Jason answered a lot of questions including the importance of the Entity Home, how to write entity descriptions using NLP, what corroboration to look for, what Schema Markup to use and when, international Knowledge Panels, how Knowledge Panel Sprouts work, how to trigger a Knowledge Panel, when not to claim, why some Knowledge Panels are not claimable, how Google is dealing with Knowledge Panel Spam, the mistakes SEOs make when managing Knowledge Panels, other common Knowledge Panels mistakes to avoid, typical timelines for Knowledge Panels, Google Knowledge Algorithm updates, how AC/DC record sales can help us understand Google Algo updates, why you should track and manage your Knowledge Panel over time, why changing names isn’t as scary as Olga thought.
He also gave me and the audience a boatload of practical tips and techniques. If you haven’t watched it yet, watch it now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZafU… then I am SURE you’ll come back and sign up for the next installment!
I’m very excited to have Jason back for a Q&A so that you can ask all the questions that I didn’t ask, especially the practical questions that will illicit practical what-to-do answers. That might be one or more of the:
➡️ explanations of the concepts and topics
➡️ clarification of a detail that you think might be significant
➡️ practical advice about any strategy Jason covered in the previous show
➡️ a specific problem you are having
➡️ a client case you are struggling with
…anything else you want to know about Knowledge Panels but was afraid to ask
Don’t be afraid, grasp this opportunity to pick Jason’s brain. It would be such a pity to miss your chance to get free consultancy from The Knowledge Panel Guy 🙂 Join myself, Olga Zarr (SEOSLY) and Jason Barnard for Kalicube. Click to be notified!
Introducing the Guest, Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy), for the First Live Episode of Olga Zarr
[00:00:00] Olga Zarr: Hi, everyone. So, it looks like we are live. It’s Olga Zarr from SEOSLY. Today I have Jason Barnard with me. So, together we are hosting the first live in my life. Hi, Jason, how are you doing?
[00:00:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I’m doing fine. This is great. I’m terribly pleased and proud to be the first live in your life. So far so good, I would say.
[00:00:28] Olga Zarr: Yeah. So far it’s going very nice. Okay. So, today we are here to answer all the questions around Knowledge Panels. So, you can submit your questions here in the live chat. If you don’t submit the questions, then I’m going to use that time for myself because I have a lot of questions for Jason. So if you don’t do it, I will use the entire hour just for myself.
What Happens When You Get a Knowledge Panel Sprout Like With Olga Zarr?
[00:01:01] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, I will start with my questions. So, last time we talked, my Knowledge Panel looked like I had the section taken from, I think, the EDGE of the Web Radio describing myself. I checked today, I think, and this section has disappeared. What happened? Can you tell me what happened?
[00:01:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes, I can. And this is a hugely common problem. When we talked last time, I was talking about Knowledge Panel sprouts, and they grow into these blossoming Knowledge Panels that are beautiful with lots of information in them. And what Google does is it puts information into the Knowledge Panel, sees how people react, takes it away again. So, what you will see in the first year of your Knowledge Panel is information appearing and disappearing. The description will typically change over time.
[00:01:56] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It started with Erin Sparks, EDGE of the Web. It could then move to Search Engine Journal. It will take a description from places that it feels highly relevant. LinkedIn is a very common one as well. And obviously, the ultimate aim is to get the description from your own website. And when you get that, it means Google trusts you to provide it with information about yourself.
Olga Zarr’s Progress With Her Knowledge Panel Sprout: Having a Clear Description and Focusing on Herself
[00:02:18] Olga Zarr: Okay. But I think I have made some progress. Because sometime ago, I think my LinkedIn profile was the first thing to rank on top, not my website. I think now my website, my about page is on top and LinkedIn has been pushed down, I think, for position four or even lower. So, I think I am getting there, but still Google is not showing my own website, the snippet from my own website.
[00:02:57] Olga Zarr: I think you suggested last time that I should make the description of myself more clear on my about page. And I did that. I removed all the fluff I had at the start. Because at the start, I was talking that SEOSLY is a website about this, the purpose of this website is to teach you SEO, stuff like that. So, I removed all of that, and I simply started with my name is Olga Zarr, I am an SEO consultant, blah, blah, blah. And maybe this was something that helped, but I don’t know.
Speaking in the Third Person for Your Description Tends to Make Google Understand Better
[00:03:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. The page that I see now is clear about who you are. You’ve talked a lot in the third person, which is strange and difficult, but Google needs that. It struggles with the first person. So if you say I am this, I am that, it struggles a great deal. You need to mention the full name at least once. And then it will start to understand that every time you say she or he, it will recognise who you’re talking about.
[00:04:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It will also start to associate you with different words. For example, in my case, Jason Barnard is the co-founder and CEO of Kalicube. It’s starting to recognise the founder, but it also recognises much further down musician, and it recognises that it’s the same person. So, you can give Google credit for understanding, as it goes through the text, who you are referring to as you go through the text.
[00:04:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I found that when I speak in the third person, Google tends to understand better. So, my site starts with a whole presentation at the top. The first chunk is third person. And then I’ve written underneath, I’m really sorry to everybody that this isn’t in third person, but it’s the only way I can get Google to understand. And then I continue in the first person.
Looking Through Olga Zarr’s Brand SERP and Knowledge Panel in Different Locations and Languages
[00:04:47] Olga Zarr: Yes. Because what I think I can do is I can write in the third person and then have a section where I simply add a quote when I’m talking like myself. So, this can work. And here we can see a comment. I’m sorry I’m not sure if I can pronounce your name correctly, but it looks like for someone my LinkedIn profile is shown on top. So, how about you, Jason?
[00:05:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No. I see your about page. We can look into that. Because first of all, generally speaking, Google would rank the homepage, but the homepage, I would argue, is looking at that as your company. So, it’s looking for the about page about you. And Google has said that explicitly they’re looking for an about page in order to show that, if they can. So, SEOSLY, which I now know is SEOSLY and not SEOSLY, if you type that, SEOSLY, that comes out top with some lovely Rich Sitelinks.
[00:05:55] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then if you search your name, your about page comes up. Now, if you had a personal website, that would probably outrank it quite easily. It would take two or three months, but it would probably end up at the top. So, you’ve done a really good job in the sense that you’ve got a company website with about page, which is about you. And Google has recognised that, which indicates that your technical SEO is spot on, which is lucky because that’s your job.
If Google can crawl, understand, and index your pages correctly, you’re going to perform much better.
jason barnard (the brand serp guy)
[00:06:20] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that is hugely important, that fundamental basis. As you know in SEO, if Google can crawl, understand, and index your pages correctly, you’re going to perform much better. And it’s exactly the same for this. With some basic technical SEO, you’ve got the structure of the site, you’ve got the page understood. And Google understands that that page is about you, and the homepage is about your company.
Changing Locations and Languages to See the Differences in Olga Zarr’s Brand SERP and Existence of Her Knowledge Panel
[00:06:43] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then the question there would be, why are the results in my location different to your location? If I search in France, you come out on top. If I search in San Francisco, you come out in top. If I now change location to, let’s try Delhi in India, no, you still come out on top. I just tried different places. It might also depend on the language.
[00:07:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If I switch to, let’s try London and switch languages, because we had a conversation about this. You helped me with a Polish version of my about page. And if I switch to, let’s try German, have a look at that. Yeah. If I search in German, I get images at the top. What I can do actually, if you can let me share my screen, because it will make more sense.
[00:07:41] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Great idea.
