Think of any brand, location, person, or concept. What do you associate with them? If someone mentioned Radio Flyer, you might picture a little red wagon. Thinking about Florida evokes daydreams of lounging on a sunny beach, a family trip to Disney World, or maybe just a refreshing glass of orange juice. The name Taylor Swift is synonymous with pop music, and Britannica is a globally renowned publisher of trustworthy encyclopedias. When a colleague or a friend suggests grabbing a cheeseburger after work, very specific ingredients and flavors instantly come to mind.
In digital marketing speak, these would all be considered known “entities,” as each name, whether it’s a brand, a state, an artist, an educational resource, or a menu item, is distinctly identifiable and associated with a specific niche or understanding. Hearing or seeing the name brings forth preconceptions and ingrained ideas of who or what the entity is, both for better and, sometimes, worse.
What is Entity SEO?
Entity SEO (also called “entity-based SEO”) is the act of optimizing a business, a website, or a particular type of product or service so that it is understood and associated wth specific concepts and ideas. It involves thinking several steps beyond optimizing for target keywords to ensure a website or a brand is seen as trustworthy and authoritative by users, search engines, and AI platforms.
For example, a publisher of board games, Publisher X, wants to expand its business into developing family-friendly video games. Though some of its current customers likely play both board games and video games, these are two distinct markets. Publisher X is currently seen as an entity associated with tabletop and board games, and the company likely won’t appear in a search for family-friendly video games.
In order to gain a foothold and associate Publisher X’s entity with this new market, it will take more than just creating a targeted landing page stacked with keywords. Publisher X will have to scope out the competition, pepper key terms associated with this new market across primary pages on their site (like the homepage, key category landing pages, and the about us page), and map out a plan that incorporates both transactional and informational content targeting different niche topics under the “family-friendly video game” cluster. Publisher X will also have to consider how the company can gain brand mentions from topically relevant, authoritative websites in this new niche that refer to their brand in tandem with appropriate family-friendly video game terminology.
If this sounds similar to brand-building, that’s because there is a correlation. However, entity SEO diverges from brand-building in that the goal is to be known or associated with a very specific topic or niche within search and AI.
Entity SEO involves heavy research that analyzes the competitive space in organic search and AI, discovering inroads and opportunities to build authority and trust. These opportunities often include speaking to or acknowledging related entities that users and platforms associate with the target entity. For example, a men’s running shoe brand that wants to be a known entity for runners will want to target informational content around shoes for 5ks and other events, tips for runners, and shoe-related topics that their target demographic is interested in.
Why is Entity SEO Important?
Ultimately, entity SEO is about clarity. Its importance is in ensuring search engines like Google and large language models (LLMs) understand what the entity is, who it’s for, and how to field search term-loaded questions about it. A website with strong entity SEO will arm search engines and AI platforms with clear answers when faced with who, what, how, and why questions.
How to Approach Entity SEO
Creating an entity SEO plan is complicated, and it’s often difficult knowing where to start. Focus on the end goal: Who is your entity for, and what does your research tell you they’re interested in? Once you know the end goal, it’s easier to start working backward. Consider the steps below as a directional guide in creating an entity SEO plan of action.
1. Answer the Who, What, How & Why
The first step is to understand who you are as a brand and what you offer searchers and potential customers. Make sure you can answer the following questions:
- Who is your target demographic?
- Example: Do you sell children’s toys? Is your demographic primarily parents of boys and girls between certain ages?
- Example: Does your business sell resort-style experiences to young couples?
- What are the core products and/or services integral to your business’s success?
- This doesn’t have to be an exhaustive list of every product. For a company whose business depends on the sale of gardening equipment, this might mean focusing specifically on the gardening equipment, as opposed to the storage supplies they may also sell.
- Why should customers choose your business over competitors?
- While price is the first thing that comes to mind, most businesses avoid competing on price unless they’re truly the low-price leader. Companies typically focus on expertise, customer service, in-stock inventory, location, staff training, and other differentiating factors. Look for ways your business can offer something original and distinct from its competitors, and drive that home alongside your brand name across the internet.
- How do customers use the product, and what are some niche topics or informational resources customers often ask about?
- Using the gardening example from earlier, this could mean topics like customer-focused planting guides or resources on which type of plants are best for different climates.
2. Target High-Volume Keywords
Once you’ve answered the basics about your business or website, the next step is to find the terms and keywords searchers are using in search and AI. This involves using some of the words and phrases uncovered in the previous exercise, like product names or types, and building seed lists to find related terms and long-tail queries that users are searching for.
