Entity SEO

Long definition

A keyword is a string of text. An entity is a thing — a unique, identifiable concept that exists independently of the words used to describe it. "Apple" the fruit, "Apple Inc." the company, and "Apple Records" the label are three entities sharing one keyword. Search engines that understand entities can disambiguate; engines that only match keywords cannot.

Google has been entity-driven since the 2012 launch of the Knowledge Graph, accelerated by the 2013 Hummingbird update, Bert (2019), and MUM (2021). Modern AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, and Claude all consume entity-structured information directly from the web — sometimes via Google's Knowledge Graph, sometimes by parsing schema.org markup, sometimes by extracting from text and resolving against their internal knowledge bases.

What entity SEO involves in practice:

1. Identify the entities you represent. The company, the founders, the product lines, the locations, the topics you have authority on. Each of these should resolve to a unique, machine-readable identity.
2. Mark up with structured data. Organization, Person, Product, Place, Article schemas with @id URIs and sameAs links to Wikipedia, Wikidata, LinkedIn, and other authoritative entity registries. The sameAs array is the primary mechanism for connecting your entity to the canonical entity registries Google reads.
3. Build content that establishes your entity's authority on its topic. A pillar-cluster model centered on the entity's domain. Mentions across the web that connect the entity name to its core topic — "Enric Ramos" + "Spanish freelancer SEO" appearing across a coherent body of content.
4. Get into Wikidata. Wikidata is the structured-data feed that powers a large share of Knowledge Graph entity disambiguation. A Wikidata entry with sourced statements is a force multiplier for entity recognition.

For LLM grounding specifically, entity-rich content is what AI engines quote with attribution. Pages that name entities clearly, mark them up, and back the claims with citations get cited; pages with vague pronouns and unstructured prose get summarized away.

Common misconceptions

• "Entity SEO replaces keyword SEO." It complements it. Keywords still describe the queries; entities describe the things the queries are about. Both matter, with entities increasingly load-bearing in AI-mediated search.
• "Schema.org markup alone makes you an entity." Schema is the signal mechanism — but entities live in Google's Knowledge Graph, populated from many sources (Wikipedia, Wikidata, web mentions, structured data). Schema helps Google connect signals; it doesn't manufacture authority.
• "Only big brands need entity SEO." Local businesses, B2B niches, and individual experts all benefit. A solo consultant with a clear Person entity tied to a topic can earn Knowledge Panel inclusion and AI citation.
• "Knowledge Graph and entity SEO are the same." The Knowledge Graph is one consumer of entity signals — Google's. LLMs, voice assistants, and other AI engines consume the same entity signals through different pipelines.