[00:07:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You can see this?
[00:07:47] Olga Zarr: Yes.
Searching in French for Olga Zarr Results to a Brand SERP With Her on Top, But There Is No Knowledge Panel
[00:07:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): This is Olga Zarr. Is that the right way to say it?
[00:07:53] Olga Zarr: Almost. Olga Zarr.
[00:07:55] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Zarr. Oh, dear, right, okay.
[00:07:57] Olga Zarr: Almost perfect.
[00:07:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Zarr. This is in German in London. And we can see your images at the top, then the Twitter, and then your about page. It doesn’t have anything in German, so its priorities are very different. If I look now in French, you come out on top, with the Twitter and below and no articles.
[00:08:23] Olga Zarr: And there is no Knowledge Panel.
[00:08:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And there is no Knowledge Panel, very good point, which is actually the topic for today. So, I should have made that point.
Olga Zarr’s Rich Brand SERP Contains Her Twitter Account, LinkedIn Profile, Images, and Search Engine Journal Articles
[00:08:30] Olga Zarr: Yeah. What happens to my Knowledge Panel? I started to, yeah, here it is.
[00:08:37] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And here you’ve got these articles, which is brilliant. So, this is more about Brand SERPs, but this is starting to look very rich. Google is saying, okay, we know who Olga is, here’s who she is. This is her Twitter account, so we’ll show that because her audience is obviously interested in Twitter. You’re an author at Search Engine Journal. This would potentially be a description that I would expect to see here at some point, when Google is doing its A/B testing during that first year.
[00:09:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): LinkedIn is also a great candidate for the description here. Then we’ve got some images and EDGE of the Web Radio. This is where it got the description from last time we saw it. The description will only appear if the page is ranking. So, you need to get a page to rank here if you want to hope to have it as a description in your Knowledge Panel.
[00:09:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And we’ve got the articles. And I think these articles are incredibly important, in the sense that Google recognises that your audience are interested in what you are writing about. And it recognises that you are writing on these incredibly authoritative and trustworthy sources or source, Search Engine Journal.
Applying the Concept of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness Will Make You Look Hugely Impressive for Google
[00:09:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that, if you’re thinking about E-A-T, is going to be hugely, hugely impressive for Google. It’s saying, these articles are on an authoritative website. I recognise that not only is Olga an expert and authoritative on her topics, but she’s being recognised by her peers as being an expert and authoritative and is therefore going to get huge E-A-T boosts. Obviously, we can’t measure it.
[00:10:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But that idea, for me, E-A-T is all about trustworthiness is being recognised by your clients, your audience. Authoritativeness is about being recognised by your peers, so this is authoritativeness for me. And then expertise is covering your topic and sticking on topic, which is what you’ve done within here and within here. And that would be how I would break down E-A-T, which is totally off topic.
If You Want Your E-A-T Signals Fully Applied, You Need to Have a Knowledge Panel and Be in the Knowledge Graph
[00:10:30] Olga Zarr: But it’s related, I would say, very closely to Knowledge Panels.
[00:10:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. If you look at E-A-T, whatever the signals are, however Google measures it, it doesn’t actually matter so much as. If it’s understood explicitly who you are, which it has here, then it can apply all of its E-A-T signals fully. If it’s guessing at who you are, i.e. you don’t have a Knowledge Panel, you’re not in the Knowledge Graph, then it’s guessing. So, it’s necessarily going to dampen those signals.
[00:11:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you want your E-A-T signals that you worked so hard to get, the trustworthiness as demonstrated by appreciation from your audience, the authoritativeness as demonstrated by agreement and support from your peers, and expertise by talking about your topic extensively and fully and accurately, to get those signals fully applied, you need to have a Knowledge Panel, you need to be in the Knowledge Graph, in my opinion.
By Using Schema Markup, Will It Give Google a Signal to Create a Knowledge Panel?
[00:11:33] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, it looks like we have the first question from Yash. Can Schema data give Google a signal to create a Knowledge Panel?
[00:11:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. Schema Markup is super important in that it structures the information for Google, but it isn’t the answer to all your problems. It isn’t the magic bullet that a lot of people believe it to be. Google needs a clear description, which we talked about earlier on, and you will see that in the Knowledge Panel. It will show a description if it is clear. Also, at Kalicube, we have Kalicube Pro. We analyse the descriptions. We can understand using Google’s NLP, whether or not Google understands it. So, we pay a lot of attention to the description because that’s the foundation of Google’s understanding.
[00:12:16] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The Schema Markup repeats that description in the Schema Markup itself, confirms the information using the different attributes, and then expands on it with additional attributes. So, the Schema Markup is simply you repeating what should already be in the page for the most part in a structured manner, and then pointing to all the different corroborative sources that repeat the information that you’ve already given.
[00:12:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Now, the thing about Schema Markup is you don’t actually need it. We had a client who didn’t want to put Schema Markup on their page. They just put links to the different sameAs, the equivalent sameAs, and it worked fine. They’ve got a great Knowledge Panel. They’ve done an amazing job.
Can You Have a Knowledge Panel Without Using Schema Markup?
[00:12:56] Olga Zarr: Oh, because that was supposed to be my next question, if can I have a Knowledge Panel without Schema? And so, they simply put text links to those other places where they published, yeah?
[00:13:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah.
[00:13:10] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[00:13:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the advantage with the links is you can use the anchor text to amplify the signal. Whereas with Schema Markup, you just have sameAs. So, what this person did was simply link out to the different sameAs using a relevant anchor text and link back from the sameAs, the social profiles, the Crunchbase profile using, when they could, the relevant anchor text, saying person’s name, site. And then from there, going person’s name, Twitter, linking out, linking back. And that’s actually perhaps not a stronger signal to Google, but certainly it has additional depth to it.
A clear description, an Entity Home, and corroboration that is consistent around the web will do the job absolutely fine.
jason barnard (the brand serp guy)
[00:13:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you don’t want to do Schema Markup, you don’t have to do Schema Markup. A clear description, an Entity Home, and corroboration that is consistent around the web will do the job absolutely fine if you’re linking. And on Kalicube.pro, if you visit the site, you’ll see we actually have a Schema Markup generator for free that will do the basic Schema Markup. So, for me, there isn’t really an excuse. It does help to do it.
Wikipedia as a Knowledge Source for Google in Building a Knowledge Panel
[00:14:12] Olga Zarr: Okay. That’s a really great tip. Okay. It looks like we have another question from Daniel. So if I have a Wikipedia page, will Google prefer it as a source? Thanks, Daniel, for the question.
[00:14:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s a great question because Wikipedia used to be totally dominant. If you had any information on Wikipedia, Google would just pick it up and put it in the Knowledge Panel. And I experimented on that for years using my own Wikipedia page, that then got deleted because I kept messing with it. But I could update my Knowledge Panel literally in minutes, just by changing the Wikipedia page. And that is no longer true.
[00:14:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Wikipedia is what we call at Kalicube a dominant knowledge source. So, it’s a knowledge source that Google trusts. Google has been trained to trust Wikipedia. So if you have a Wikipedia article, it is likely that Google will believe the information. However, it doesn’t now necessarily take the information from there. And an example I found the other day was Yoast’s logo in the Knowledge Panel. Although the logo was in Wikimedia and on the Wikipedia page, it didn’t use the logo from Wikimedia. It used the logo from their own site.
