Crafting Expertise, Authority and Trust with Entity-Based Content Strategy - Jamie Alberico - SMXL 2019

6-7, NOVEMBER 2019
Content in 3D:
Creating an entity-based
strategy
Jamie Alberico
Technical SEO Consultant,
Not a Robot

@jammer_voltswww.smxl.it #SMXL19
Content SEOs have
2 major challenges to
face in 2020

1. The continued rise of
zero-click SERPs

Source:HowMuchofGoogle’sSearchTrafficisLeftfor
AnyoneButThemselves?,RandFishkin,SparkToro

2. Increased ranking and
keyword volatility

Source:HowOftenDoesGoogleUpdateItsAlgorithm?,Dr.Pete,Moz

You could continue to
analyze keywords and
competitors

Chasing keywords
and retro engineering
competitors is
exhausting.

You’re always chasing users all
over the place.
9@jammer_voltswww.smxl.it #SMXL19

Keywords are a byproduct of
human intent, capturing a
momentary human
relationship to an object,
person, group, or location.

Keywords shift as our
understanding and
relationship to entities.

Conversion
Consideration
Interest
Awareness
tutorial
what is
who
guide
learn
tips
idea
example
[product name]
[service name]
[brand name]
review
top
product attribute
review
comparison
best
order
coupon
buy
price
[store name]
[city name]
vs
Language and the
buyer’s journey

Unique user the same
thing in
very different ways

Source:JasonKessler/scattertext,Github

Geographic region,
culture, age, and many
other factors impact the
language we use

What do you call a sweet,
carbonated drink?
Source:SodavsPopwithTwitter,EdwinChen

For SEO in 2020,
keywords are past tense

character sheet
onlinemovie
b series m
odules
arcade game
m
ake a character basic rules
campaign
bard
essentials kit
monster manual
explained
for dummies
groups near me
kickstarter
forbeginners
dice
name generator
stranger things
xboxone
how
to
play
whatis
m
inifigs
w
izards
of the
coast
art
criticalrole
dnd5e
what kind of game
dungeon
m
aster
how to introduce new players
gravecleric
d&dhistory
fam
ous people who
play d&d
d and d game levels
collectors series dnd minis
what type of gam
e is
how to get into d&d
5ebooklist
adventurers league news
dungeons and dragons wikipediahow to do dnd rolls
when was dungeons and dragons made
beatles playing d&d
whatisneeded
introducingnewbiestodnd
paintedminiatures
d&d 101 help
dragon and dungeons companion
officialsite
cheap5ed&dbooks
paladin minifigs
rules for m
y d&d group
rpg
charactersheetexample
beholder
twitch dnd stream
upcom
ingd&dbooks2019
rockgnome
wildshape
spellcasters
Language
orbits around
concepts

Keywords are artifacts of
something bigger.

character sheet
onlinemovie
b series m
odules
arcade game
m
ake a character basic rules
campaign
bard
essentials kit
monster manual
explained
for dummies
groups near me
kickstarter
forbeginners
dice
name generator
stranger things
xboxone
how
to
play
whatis
m
inifigs
w
izards
of the
coast
art
criticalrole
dnd5e
what kind of game
dungeon
m
aster
how to introduce new players
gravecleric
d&dhistory
fam
ous people who
play d&d
d and d game levels
collectors series dnd minis
what type of gam
e is
how to get into d&d
5ebooklist
adventurers league news
dungeons and dragons wikipediahow to do dnd rolls
when was dungeons and dragons made
beatles playing d&d
whatisneeded
introducingnewbiestodnd
paintedminiatures
d&d 101 help
dragon and dungeons companion
officialsite
cheap5ed&dbooks
paladin minifigs
rules for m
y d&d group
rpg
charactersheetexample
beholder
twitch dnd stream
upcom
ingd&dbooks2019
rockgnome
wildshape
spellcasters
Google tracks these concepts as
Entities

An Entity is
"A thing or concept
that is singular,
unique, well-deﬁned
and distinguishable."
Source:Questionansweringusingentityreferencesin
unstructureddata,GooglePatents

In 2016, Google
patented
Question answering
using entity
references in
unstructured data

Receive a query
Cause to be generated a plurality of search results based at least one part of
the query
Retrieve previously generated data comprising one more entity references.
associated with at least one search result
Rank the entity references .
Select an entity result from the entity references .
Provide an answer to the query based on the entity results .

