post, Google now focuses more on the semantics around each of the entities and the signals that show their relationships.
Links
All links are not created equal, ask any SEO company. However, they are the connection between entities. Plus, they also exhibit a direction as well as a relationship between pages on the web.
RankBrain
If we are talking about factors in the traditional sense of the word, then RankBrain is not necessarily a ranking factor. However, its importance comes in the way in which it helps to adjust which signals hold what weight – not to act as a signal in itself. An SEO company would see this as a way Google recalibrates its results with a human signal.
For example, when we consider a search like “ best winter boots,” RankBrain will decide which signals contain the most sense to yield the best results.
How Long Have Entities Been Used In Algorithms?
Most people are convinced that entities have played an important role in search algorithms for a very long time now. This is because patents of entities have surfaced for at least the past ten years. But the question now is when exactly did entities become an integral part of indexing?
Some experts have opined that entities became a powerful ranking signal almost around the same time as Google brought out Mobile-First Indexing. In fact, some experts go on to term the whole update as Entity First Indexing.
How Can An SEO Company Optimize Content For Entities?
First and foremost, you need to know that entities come with a lot more implications than when compared with content. Entity optimization is very important for establishing domains, building brands, as well as other kinds of online endeavors you can think of. That notwithstanding, there are some strong implications for content.
An SEO company would note, however, that these tips are not necessarily foolproof.
Pick and research a topic
To begin with, you need to have a topic and a key phrase that you want to rank. Let’s use the key phrase “best boots for the winter,” for example.
Before you can aim to rank for a keyphrase like this, you first need to gain a lot of insight into what other concepts or topics that Google considers related as far as their entity graph is concerned. In order to gain such insight, you need to look at a few places, just how an SEO company would.
Wikipedia:
Wikipedia powers a majority of their knowledge and information on entities. Also, entities (as we now know) serve as the foundation of Google’s Knowledge Graph. Thus, it is a safe assumption to make that if Google relies on Wikipedia to assist them in understanding topics, then the sources and attributes that are found in Wikipedia may help us or, at least, guide our content.
Google Images:
Google images can also be another great source of insight when it comes to entities. For example, when we type in our keyphrase “best boots for the Winter” into the search bar, we are provided with a number of entities that Google considers to be associated with “best boots for the Winter.”
And these other entities are made available below the search bar. These are not necessarily boots for Winter that you need to list in your article. However, it is only logical that a mentioning of these topics will assist Google to associate your article with them.
The “People also ask” option:
Yet another important source entity optimization is the “People Also Ask” section. This section contains the other questions and topics that Google considers are or can be associated with your target key phrase.
So, for our keyphrase “best boots for the Winter,” we may also have the following topics and questions under the People Also Ask segment:
● What brands of Winter boots are the warmest?
● What are the best-insulated boots?
● What are the best winter boots for ice?
● Best winter boots 2020
Use Google’s Natural Language API to analyse the competition
In order to use Google’s Natural Language API to analyze the competition, you need to identify the top two or even three ranking articles for the keyphrase you have targeted.
Google API demo, for example, takes a look at a number of things such as categories, syntax, sentiment, and salience. The focus for this discussion is, however, on salience.
Salience offers a score of the importance of the entity in the context of the whole text or keyphrase. The higher the score is, then the more salient the entity also is. This is what you need to do when allowing salience to direct your content:
First, click on one of the competing posts in the SERP. Next, copy the content from the SERP and paste it directly into the demo editor. Once done, click on “Analyze.” Finally, take a look at the entities that Google reveals high salience.
How Would An SEO company Give Context Throughout
This is how you can optimize for these entities. Before you begin writing, you should have a goal of establishing the relationship between the targeted entities in your keyphrase, and make all the context available to Google to associate the keywords you are targeting with their entity graph. You cannot do this by keyword stuffing; it can only be done by using some of the semantics and language that we have already gleaned from the sources above.
You can use Wikipedia and Google Images to select keywords that are related to semantically and the language to use throughout your article. You can also use the “People Also Ask” segment to help guide your overall headings and topics.
Always remember that the aim is not to stuff in keywords but instead to have a sort of toolbox of topic, language, phrases, as well as individual words as these will help to guide your writing in a way that will put a priority on the entities you are targeting.
Once you are done with writing, run your article through Google’s Natural Language API to give you a feel as to how you stack up. If the target entities show low salience, then it is not a bad idea to revisit the drawing board. If you want to get some more insight into how Google associates your desired targets, then you can take time to analyze the articles that shore more success in terms of entities.
Update The Content As And When You Need To
Optimizing entities is a bit more complicated when compared with optimizing keywords. As a result of this, there is a greater reason to update your content on a more regular basis as and when new topics around your entities arise. For example, when you take our phrase “best shoes for the winter,” as new winter shoes come out, and Google creates a place in their entity graph, it would be of importance to the salience of your entities to update your content and add the new information to your post.
Why Do Entities Matter For An SEO Company?
The answer is pretty simple; entities matter for an SEO company because they are at the core of SEO. The help of machine learning has played a significant role in making use of the concept of entities from a search level. Machine learning helps Google to understand language just enough to interpret pages and the relationship between entities.
Also, Google learns how to accurately prioritize the signals as well as make adjustments for new stuff and even learn from them.
Entities come with the ability to make calculations of the probability of being able to meet a user’s possible intent with greater accuracy. Entities also provide the ability to understand whether a result will be negative or positive just from the tone and language. They also help to reduce the reliance on links significantly. As relevant as links will remain in the future, they may be reduced simply to one out of many more mechanisms to establish the value of an entity.
More consideration needs to be put on which entities one prefers on his or her site and how those entities can be connected. This will help to increase the probability that you may meet a greater variety of possible intents than your competitor on Google.
Links And Entities
As we have already mentioned, links may soon be reduced simply to one out of many when we talk about entity connectors. It is not important to consider every logical connection irrespective of the kind of SEO you are working on.
Whenever you are working on or writing content, focus on the other entities that should be present on the site or page – and make sure that they are present. You can take a look at the top ten sites available and take time to find out which other entities are available on those pages.
Also, whenever you are building links, according to an SEO company, make sure that you focus on the entities that you are most interested in associating with. Next, get links on those sites, with the knowledge that even if there is a fall in the value of links, you will still be ok.
As far as the future of search is concerned, entities are here to stay. They play an integral part for Google to make the information we demand available when we are requesting, say, the entity “winter boots” with, say, the location relation “near me.”
There is still a lot to be learned and understood as far as the topic of entity optimization is concerned. But as long as there is enough focus on the subject, the signals will grow in significance for Google and, indeed, for other search engines.