If You Want to Have Your Own Description for Your Knowledge Panel, You Need to NOT Have a Wikipedia Page or Google Books Description
[00:15:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, it’s important to remember that it’s dominant, but it isn’t absolute dominance for the different pieces of information, although it used to be. One thing we’ve seen, and this is back to the descriptions, is if you have a Wikipedia page or a Google Books, the description from there will dominate. The description from Wikipedia will pretty much 100% get that place in the Knowledge Panel. So if you want to get your own description, you need to not have a Wikipedia page or at Google Books.
[00:16:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But a month ago, we managed the trick of overriding that. And we replaced a description in a Knowledge Panel from Google Books for an author with their own website for a week. So, what seems to be happening is Google is saying to them or the machine is learning or the engineers who pointed out to Google, you don’t always have to use these absolute dominant sources for the description. You can find something better. And it’s being given that opportunity, it’s being given that freedom.
[00:16:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, right now, you can’t override Google Books or Wikipedia, except temporarily like we managed to do. I would guess, in 6 months time, it’s going to become increasingly common, but it’s going to be hugely difficult because Wikipedia and Google Books are dominant knowledge sources.
The Story of How the Wikipedia Page of Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Got Deleted
[00:17:01] Olga Zarr: Okay. And can you tell me a little bit more about your messing with your Wikipedia page?
[00:17:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The Wikipedia page was created by a friend of mine. So, it was already a little bit cheaty, but I am actually notable enough to have a Wikipedia page because I’ve released 4 music albums as a folk punk musician, I did a TV series as a blue dog. These are notable, I was going to say achievements, but notable activities that deserve a Wikipedia page. The reason they deleted it was because I’d messed with it too much. And then the reason I was messing with it too much was because I wanted to understand what was happening.
[00:17:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And so, it was deleted. And honestly, I felt quite upset, I felt underappreciated. And your ego kicks in because Wikipedia, some of it is about ego. And so, it was deleted. My ego took a bit of a hit. So, I sulked for two days. We have egos. And then I thought the idea that Wikipedia admins and editors can judge me as a person or I feel that I was judged is quite pathetic on my part. I can just sit and build this up. It isn’t up to them whether or not I deserve a Knowledge Panel and recognition for the blue dog and the folk punk.
Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) on Rebuilding His Knowledge Panel and the Effect of Using Wikipedia as a Crutch
[00:18:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And so, I rebuilt the Knowledge Panel without Wikipedia, and that was a huge learning experience. And that started me 2 and a half years ago now, figuring out with Kalicube Pro how to build Knowledge Panels without Wikipedia. And when you build it without Wikipedia, you have control. You can make sure that the information in there is true.
[00:18:56] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you use Wikipedia as a crutch, two things happen. One is if somebody deletes the Wikipedia page, your Knowledge Panel disappears. And it’s much more difficult to recreate a Knowledge Panel after a Wikipedia deletion, same with Wikidata. The second thing is that you hand over control of your brand message or your personal brand message to Wikipedia editors who don’t know who you are, don’t know anything about you, and don’t care about your personal brand message. And you have people like Rand Fishkin, for example, who had to fight to get his Wikipedia page deleted because the information was incorrect and they would not correct it.
The Result of the Deleted Wikipedia Page: Confusion in the Knowledge Panel, But It Gave More Freedom to Create Content
[00:19:35] Olga Zarr: So, it’s a little bit like trying to claim your Knowledge Panel and then the person has, as you said, a few seconds to determine, decide whether you are notable enough to have your Knowledge Panel. So, it’s a bit.
[00:19:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. And they can decide that what you are saying is untrue and change it to anything they want, which is problematic to say the least. Because it also allows for somebody, who doesn’t know anything about you, to write anything they want about you and have that power to have it appear in Google, which is unfortunate.
[00:20:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the second thing is that Wikipedia editors are humans. And so, what they then did with my page is they thought, well, Jason Barnard has been messing with his page, we’re going to delete every page related to him as well. So, they deleted my rock group page and the Boowa and Kwala, the blue dog and yellow koala cartoon, for no good reason, in my opinion.
[00:20:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And what was interesting about both of those pages is that The Barking Dogs’ Knowledge Panel became confused with other Barking Dogs. It created ambiguity that wasn’t there before. Wikipedia does a great job of dealing with ambiguity because of the way it’s structured. And with Boowa and Kwala, it gave me total freedom to create whatever I wanted. And I built the family tree, and it took me about a year. But without Wikipedia, I could then build what I wanted to build and communicate what I wanted to communicate. And that struck me as being hugely powerful.
What Are the Different Core Knowledge Panel Sources of Google?
[00:21:14] Olga Zarr: Okay. Thanks for sharing that. Okay. So, Olgierd asks, what are the core Knowledge Panel sources? Can you explain for me?
[00:21:24] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. The core Knowledge Panel sources are, as the name suggests, the sources that Google is using at its core. So, it’s what the machine has been trained on. So, you’re looking at Wikipedia, Wikidata, MusicBrainz, DBpedia, Rotten Tomatoes, Crunchbase. These are the core sources that the machine has been told either explicitly you can trust this Wikipedia, Wikidata, DBpedia, or IMDb, or you can probably trust it, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and other sources like that.
[00:21:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And these are the sources that create the core of the Knowledge Graph. I call it the trunk of the tree. So if you look at the Knowledge Graph as a tree, these things are the trunk. Wikipedia, Wikidata is going to be the trunk. Then you add Crunchbase as a huge branch. And the machine has been told, you can probably trust this, but be careful.
[00:22:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then what we are doing at Kalicube is adding tiny twigs on. And so, we are using Kalicube, the website, my own website, various other websites, and websites of our clients to add tiny twigs. Because the machine is now allowed to evaluate the veracity of information I’m giving, because it’s learnt what truth and veracity look like on the core Knowledge Panel sources, if that makes sense.
Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) on Using the Kalicube Pro Data Set to Figure Out the Core Knowledge Panel Sources
[00:22:42] Olga Zarr: Yeah. It makes perfect sense.
[00:22:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And there’s a whole lesson about this in the Knowledge Panel course, which I finished recording about 3 months ago. And it was really interesting. Because as I went through it, I was thinking what are the core Knowledge Panel sources? And then I went through and thought, do I think that or do I know that?
[00:23:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then I used the Kalicube Pro data set, which is 500 million lines and about 10 billion data points, to figure out is this true or is it not true? Am I allowing my imagination to think this should be true or can I prove it? And I went through, figured this out. And we’ve got data and numbers to indicate these core Knowledge Panel sources.
[00:23:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And so, Wikipedia, we were talking earlier on, will tend to dominate a Knowledge Panel, but it’s important to remember and recognise that that domination is dwindling. It’s still very strong. But over the next few years, Google cannot build Knowledge Panels at scale by relying purely on Wikipedia or any other human curated data source.
Strategies in Choosing a Target Subtitle, Using a Nationality, and Selecting a Profession
[00:23:50] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, it looks like we have another question from Michelle. Can you talk about the strategy behind choosing a target subtitle, pros and cons of going after a nationality, strategy behind choosing a profession when your client is author, speaker, activist? That’s an interesting question.
[00:24:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It is. It’s three questions, which is cheating, Michelle. The target subtitle, right now, it has to be a subtitle that the machine has been fed, has been given. It isn’t making them up. So, what we have at Kalicube obviously is a huge list of these subtitles, so we know what to aim for, we know what’s possible. And we have a thing called Entity Equivalents, which is basically same entity type, same geo region, same industry. And if you give me a hundred Entity Equivalents, so for you Olga, it will be people who are SEOs. Do you live in Poland or in Germany?