Zero click queries are
being answered by
Google’s understanding
of Entities

Knowledge Cards

Answer Boxes

Voice Search

People Also Ask

SERP Tools

As user queries become
more unique, Google uses
entities to match user
intent to results
even when the keywords aren’t an exact match

How can we action this
into content strategy?

Work one entity at
a time
Step 1.

Google’s Entity Repo

70Million
items
Congratulations, 3,5-dimethyl-3H-pyrazole!
🎂

Items are used to
represent all the things
in human knowledge,
including topics,
concepts, and objects.

• Person Luca Guglielmi, Lizzo, Marisha Ray
• Organization Red Hat, Rainforest Trust
• Location Milan, NYC, Living Room
• Color Indigo, Cyan
• Day 6 September, Wednesday
• Concept Love, Mortality
• Topics 1988 Summer Olympics, Brexit
What can be an Entity

Find anything with a
simple site search

Protip
If you can’t find it on WikiData,
search Wikipedia.
The primary term is likely a
synonym

Each element on a page
establishes relationships
that make the item
• singular
• unique
• well-deﬁned
• distinguishable.

7 Elements are Constant
1. ID
2. Label
3. Description
4. Aliases
5. Languages
6. Statements
7. Identiﬁers
1
6
7
5
2 3
4

2. Label
4. Aliases
1. ID
3. Description

Primary Keyword
Secondary Keywords
Disambiguation
Key to Scale

Download the full JSON ﬁle for the
entity by Inserting the ID (Q183513)in this
URL
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/ID.json
to get the json version of any page
ID: Automate & Scale

Know your unique
value
Step 2.

Electronics
Your business is in a vertical.Tabletop
RoleplayingGames
Pug-themed
everything
Vintage
Apparel

It has unique business goals.Tabletop
RoleplayingGames
SaaS: Character/Campaign Management
Media: Streaming Sessions
Ecommerce: Sell Campaign Materials

Your perspective and knowledge that
makes you uniquely useful.
x

Identify the context
of your entity
Step 3.

In the real world, we have
things have parts and
attributes.

We can reasonably expect
cars to have wheels

Would you buy a wine
without a vintage?

Entities
have
facets

The more facets you cover,
the more authoritative you
are on the entity.

WikiData Statements are
contextual relationships

Statements
establish
relationships
between entities.

Google is heavily
invested in these
semantic relationships

Google Patent
WikiData
Semantic Dashboard
Source:DataDonation,WikiData

These relationships
are a quantiﬁable means
of measuring expertise

Statements are made of
Properties
• Properties establish relationships between items
• Used to group items together
• Create linked data structure
• Each property is also an item
• Preﬁxes will denote use
– P = Property
– C = Item

Each entity has a set of
properties
Tool:WikiDataPropertyExplorer

• said to be the same as (P460)
• different from (P1889) - (different from, but
sometimes confused with ...)
Properties compare items
Source:Wikidata:Identifiers,Wikidata

• part of (P361) - (section of .../ contained
within .../ pieces of ...)
• instance of (P31) - (is an example of ...)
• subclass of (P279) - (is a subset of ...)
Properties identify parts of

• has part (P527) - (contains ...)
• has parts of the class (P2670) (has parts
that are instances of .../ some parts form
subclass of ...)
Properties identify
contained items

Source:Towardauniversaldecoderoflinguistic
meaningfrombrainactivation
Map your entity’s
properties.

Spiral out method
1. Start with the core of the entity
2. Brief summarize all its main aspects brieﬂy
3. Identify which facets/areas of knowledge in line with
your business perspective
4. Identify how these facets connect to other tangible
items related to your business offerings

Create content that
expresses
relationships
between entities
Step 4.

Combine entity statements with your
perspectiveTabletopGaming
Ecommerce
x

Ditch the feeling words
Mimic the same quantiﬁable objects and
relationships used by items and their
properties.

