The Google Knowledge Graph update has huge implications for the way Google works as a search engine and how people use Google to find and consume information.

As with the Panda and Penguin updates, Google is trying to make search better. Our role as search engine optimisers is making our sites Google friendly, so in this post we take a look at how Knowledge Graph will affect SEO. Our SEO courses won’t show you how to trick Google as 99% of the time that leads to problems in the future. Instead we teach you the latest Google approved techniques that produce lasting, sustainable results.

Traditionally, people use Google to search for links to information. With this new update Google aims to stop just being the middle man and provide that information itself. So does Knowledge Graph spell the end for information portals like Wikipedia? And what does it mean for SEO?

These changes also have implications for Google’s ongoing court battle to justify their net dominance. They are countering multiple claims that by promoting their own products and mining data from other websites they are making certain online markets uncompetitive. But that is the subject for another post!

37% of Questions Answered

Amit Singhal believes that the new results for “Tom Cruise” will answer 37% of the most common questions. Google already knows what information people are searching for and will display facts including age, place of birth, recent films & family members in the hope of answering queries themselves:

It is likely that as Google compiles and displays facts and general info for more people, places and events, sites like Wikipedia will see a huge drop in traffic. That isn’t to say that they will become defunct as Google would never be able to show as much information without compromising search results.

Information hubs will now have to go out of their way to provide more details data and a better experience that Google to maintain interest. The market for opinion should open wider as Google will only provide facts.

Knowledge Graph & SEO

The good news? You should no longer have to try and outrank sites that have the same name and keywords as you but provide an entirely different service.

Think of the problems surrounding the latest Avengers film – released worldwide as The Avenger, Avengers Assemble and even Marvel Avengers Assemble. This was partly because execs thought us Brits would get confused with the 1960s TV spy show of the same name.

The Avengers name problem also helps us illustrate how Knowledge Graph could solve this problem. Currently, a search for ‘Avengers’ produces a 50/50 split in above the fold results for the comic book and the film:

Google’s Knowledge Graph should recognise these as separate entities and give you the option to narrow down your results to just the film or the comic, depending which you were searching for.

So, if you are worried that your Avengers comic fan site or your review of Avengers Assemble is ranking badly then this should help you out by removing the unrelated pages in the way of yours.

What this means is that while you should still optimise your site for those broad keywords that bring in the visitors, you should keep an eye on your narrow and long tail keywords because Google is now helping users narrow their searches.

You should also concentrate on keyword variation – something you should be doing already! To use our site as an example, Google recognises that ‘training’, ‘course’, ‘education’ etc. are all related keywords and places them together as one. A search for training brings up results that use the other keywords as well.

Open Up Your Data

The businesses that do the best out of Google changes are those that embrace them rather than fight them. Google wants to display more data in SERPs instead of a list of links, so give them as much data as you can. While slightly unrelated to this update, Rich Snippets are another way that Google is attempting to show more than just links in SERPs. Use microdata to mark up everything on your site as much as possible and Google will show that information to potential visitors/ customers.

• Blog posts – Get those authors marked up and gain authority in search results. Early research suggests that blog posts with author information in SERPs have a much higher CTR.
• Product pages – Tell Google what you are selling and they will help you out by displaying ratings, reviews & prices. All information that will help customers choose you over a competitor (unless they are bad reviews of course…)
• Events pages – When is your event happening? How much does it cost? Where is it? All this information can be displayed by Google in SERPs.
• Local businesses – Google loves local. If you want to rank well for local searches and want your customers to be able to find you easily, then mark up your site as a local business.

We recommend Schema.org for marking up your website and the Google Rich Snippets guide for finding out why you should and how to get started.

What impact do you think Knowledge Graph will have on your SEO? Do you think that you will receive more relevant traffic?

Similar posts you may like

Tags

Entity search, google, google changes, Google Knowledge Graph, Knowledge Graph, microdata, open data, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO

Share This Post