[00:24:49] Olga Zarr: Poland.
[00:24:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Let’s say Europe, because otherwise we’re probably going to be struggling, and who are people, obviously. And we can then look at the Knowledge Panels, and we can create you a list of a) the subtitles and every other piece of information. So, we template the Knowledge Panel, and we can say this is what a template for you looks like.
An Example of Choosing and Controlling the Attributes for the Knowledge Panel of an American Footballer
[00:25:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): A better example is we did it for an American footballer, who wanted to remove a piece of information from the attributes. And what we did was we added, I think it was about 80 American footballers, to the database. And then we just pulled it out, and we looked at exactly what attributes it was using by which priority. And then we picked the one we wanted to aim for, which was salary. And then we added it to his website, corroborated it around the web, and replaced the attribute he didn’t want with the attribute he did want and that he controlled, which was his salary that he declared on his own website.
The Pros and Cons of Going After a Nationality: Communicating a Nationality Helps With Disambiguation
[00:25:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, that’s gone off topic. The pros and cons of going after a nationality, you don’t have to worry about it. Google, 3 years ago, it was really keen to put nationalities on, and it was putting a nationality on everybody’s Knowledge Panel. And it did it for about 6 months, then it stopped. So, some people get nationalities, some people don’t. My guess is, over time, it’s going to settle down. And when the name is ambiguous, it will put the nationality to disambiguate for people. So, make sure you’re communicating a nationality because that helps anyway with disambiguation.
[00:26:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you say Jason Barnard South Africa or the South African Jason Barnard, he’s a footballer. If you say the Canadian Jason Barnard, he’s an ice hockey player. If you say the American Jason Barnard, he’s a university professor. So, that nationality helps Google to disambiguate. But also as human beings, we tend to think like that. So, I think Google is going to come back to it.
[00:26:40] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But honestly, I think it’s one of these lovely things where the engineers say to the machine, off you go, go and have fun. For me, it is this child who runs around having fun. And it went mad putting on loads of nationalities on everything. And the engineers had to say, no, that’s too much. And so, they pulled it back. And I think they’re going to let it go and have fun again in 6 months or a year’s time. So, get your nationality, make sure it’s understood. Because when it does want to put it on, it will put it on, might potentially put it on geo.
Google Considers the Geo Aspect of Their Users to Determine the Context of the Details They Will Show
[00:27:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And this is my next bet. If you’re searching in Australia for Jason Barnard, it would probably put British, because then they would know that I was from the other side of the world and not somebody living next door to them. So, I’m betting the geo aspect would come. Whereas if you were searching in Britain, it wouldn’t bother saying British because you would imagine it would be.
[00:27:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It does that for towns, interestingly enough. If you search for somebody’s name and it says born in Manchester, let’s say, if you’re in the UK, it doesn’t bother saying Manchester, England. But if you’re in the US, it will say Manchester, England.
[00:27:47] Olga Zarr: It then does. Yeah. Okay.
[00:27:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, it’s incredibly contextual. Knowledge Panels are very flexible, very contextual, and their aim is to inform the user who’s looking at it. So if you’re in America, your needs is different. You need to know that it’s Manchester, England. Whereas if you’re in the UK, you don’t need to know Manchester, England if you’re looking for the British Manchester, England person, whatever that might be.
[00:28:10] Olga Zarr: Sure.
Some Strategies Behind Selecting Your Profession: You Need to Choose Which Is Your Primary Focus
[00:28:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then the last one, strategy behind choosing your profession. Human beings are multifaceted. We have multiple things that we do. We are recognised for multiple things, in this case, author, speaker, and activist. Human beings have problems with that. If you go for a job and you say, I’m an author, a speaker, and an activist, and you’re applying for a job as an activist, they will think you can’t do all 3. People tend to like to be able to put you in a little box.
[00:28:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Google likes that too, but I think Google probably likes it partially because it can’t really understand, but partly as well because that’s what its human users are looking for. So, you need to choose which is the primary focus. So if you say Michelle Bourbonniere is an author, speaker, and activist, Google will focus on author. If you say Michelle Bourbonniere is a speaker and activist and an author, it will focus on speaker. It’s as simple as that.
Analysing Olga Zarr’s Selected Profession, as an SEO Consultant or as an Author, by Google
[00:29:13] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, I am an SEO consultant and Google says I’m an author. Everywhere on the internet, I say I am an SEO consultant. I think the only place where it says I am an author is Search Engine Journal. So, I guess Google is trusting Search Engine Journal more than all those other sources. Am I correct?
[00:29:38] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. Hang on. Let’s find exactly what’s written on your Search Engine Journal page. No. Actually, the description says Olga is an SEO consultant at SEOSLY, SEOSLY.
[00:29:54] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Very different ways of pronouncing it.
[00:29:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I would suggest you could ask them to change the name, put your full name.
[00:30:03] Olga Zarr: I think I can change it myself.
[00:30:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Hang on. I’ll share my screen again. And if we look at how Google, oh, so you were looking at it.
[00:30:12] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I am.
Looking Through the Structure of Olga Zarr’s Profile Using Semantic HTML5
[00:30:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you look at the structure, this is an aside in semantic HTML5. It might not be tagged as such, but it is. If we look here, it’s in the main, this is a div, this is a div, it’s a section within div. This, I would say, is an implicit aside. That should actually be aside. Sorry to give anybody lessons about this. And that would clearly indicate to Google that this is not necessary for this main content. It’s additional content.
[00:30:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And I fully advise everybody to dig into it. It’s semantic HTML5. I’ve written a couple of articles about it. It’s hugely important. Fabrice Canel from Bing has confirmed, and he’s the guy who builds Bingbot. He said semantic HTML5 is hugely important to the bot. Use it as much as you possibly can, as intelligently as you possibly can.
[00:31:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But then it’s looking at this, and it’s saying, well, that’s my main content. This is supplementary content. Gary Illyes talks a lot about the centrepiece content. That’s all you have for centrepiece content. So, I would advise you to do a couple of things. This would be better if the h1, I’m betting that’s an h1. No, it’s an h2. So, that should be an h1. And it should be about Olga Zarr. And ideally this would start with your full name, and I’m not going to try and say it again.
For the Content of the Description, Use Semantic Triples and Write at Least 200 Words for Google to Get a Grip
[00:31:39] Olga Zarr: Okay. This part I think I can edit. Yeah.
[00:31:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And this is your semantic triple. So it’s the person, the verb, the object, subject-verb-object. That’s hugely powerful. I would also advise you to write more because this isn’t enough to get enough context. That’s your centrepiece content. It needs to be longer. So, 200 words minimum in order for Google to be able to get a grip. Because if I copy-pasted that into the Kalicube NLP analysis, which I can do.
[00:32:13] Olga Zarr: It would probably…
[00:32:15] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It won’t understand.
[00:32:16] Olga Zarr: Yeah.
[00:32:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And what Google would have done, it would have gone to that page, it would have identified the centrepiece content, it would try to understand what the centrepiece content is talking about, and it won’t have understood. Hold on. Luckily, you can’t see my password.
[00:32:41] Olga Zarr: We’ll edit this out.
[00:32:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, no, you can’t once it’s live, so we’re stuck.
[00:32:48] Olga Zarr: Oh, you’re right. I forgot it’s live.