TabletopGaming
As [persona], I want to [task] in
order to [outcome].
"As an ecommerce site, I want to
create content about games you
can play with D20 dice sets in
order to generate interest in our
products."
Ecommerce
x
Practice by writing user stories

Queries have intent.
So should your content.
• Informational
• Location-based
• Transactional

TabletopGaming
Ecommerce
Content Topic:
"Tabletop games that
use d20"
Intent:
Informational
x

TabletopGaming
Ecommerce
x
Result: Position Zero & 1

Leverage the
authority of
identiﬁers for
research
Step 4.

Identifiers like
Quora topic,
subreddit, and
niche specific
IDs lead you to
what real
humans are
talking about.
https://tools.wmflabs.org/freebase/google/g/11c581wy7m

Google Knowledge Graph ID
• Type of property (P2671)
• identiﬁer for Google Knowledge Graph API
• IDs start with “/g/”
• Older Freebase (deprecated) entries start with "/m/"

The Graph ID
value will take
you to a SERP
full of Google
Knowledge
Graph entries
See the SERP >> https://tools.wmﬂabs.org/freebase/google/g/11c581wy7m

Google Identiﬁers
Why research here? Because it’s pragmatic for Google to trust its own
datasets.
• Freebase ID (P646)
• Google News Topic ID (P5337)
• Google Doodle (P4431)
• Google+ ID (P2847)
• YouTube channel ID (P2397)
• Google Play Store app ID
(P3418)
• Twitter username (P2002)
• Facebook ID (P2013)
• Google Maps Customer ID
(P3749)

Google Identiﬁers
• Google Books ID (P675)
• Google Scholar author ID (P1960)
• Google Scholar paper ID (P4028)
• Google Play Store app ID (P3418)
• Google Arts & Culture asset ID (P4701)
• Google Play Movies & TV ID (P6562)
• Google Arts & Culture asset ID (P4701)
• Google Play Music artist ID (P4198)
• Google News publication ID (P6157)

Use outbound links
to trusted entity
references
Step 5.

Identiﬁers are trusted sources of truth
for information about the entity

Create outbound links to
trusted identiﬁers
nofollow is now a hint for crawling and index.
Coming March 2020, nofollow may be a ranking
hint.
Why? Because all links can be used to
establish context

Your Content
Trusted
Identiﬁer
Entity
Outbound link establishes
connection to entity
Establishes facts about the
entity

When content is
connected to
entities, Google
can extract facts
(They’ve got the patent to prove it!)

Make and
contribute
resources to Wiki
sources
Step 6.

You’ve leveraged Wiki’s
Expertise and Trust.

Contribute to the Wiki
knowledge pool and
become the authority.

In WikiData’s Own Words
Source:Datadonation,WikiData

How to add data to Wikidata
1. Contact the Wikidata community describing what data
you have and would like to include in Wikidata.
2. Decide with the Wikidata community what data is
suitable to import.
3. Work with the Wikidata community to import the data
Source:Datadonation,WikiData

• Images
• Videos
• Audio
• Translations
• Accessible versions (ASL)
• Quotations
• Learning tools
• Textbooks & manuals
All contributions agree to Creative
Commons CC0 License
Do not start with your brand.
• Wikipedia
• Wiktionary
• Wikimedia Commons
• Wikidata
• Wikiquote
• Wikibooks
• Wikisource
• Wikispecies
• Wikinews
• Wikiversity
• Wikivoyage
• MediaWiki
Be factual. Earn trust.

Step 7.
|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣|
DON'T BE AFRAID
TO LEARN IN PUBLIC
|＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿|
(__/) ||
(•ㅅ•) ||
/ 　づ

• Data Donation, Wikidata
• Wikidata:List of properties
• Wikidata pageview analysis
• Wikidata propbrowse
• Wikibase/DataModel/JSON
• Wikidata Property Explorer
• Question answering using entity
references in unstructured data,
Google Patents
• Method entities.search,
Knowledge Graph Search API,
Google Search
Resources
• What Are Entities & Why They
Matter for SEO, Dave Davies,
Search Engine Journal
• Beetlejuice's Guide to Entities
and the Future of SEO, Greg
Glifford
• Google Extracts Facts from the
Web to Provide Fact Answers, Bill
Slawski
• Google Gets Smarter with Named
Entities: Acquires MetaWeb, Bill
Slawski

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