If you’ve been on the internet for a long time, you might have taken notice that Google now offers quite a bit of additional knowledge instead of just listing websites like it did in the old days.
Not all of this is advertisement.
If you search for something popular, like a movie title or the name of a large business then you’ll see a bunch of information along the right hand side of the bar.
This is the “Knowledge Graph” and being able to rank on Google and land your page’s information there is a great way to get some extra views.
So, how do you go about doing this?
How To Rank In The Google Knowledge Graph
Whether you want your name to rank or your brand, there’s quite a bit you’ll need to do to land yourself in this prestigious position.
You’ll have to convince Google’s crawlers that you’re worth placing in that presitigious place, however, which means that you’ll need the following at the very least:
- A high authority page with structured data
- Social media profiles which are quite active
- Blogs that include multiple authors
- References, citations, and backlinks
- Branded Google+ profile
- A Wikipedia page
That might seem like a bit of a tall order.
And it really is, if you’re new to this whole internet thing. It’s a bit of prestige which will definitely add to the value of your company or personal brand however and laying down the framework really only requires you to… well, do things correctly in the first place.
This isn’t something you’re going to achieve overnight.
This might not be something you’ll achieve in a couple of months, either.
In fact, it might not be something you achieve at all but the steps which you’ll take trying are sure to help your venture advance as time goes on.
it looks like the key to landing on the Knowledge Graph is simply this: be notable and be good at what you do.
So why not make it a goal?
With time and diligence you can definitely make yourself rank there, and the sheer amount of SEO power you end up wielding can be quite over the top.
You’ll be recognized as an actual authority.
It’s worth the investment of time and effort, because even if you fall a bit short for a long time to come it will encourage fantastic online habits that’ll aid pretty much every endeavor you end up trying out.
The Advantages of Being Included
Thanks to the fact that most of us use Google on a regular basis, how often are you surprised that something shows up in the Knowledge Graph?
I’m willing to bet it’s not that often. The graph definitely doesn’t show up for every keyword or person you’re looking for, and when it does you know that there’s a stand-out quality about the whole thing.
So imagine your brand, business, or online persona landing there.
It lends a huge amount of weight to the authority you carry, simply by virtue of being recognized as an authority or successful venture.
It’s also some valuable SEO real estate, which can aid in future ventures quite a bit.
Structure Your Data
Structured data takes the form of rich snippets and other pieces which make things quite apparent to the crawlers that come over your website just what is what.
Thankfully, Google has made it quite easy to ensure that you can find the coding without necessarily being a coder.
If you’re not familiar with Schema markup, then you’re going to want to learn a little bit. There’s actually an easy-to-use utility from Google, the Structured Data Markup Helper which will make things quite a bit easier on you.
All you need to do is select elements from your page and then fill things in correctly in order to get going.
This is a pretty specialty branch of data, which a lot of folks don’t have much experience with. You could probably outsource it, but it’s actually surprisingly easy to learn and do if you put in the time and effort.
It’ll pay off pretty much no matter what happens after all.
Landing on Wikipedia
Of all of the requirements to end up in the Knowledge Graph, this is probably the hardest to achieve.
You probably know that anyone can edit Wikipedia and I’m sure the thought crossed your mind to just make a page for yourself on there.
Don’t do that. You’re going to get bounced and if you’re too insistent with your efforts you might find it harder to land a page in the future.
Remember what I said about landing in the Knowledge Graph being tied to things you should be trying to do anyways? There’s a good reason for that: you’ll actually need to be a person or have a brand of note in order to land on there.
The general rule of thumb is this: if no one has made a page for you just yet… then you might not yet be worthy of a page. If you have accomplished some noteworthy things and have the citations to back it up it may be worth a shot to make a page.
But this isn’t going to work for the average beginner. You’ll need to earn your place here.
So, consider carefully before you take this matter into your own hands. Getting blacklisted will hurt you in the future, but if you’re there and the page simply hasn’t emerged yet then you may be able to swing it.
This definitely isn’t the best place to take a risk, however.
Backlinks
Like everything else that has to do with ranking: you’re going to need backlinks.
Backlinking is the basic currency unit of SEO and the more of them you have the better off you are in almost every circumstance. As long as you’re not trying to use old blackhat techniques like PBNs anyways.
The backlinks you need in this instance are those which come from sites with a high Domain Authority. This means sites which are noted as being great, having valuable content, and are recognized as being the sort of place to go when you need information on their core subject.
Again, it looks like the key to landing on the Knowledge Graph is simply this: be notable and be good at what you do.
Optimize Your Google+ Page
It’s kind of a sneaky trick by Google, since pretty much no consumer uses Google+ as their primary social media, but Google loves itself.
This means that you need to make sure that your Google+ page is active and well taken care of in order to rank in the Knowledge Graph.
Fill in as much information about yourself or your business as possible on the page in order to get things rolling here. It might seem tedious, but it’s not so bad after all.
Reviews
Reviews are another key piece of currency when it comes to ranking higher.
They’re also a crucial part of many businesses and are only getting more and more important as people seek them out online before making consumer-level decisions.
Ask people to review your business, and do so actively. It’s a great way to make sure that you stay on top of things and a large amount of reviews are one of the things you’re going to need to amass to land on the Knowledge Graph over time.
Local Optimization
If you’ve got a business which is based in a certain geographic location then you’re going to need to ensure that you’ve got your SEO optimized there as well.
Local businesses have a slightly different set of SEO priorities over those who work primarily through the internet and learning how to manage this is important to driving larger amounts of traffic to your business and raising your visibility.
You’ll also need to take care of it in order to land on the Knowledge Graph.
Some Words of Encouragement
Not everyone is going to land on the Knowledge Graph, let’s get that out of the way right up front.
Indeed, it really is something of an achievement to work your way that far up.
Of course, a lot of super successful people and business’ aren’t on there either.
Here’s the thing though: if you actively work towards landing yourself there no effort is wasted even if you never make it.
Why is that?
Because all of the things that you need to do in order to run a successful online venture are included in the list of requirements. Think of making it there less in terms of valuable search engine optimization and more as a prize for working your way up through the ranks to become a person, business, or brand of note.
I think you’ve got it in you, personally. So you should too.
It’s not a race, it’s just proof that you’ve made it all the way to the top and really made yourself stand out in the online world.
And it’s definitely worth striving for.