After Using Kalicube’s NLP Analysis, Olga Zarr’s Profile Could Do Better by Adding More Textual Content
[00:32:51] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): There you go. It’s understood SEO. That’s all it’s understood in that entire text, but it’s understood it’s about a person called Olga. Now, if you added, hang on, let’s find your full name so that I can not get it wrong. And then we analyse it. We will see. There you go. It’s recognised you right off the bat.
[00:33:14] Olga Zarr: Oh, okay.
[00:33:16] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, it’s as simple as that.
[00:33:17] Olga Zarr: I guess I won’t be changing that.
[00:33:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. It’s done an okay job. It could have done better. And with more text, it would do better. So, here, it doesn’t say you’re an author. It actually says you’re an SEO consultant. So, that isn’t your problem. Your problem is more along the lines of this here, which is that it’s seen the article, so it’s considering you to be an author.
The Importance of Understanding and Confidence in That Understanding in Google’s Perspective
[00:33:51] Olga Zarr: And this is what’s appearing.
[00:33:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s something you can overcome because what it’s done is guessed. It has seen that you’re an author on Search Engine Journal. Search Engine Journal is very powerful, very authoritative. So, it’s saying, okay, she must be an author, I’m sure of that. And I think people underestimate that aspect of Google. It’s saying, I’m sure of this, so I’ll put it because I’m sure. It’s not so sure of this. So, it’s a question of confidence. And that’s huge for me.
[00:34:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You have a question of understanding, i.e. Olga Zarr, which I still can’t say. However many times you repeat it to me, I’ll probably still get it wrong. It’s recognised who you are, and it’s recognised probably what you do, i.e. SEO consultant, but it’s not confident. And like a child, it’s showing what it knows is true. So, this is true, but it’s not your primary job, but at least it knows it’s not getting it wrong. And I think if you think about Google’s perspective, it’s putting this up here as fact. The one thing it wants to do is make sure it’s right.
Is the Kalicube Pro Platform Free to Be Accessed by Anyone?
[00:35:04] Olga Zarr: Okay. Yash has a question about your tool. Is that tool free to access?
[00:35:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, unfortunately not, not that particular part because we integrate it into the Kalicube Pro platform. The Kalicube Pro platform, we use it for our clients, we do a done-for-you service. We focus on the description, the Entity Home, the corroboration, in that order, and then we put the Schema Markup in place. And Kalicube Pro is also available to agencies, so you can use it for your clients.
[00:35:37] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But what we initially did was let everybody use it, and it turns out that it’s more complicated than I had thought. And we ended up with a few people who were unhappy with the results. And when I looked at what they’d done, they’d used it incorrectly. So, we’ve decided to close it out, because one of the problems we had was people were blaming the platform when in fact they were misusing the platform.
How Long Does It Take to Create a Knowledge Panel: It Depends
[00:36:08] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Okay. So, how many days it takes to create a Knowledge Panel?
[00:36:15] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Now, I’m going to have to say it depends.
[00:36:17] Olga Zarr: That’s the right answer.
[00:36:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s a great answer, isn’t it? It’s not helpful, but I’ll make it more helpful now. If the entity, the person, the company, the podcast, the music album, the music group, is in what I call the tipping point, Google has pretty much understood it. It’s not a hundred percent sure. And when you create a great description, distribute that description around the web, add your Schema Markup, if you want to, to the Entity Home, to point to them all, what you do is give Google that point of reconciliation, which is the Entity Home. And you will tip it over the point where it goes from being pretty sure to being super sure.
[00:37:00] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, it can take literally days. If the Entity Home is already semi-identified in Google, all you’re doing is tipping Google over the recognition point, as it were. And if you haven’t got to that tipping point and you are building, let’s say, from scratch, it will take about 3 months to generally get a sprout, which is the tiny little one that you saw, where it doesn’t appear on your Brand SERP, but it does exist in Google’s brain.
Is Olga Zarr’s Knowledge Panel Still a Sprout or Not?
[00:37:32] Olga Zarr: So, is mine a sprout or it’s not a sprout anymore?
[00:37:37] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s not a sprout because you’ve got People Also Search For, you’ve got your social channels, you have a description. You’re well past the sprout stage. You’re a growing tomato plant, about knee high, let’s say.
[00:37:53] Olga Zarr: Love it.
[00:37:55] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then the last point is coming back to Wikipedia, Wikidata. If you’ve had a Wikipedia, Wikidata disaster like I did and they’ve been deleted and the Knowledge Panel has disappeared when they were deleted, it can well take you up to a year to get that Knowledge Panel back, so beware.
It’s like with SEO. Everything takes a lot of time.
Olga Zarr
[00:38:15] Olga Zarr: It’s like with SEO. Everything takes a lot of time.
Google’s Understanding Takes Time Because It Is Careful to Not Make Any Mistakes
[00:38:20] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. And I think that’s huge. People need to remember that it takes time. SEO takes time. Google’s understanding takes time. Crawling takes time. Indexing takes time. You think it’s immediate, but think about the size of the web, think about the size of the index, and think as well with knowledge in particular in the Knowledge Panel. Google is very reticent about putting out information that turns out to be untrue, because everybody jumps on its back when it makes a mistake. And you’ll get loads of tweets and articles and Reddits. We had that the other day. I don’t know if you saw it. Jim Carrey was being mixed up.
[00:38:56] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I saw that. Yeah.
[00:38:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And people love to point at that and say, Google is getting it all wrong, isn’t it stupid? And then you say, but 99.999%, it’s getting it right. So, Google is reticent because obviously it wants to satisfy its users. It doesn’t want to be made to look stupid. Because if it gets it wrong consistently, people will stop trusting it. And if people stop trusting it, people will stop using it. And they will start to lose their market share, dominant though it is. So, they need to be careful.
How Do You Get a Knowledge Panel if Your Name Is Nowhere on the Internet? How Do You Get Started?
[00:39:28] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Okay. So, here we have, I think, a bit similar question. How do I get a Knowledge Panel if my name and surname is nowhere on the internet?
[00:39:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Go ahead.
[00:39:42] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I just wanted to say, so how do I get started? There are nothing. Because when I started, when I created SEOSLY, I think there was no mention or hardly no mention of my name and surname on the internet.
[00:40:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. I think no mentions at all is unlikely. The fact that you don’t know about it is perhaps the point. And with Kalicube Pro, we’ve come up with some amazing insights. Somebody mentioned my sister, and they mentioned her in the context of Liverpool 35 years ago. But they mentioned her in a tiny article on some tiny site, very specialised, and it popped up. And she didn’t know anything about it. We found it, which is insightful in the sense that you don’t know what other people have said about you.
If You’re Name Is Not Out There, You’re in a Good Situation Because You Can Build That Understanding and Build a Clean Digital Footprint
[00:40:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, your name may well be out there. You just don’t know it because you didn’t put it there, and your name is probably out there on social media. But that being said, if your name is not out there at all or very little out there, then you’re in a good situation, that you can build up that understanding. You can build a clean digital footprint if you do it systematically from the get go.
[00:40:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, what I would imagine with you, Olga, what happened and the reason you got this lovely tomato plant Knowledge Panel is that you started placing information in incredibly relevant places straight away. So, the first major mentions were on things like Search Engine Journal, on your own website, within the context. So, we’re looking at Entity Equivalents here again. It was on websites that are incredibly relevant to you and your audience. That makes sense for Google. It’s incredibly focused, so it can understand.