The guide below lays out a step-by-step method for organizing and methodically capturing as many related queries as possible.
3. Research the Competition
With your list of high-volume search terms, check Google Search results in incognito mode to see who occupies the real estate you’re looking to capture. Are there similar names that appear again and again across multiple keywords? Note them, including the URL of the page they are ranking for.
- Analyze not only which competitors are ranking but how they approach each topic.
- Is the search intent completely transaction-focused, or are there informational pages ranking as well?
- Use the same search terms in AI platforms like Claude and ChatGPT to gauge which competitors surface and how each platform speaks about them.
- It’s important to note which words and/or products are mentioned in tandem with the brand name. This can help provide context in what AI platforms may or may not know about a particular brand.
- Explore the sites winning in search and AI, noting their taxonomy, internal linking strategy, and blog strategy.
Incorporating Topically Relevant Entities
When exploring the search landscape for everything your entity needs, it’s important to note the related entities that competitors refer to time and again. For a cookware company, this could mean certain types of bakes that go hand-in-hand with a piece of equipment. For example, a stand mixer company might highlight that their product is excellent for mixing dough, cake batter, etc. A hiking equipment manufacturer could highlight well-known trails, landmarks, or national parks their customers frequent. These little details and associations help correlate your entity with related ones, which builds trust and authority with users and bots.
4. Map out Pages and Topic Clusters
After your search terms are selected, your competitive research is completed, and your intended market is better understood, the next step is to map out everything your entity needs. This involves mapping out service and informational pages, as well as resources, guides, or clustered blog topics, as needed. The goal is to create clear, distinct pages with the correct search intent and unique keyword themes that enhance a search engine or crawler’s understanding of your site’s identity.
Informational pages that relate to ecommerce pages should link to them, and vice versa, to help search engines and AI platforms better understand the correlation between these pages.
Keep in mind that building pages just because a competitor has them isn’t a strategy for success. The goal is to stay on theme and craft pages for relevant keyword themes that drive search demand: This tells us that users are actively looking for this type of content.
Once a map has been built, it’s time to start building your pages!
5. Consider Adding Schema Structured Data
Adding schema structured data is a tactic that can better inform search engines and LLMs, making your site eligible for rich results and unique placements. There are different types of structured data that can inform search engines and users about events, recipe ingredients, product information, locations, reviews, and more. Each piece of structured data can help surface answers in search and AI, like the star ratings triggered by reviews structured data, pricing and in-stock information directly in search result listings etc.
Adding organization structured data to a homepage can help influence your site’s inclusion in Google’s Knowledge Panel, the entity-based summary box that appears on the right-hand side on desktop or near the top in mobile search results. This panel includes quick business details and a summary of who or what the entity is. While it won’t necessarily change performance, it can improve brand recognition for searchers and can help search engines and AI better understand the entity you’re trying to optimize.
6. Collaborate with Authoritative Entities
This route can be difficult, but it builds understanding, authority, and trust in the topical niche you’re trying to associate your entity with. When researching who is ranking for key topics and keywords aligned with your goal, take note of trade magazines, consumer-focused informational websites, or similar resources. “Best of” lists are a perfect example, and reaching out to ask for an inclusion in their article or a review of your product or service can help build that association you need for entity SEO. While some of those opportunities will come with a price tag attached to them, you can find free opportunities if you dig hard.
While earning brand mentions and high-quality, topically relevant backlinks is helpful in search and AI, avoid buying links as an “SEO strategy.”
What is Google Entity Stacking, and Is It Related?
Google entity stacking is a link-building scheme that is not related to entity SEO. It involves using Google-owned platforms, like public files on Google Drive, Google Maps, and YouTube, to create a network of backlinks pointed to a specific domain. Google entity stacking is spam in another package, and it will not increase your site’s authority.
Entity SEO Works Best When Consumers Are Kept Top of Mind
When planning a strategy around entity SEO, it’s easy to get lost in the mapping of topical clusters or in comparing your site to competitors. It’s important to keep potential visitors and consumers top of mind. Ultimately, the success of your brand and website depends on user experience. Ranking for keywords and appearing in topically relevant searches can drive traffic, but an unhelpful site stuffed full of surface-level and other low-value information will never earn the trust of users.
Everything created should have a reason to exist, not just because “it’s good for SEO” or a competitor has a similar page. Brands and sites should put their strongest foot forward, offering resources with unique experiences and expertise that isn’t easily duplicated across the web. Building and winning trust isn’t about quantity; it’s about quality and attention to detail, creating something that users and searchers will want to read, share, and revisit.