If you’re going to get your name out there, do it systematically and start with your core topic.
jason barnard (the brand serp guy)
[00:41:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, Aga Zet, if you’re going to get your name out there, do it systematically and start with your core topic, whatever that might be, and get yourself onto the websites that represent you. Now, they don’t have to be huge websites. They don’t have to be the Search Engine Journals of this world. I often use the poodle parlor of Paris example. If I’m a poodle parlor in Paris, the best place to get my company name mentioned is the Poodle Parlor of Paris Association. It’s not the New York Times, because it’s highly relevant both geographically and topically.
Claiming a Knowledge Panel From a Sprout and Through Google Search Console
[00:42:08] Olga Zarr: Okay. Thanks for answering. Another question from Daniel. Where in GSC can I claim a Knowledge Panel sprout? I don’t see that option.
[00:42:20] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No. You don’t see it in GSC. You see it when you can find the Knowledge Panel sprout, and you click on Claim This Knowledge Panel. And then if it has recognised the website that represents the entity, so you are very close to having the Entity Home recognised, it will allow you to claim that Knowledge Panel through Google Search Console.
[00:42:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But importantly, not all Knowledge Panels are claimable. So, you might be able to find your sprout, but it isn’t claimable. And in that case, you just have to wait until it becomes claimable. So, the reason it might or might not be claimable is quite varied, but the principal reason is that it’s not in the main Knowledge Graph that the Knowledge Panel is being generated or triggered by a different vertical Knowledge Graph, of which there are 7 or 8.
You Can Learn More About Knowledge Panels and Knowledge Graphs Through Jason Barnard’s Course in Kalicube
[00:43:06] Olga Zarr: Oh, 7 or 8, tell me about it.
[00:43:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s all in the course. I’ve got a whole lesson about it. But that’s one of the tricks with Knowledge Panels, to focus on the right vertical. If you’ve got a podcast, you focus on the podcast vertical. If you’ve got a local business, you focus on the Google Maps vertical. If you’re an author or a book, you focus on the Google Books vertical. It sounds obvious when I say it, but all of these different verticals trigger Knowledge Panels. It’s not just the Knowledge Graph.
[00:43:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, Google has these multiple vertical Knowledge Graphs, each of which can trigger a Knowledge Panel. The ultimate aim is to merge all of these vertical Knowledge Graphs into the main Knowledge Graph, which is what Google is in the process of doing very slowly. So, for example, your podcast’s Knowledge Panel will not be claimable because it’s part of the wrong vertical.
[00:43:55] Olga Zarr: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. I’m learning so much with you.
[00:44:00] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And your Knowledge Panel sprout is most likely not going to be claimable because it’s, get this, part of the web vertical index. So, Google actually has a Knowledge Panel that’s being dynamically created by the web index. Take my money. Michelle, please do come along for the soft launch. We’re doing that on the 12th of December. Sorry, go ahead.
The Knowledge Panel Course Offered by Kalicube and Made by Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
[00:44:23] Olga Zarr: I just wanted to ask you to tell me and the audience more about your course.
[00:44:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, yeah. Can you put it up on screen?
[00:44:31] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I will. I’m just going to do it.
[00:44:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Our lovely visual that Katrina and Mary-Ann prepared. I’ve recorded it all. I know exactly what’s in it. It’s 5 hours of video, which is huge. 22 lessons covering every single aspect of Knowledge Panel management, triggering them, maintaining them, building up confidence, which Knowledge Graph vertical to focus on, how to build or how to add twigs to the branches and the trunk of the massive tree we talked about earlier on, how a Knowledge Panel is built.
[00:45:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s not information from the Knowledge Graph. The only piece of information that comes from the Knowledge Graph is the name and the kgmid. The rest is web index stuff. So, you can think of it as a whole collection of many featured snippets. And if you approach it from that perspective as an SEO, you can absolutely nail Knowledge Panels without any problem at all. It’s a collection of many featured snippets.
The Soft Launch of the Knowledge Panel Course Is on the 12th of December, Followed by the Main Launch on January 2023
[00:45:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that’s launching on the 12th of December. What we’re doing is a soft launch, where you get the video and audio, obviously, and you just get me speaking. So, Dave Davies is going to take it, and he said he’ll do it while he is running. So, he is going to put the earphones in and run and just listen because he is super smart, he knows his stuff. He doesn’t need the slide deck behind me to understand what I’m talking about. So, he’s going to go through it in an audio version only.
[00:45:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then we’re going to add the slides and a quiz with certification in January. And that’s the main launch. So if you feel geeky, go for the soft launch. If you think, oh, that’s going to be a bit scary, I’d rather have the slides with some visual stuff and some extra links to help me understand better all the topics around it, go for the full launch in January.
There Is a Vast Amount of Information You Can Learn From the Knowledge Panel Course, Where You Also Get to Have a Certification in the End
[00:46:22] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I’m going definitely for it because I feel that I have knowledge gaps in that area.
[00:46:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. There is a vast amount to learn. What I found really interesting is that I started recording it, and by the end of it, I actually thought I would pay for this course, and I wrote it. Because I learned so much as I went through, and it was sitting down and thinking do I know this or do I think I know it? And if I realised that I only thought I knew it, I research to figure it out.
[00:46:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes, you do get full access later. That would be deeply unfair if we didn’t let you do that. So, yeah, the soft launch, you can just watch the videos and listen to the audio while you’re running like Dave Davies. And then in January, you will get the slides, the extra resources that Jean Marie is working on, and the quiz that Faith is working on, and the certification at the end.
You Can Find Out More About Knowledge Panels by Joining the Facebook Group Called Kalicube Support Groups
[00:47:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. So, Jim and Michelle, I think it was, please do join the Knowledge Panel Support Group, the Kalicube Support Groups, search it on Google, join the group, and you get first info on everything and all this stuff. And I share lots of geeky things that I find about Knowledge Panels on a totally random basis. But when I see something interesting, I’ll post it to the group because it’s a good way to maintain and keep the information.
[00:47:43] Olga Zarr: You’re talking about a Facebook group?
[00:47:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. It’s a Facebook group.
[00:47:48] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Okay. So, that’s the one I’m in. Okay. I just wanted to make sure.
[00:47:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And so, for example, when we managed to replace the Google Books description with the description from the author’s website, I posted that because that’s a huge win. When we managed to get Kalicube autocorrect, when I misspelled Kalicube and it says did you mean Kalicube, because I wrote Kalicupe. And it said did you mean Kalicube, that spell check or that autocorrect from Google is huge because it means it has recognised Kalicube as an entity. And it recognises that the probability that if I’ve written Kalicupe, I actually mean Kalicube. So, it’s brand recognition and entity recognition and entity understanding from Google. That’s huge. Sorry. I figure Tukasz has got a question.
Kalicube Pro Offers a Schema Generator Which You Can Access for Free
[00:48:39] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I think we have already answered this question. So, can we have a Knowledge Panel without Schema?
[00:48:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. You can actually get the Schema generator on Kalicube Pro for free. You just go to kalicube.pro and look for the Schema generator. But if you don’t want to do that, as we explained earlier on, the secret is a clear description, an Entity Home, which is the place the entity lives, which is a site owned by the entity, so you in this case, Tukasz, and then you link out to the corroborative sources everything you would put in, sameAs, and then back again. And you got to be patient. It probably takes a little bit longer if you don’t use Schema, but it’s certainly doable and certainly you don’t need to be a geek to do this. It really is very simple.
The Logic Behind Why Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Shares Free Information About Brand SERPs and Knowledge Panels
[00:49:28] Olga Zarr: And Michelle, yeah, I agree 100%. It’s a great group. I’m loving it too.
[00:49:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. And Michelle is saying we’re sharing. Now, the logic behind that, and I hope I’m right, if I’m wrong, I’m going to look a complete fool, is that everybody needs this. Everybody needs to manage their entity in Google’s Knowledge Graph, in its brain. Everybody needs to manage the Knowledge Panel, every company, every book, every film, every music group, every album. So, you are looking at 50 billion potential clients.
[00:50:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, I figure if I can give this out to everybody, and there must be 200 clients in there who want me to do it because they’re too lazy or my team to do it. So, the idea is to say if I share the information, everybody gets to do it. Everyone can do it if they have the time, they want to learn it, and they’re smart enough. If they don’t have the time, they can ask us to do it or they can ask an agency to use Kalicube Pro to do it. And if they get it wrong, because it’s really easy to make a mess. And if you make a mess, it’s really difficult to clean it up.
[00:50:40] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, from that perspective, there are going to be people who don’t have the time, who don’t want to invest the time to understand and to learn, but there are also going to be people who mess it up. And those are going to be the clients for Kalicube and the agencies who use the Kalicube Pro platform. And hopefully, that’s going to make a decent business over the next 5 or 6 years. I might retire.
[00:51:06] Olga Zarr: Are you going to?
[00:51:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Probably not, no, but you know.
Jason Barnard’s 17-Point Checklist About Triggering and Managing Knowledge Panels
[00:51:10] Olga Zarr: Yeah. So, talking about Knowledge Panels, I think you have a very nice checklist of what to do. Let me show it on the screen, so yeah.
[00:51:24] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): We’ve got the Knowledge Panel checklist, educate search engines like you would teach a child. It’s completely free. It’s got the 17 point plan that we use on all our clients. Once again, we’re not hiding anything. And the idea once again is I think one important thing from the work that we are doing is that when Google gets it wrong, it can get it spectacularly wrong, and there is no reason for us to let it get it wrong.
[00:51:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And when people say, well, Google should figure this out for itself, they’re delegating responsibility to Google that isn’t actually necessarily Google’s. The web is a mess. And my personal belief is it’s our job as individuals and companies to clean up our little corner of the internet so Google can understand it better. But also Bing, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, all of these machines are trying to build an understanding of the world. If you clean it up for one, you’re cleaning it up for all of them.
From a Branding or an ORM Perspective, You Have to Keep Your Digital Footprint Clean and Clear
[00:52:19] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And from a personal branding or an online reputation management perspective, keep it clean, keep your digital footprint clean, keep it clear. These machines need to understand. But when they do understand, it also means that you’re communicating incredibly clearly to all of your audience on all of these different platforms. Google is a curated amalgam of what it sees online.
[00:52:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So when you search your name or your company name, it will show you what it thinks the world thinks of you. And if it’s a mess, then your digital footprint is a mess. And if it’s clean and neat and tidy and makes sense and describes you in the way you want, it means that you’re describing yourself in the way that you intended to your audience across the web.
What Are Some of the Things You Should Know About a Local Business Knowledge Panel or a Google My Business?
[00:53:04] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, it looks like we still have a few minutes, so I’m going to use those minutes to ask my questions.
[00:53:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, right, okay, go.
[00:53:14] Olga Zarr: So, local business Knowledge Panel, what is it? How does it differ? What are some of the things we should know about this? Tell me about it.
[00:53:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you’re a local business, they’re incredibly important, obviously. But they’re designed for, there you go, I’ve found it, you can share my screen, they’re designed for Google Maps. They’re not designed to be Knowledge Panels. They’re designed to be part of Google Maps. So if I go to Maps here, it’s designed for me to get, this is Kalicube’s, to get to Kalicube, which is a few kilometres away. This is key. The directions, send to phone. I would want to use it on my phone.
[00:54:05] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you look at this, we’re really looking at something which is very, very local, but Google puts it here as a pseudo Knowledge Panel or a Knowledge Panel of sorts. And what it’s doing is putting the information it has that it’s confident in. Because if you look down here at the bottom, we have a sprout. It doesn’t seem to want to show today.
Kalicube Is Still in the Process of Building a Wonderful Knowledge Panel as an International Marketing Agency
[00:54:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): One of the reasons that Kalicube doesn’t have a wonderful Knowledge Panel is because we’ve messed it up so much experimenting. Whereas with myself, I’ve had time to repair all the experiments I did on myself. So, we’re building up Kalicube. That’ll be there in, I would say, probably a year. And that gives you an idea of the realistic timeline you’re looking at.
[00:54:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, this actually looks more like a Knowledge Panel than it did before, because you don’t have the map here anymore. So, what I think Google is now doing is moving this to have the map over here on the left hand side. So, this looks less like a terrible small local bricks and mortar business and more like a proper, not a proper business. That’s not a fair thing to say.
[00:55:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Kalicube is an international marketing agency. But with the map, if we look here, I’m going to switch back to where I was in London, that looks like a small bricks and mortar local business. And then if we move here and go back to this, which is an experiment right now for Google, it looks like a more traditional Knowledge Panel, less like a local panel. And the local panel comes over here. And I think that’s going to be huge in the years to come because it’s moving this away from the Google Maps model.
Switching Locations May Help You Find Your Knowledge Panel Sprout and May Change a Phenomenal Number of Things
[00:55:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, when it’s local, it will show the map next to it, so I can see that I can go there. But when it’s not local, potentially it will just show this, which is much closer to a Knowledge Panel. And one really important thing you’ll notice, unfortunately it hasn’t worked here. Perhaps it will work if I switch locations. Switching locations changes a phenomenal number of things.
[00:56:19] Olga Zarr: What extension are you using for that?
[00:56:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): This is called GS Locator.
[00:56:25] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[00:56:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): There you go. Bingo. That’s my sprout. Now, here you go. The sprout only shows in America. So if I change my location, I can find the sprout. That’s one of the ways we find sprouts.
If You Want Your Google My Business to Be Changed to a Knowledge Panel, You Need to Make Sure It Has Enough Useful Information
[00:56:37] Olga Zarr: So, that’s how the sprout looks.
[00:56:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That’s a beautiful sprout, next to your knee high tomato plant, looking quite foolish. And this will go into a Knowledge Panel. But if you think about this for the user, for Google’s users, if they search Kalicube, this isn’t actually very helpful as information with just this little Knowledge Panel here. It doesn’t make sense for Google to show that because it doesn’t give them any additional information they can’t find on this side. Whereas, this has lots of additional information.
[00:57:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if I want the Knowledge Panel to replace the Google My Business panel, I need to make sure that it has enough information for it to be useful for the user in order to dominate this, which is already quite rich. And the other thing to point out is that they coexist. You have both. This is the office, this is the physical location of the Kalicube office, and this is the company. And it’s two distinct entities. So, you need to manage both. You don’t have the choice.
What Is the Difference Between a Personal Knowledge Panel and a Corporate Knowledge Panel?
[00:57:44] Olga Zarr: Okay. My next question would be what’s the difference between a personal Knowledge Panel and a corporation Knowledge Panel?
[00:57:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, a personal one is for a person, a corporate one is for a company.
[00:58:04] Olga Zarr: But from the standpoint of more geeky.
[00:58:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, the difference is that for a company, because ambiguity is less problematic, because companies tend to have more unique names because of trademarks and because of local business organisations that don’t allow repetition of names very often, you’re going to have an easier time educating Google about the company. You also have Google My Business, which helps you because Google understands the location of the company, and you can therefore build on that understanding. For a person, you’re starting from a) no initial understanding and b) ambiguity in the sense that most of us share a name with multiple other people.
Comparing IBM’s Company Knowledge Panel With Jason Barnard’s Personal Knowledge Panel
[00:58:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The other huge difference, and if we come back here, let’s look at IBM. Here you go. Is that okay?
[00:59:06] Olga Zarr: Yeah. It’s okay now.
[00:59:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Here you have IBM. And it’s a traditional right hand rail, Knowledge Panel, lots of information, looks pretty good. This is a major corporation. And then if you search for me, you get these filter pills, which are huge. This is basically a mini website on Google. And if I click there, it shows all the songs. So, this becomes a different Brand SERP. And what it’s doing is for people, this is currently for people, films, sometimes books, it’s allowing me to research the entity on Google without visiting the website. So, this is real on-SERP SEO, and it’s huge.
[00:59:51] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if I then click on Veronique and then I click back on myself, it expands them because it knows I’m researching. It’s added additional information here. So, what you see initially there is incomplete in terms of what it actually knows. This is what I call Knowledge Panel hopping. It adds the book, the organisation, the music group. And here, basically, from my perspective, in the coming years, this is how people are going to research other people. This is then what’s also going to happen for companies.
[01:00:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you start preparing your company now, you can manage these different verticals and create your mini website on Google. And you might think, oh, I don’t want a mini website on Google. The fact is you don’t have the choice. Google will create it whether you want it or not. Your best option is to control it as best you can.
Looking Through the Different Brand SERP Verticals for People, Products, and Companies
[01:00:45] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, these red buttons, these are the verticals, right?
[01:00:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. These are what I call Brand SERP verticals. So, we’ve got Knowledge Graph verticals, which was the question earlier on. And these are basically vertical Brand SERPs, where here’s just the information about the book, here’s just the information about my music group. And it has put the videos in because it knows it’s about Boowa and Kwala as a music group.
[01:01:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then if I click on here, there you go, the book has got them as well, the reviews, where to get the book. This is shopping now. If this was a product, well it is a product, I’ve got an overview of the product. I can watch videos that present the product, which I’ve created most of. I can buy the product. These are ads. But then underneath, it’s where I can buy it. I can get it from the Kindle store, for example. And then I can read reviews.
[01:01:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, this is researching a product. And if you think about that, it’s Google trying to wrest back control from Amazon by allowing us to research fully a product and click through, in this case, to Amazon, unfortunately, but to an option for buying it, potentially Barnes & Noble. Here you go. I’ll go away from Amazon, buy from Barnes & Noble. Potentially, I could help Barnes & Noble get to the top, if I have a partnership with Barnes & Noble.
[01:02:06] Olga Zarr: Okay. Yeah. That’s interesting.
[01:02:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, for a company, you would end up looking at overview, products, key people, reviews. That would seem fair enough. That would be a good start. My bet is that will happen, let’s say, 12 months. Let’s come back in a year’s time and see if I was right. It will have these filter pills for companies too.
The Idea of Building Knowledge Panel Templates, Which Should Consider the Concept of Entity Equivalents
[01:02:29] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, is there a Knowledge Panel template, something that we can use? Is there something like that on the internet or do we have a template, what we can expect to appear here? Is there such a thing?
[01:02:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): We haven’t actually produced one yet. I suppose we could do the anatomy of a Knowledge Panel, which would be photo, logo, description, social channels, People Also Search For.
[01:03:02] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I would love that.
[01:03:05] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The problem would be that we would need to do it for each and every entity type and each and every industry because the template is different. Bill Slawski explained to me about the way they build these. What they have is human built templates. Employees at Google will build a template for an entity type, in a specific industry, and potentially geo region too. So, once again, we are in the Entity Equivalents world.
Kalicube Tries to Identify and Build Knowledge Panel Templates Through the Use of Entity Equivalents
[01:03:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, they will build it and they will say, for an American footballer in America, who is a person, here’s the template, here’s the information we would put. Then they will say, for a company in America that sells sporting goods, here’s the information we would put. So, they have these templates, and then those templates are what we’re trying to identify at Kalicube Pro. And obviously, we can’t identify all of them and put them all out online.
[01:03:56] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, what we then do, coming back to the Entity Equivalents idea, is our clients come to us and we find 100 Equivalent Entities. We put them in Kalicube, and we build a template for them. So, eventually, we will end up, if we have thousands of clients, a template for each industry type, geo region, entity type combination. And you can imagine that’s going to be thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands.
[01:04:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Especially, as with people, we were talking earlier on about the fact that people have multiple facets. So, what it will then do is mix the templates algorithmically. So it has the author template, the activist template, and I can’t remember what the third job is, a speaker template. And it will say, well, I’ve got the 3 different templates. This person does all of these 3 different things. How do I mix these templates to create the unique template for that combination?
Some Misconceptions About Triggering and Managing Knowledge Panels That People Often Think About
[01:04:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, it’s going to get super complicated, and it’s super niche. As you saw with the geo, you move from one geo region to another, you move from one person to another, it changes fundamentally. So, you need to focus. People often think about several things. One is Schema Markup is the magic bullet. It isn’t. It’s supporting evidence. Number two is that this is quick. It isn’t. It’s like SEO but slower.
[01:05:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the number three is one size fits all, absolutely not, completely the contrary. Google will dig down into each individual entity and create exactly the Knowledge Panel that corresponds to that entity. And no two entities are going to have the same Knowledge Panel. They probably do now, but over time it’s going to expand and vary.
A Kalicube Case Study: Merging Three Knowledge Panels for One Person
[01:05:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, and I’ll show you another. Hold on. Let me find it first. Just to frighten everybody a little bit. Here we go. It’s a case study we did. He is a client of ours, a guy called Jason Hennessey. And that doesn’t mean that we only take clients called Jason, by the way.
[01:06:06] Olga Zarr: I just wanted to ask about this.
[01:06:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Sorry, I beat you to it. This is a really interesting case study. That’s why we wrote the case study about it. He had 3 Knowledge Panels. We merged them all. That was one, that was another, and that was another. Google thought he was 3 different people. He came to us. We merged the 3 together. And as you can see here, we are now saying that now it can fully apply his E-A-T, and his SEO has improved vastly.
[01:06:35] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And we go through here. That’s the explanation of how we did it. Please do go and read this. He’s got the filter pills, as you can see. And at the end, this is what we got. Where’s it gone? Oh, hang on. Oh, right, okay, yeah, here it is. And you can see this here.
Kalicube Succeeded in Merging the Three Knowledge Panels and Even Covered 70% of Everything Above the Fold
[01:06:55] Olga Zarr: Yeah. That’s a pretty Knowledge Panel.
[01:06:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And 70% of everything above the fold is his Knowledge Panel. The 3 photos, his website at the top there, those are what I’m calling Knowledge Panel cards, his LinkedIn, his Twitter, the about, the description, his date of birth, his 4 social channels. The only information that isn’t part of the Knowledge Panel is his website there, jasonhennessey.com, about, and LinkedIn on the left hand side.
[01:07:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, over time, for people, it’s already like this in some locations. This is an experiment by Google. I would bet in a year’s time it will be like this for anybody who Google has fully understood. And it’s going to happen to companies too. So if the filter pills didn’t scare you 5 minutes ago, that should.
Saying Their Thank Yous and Planning for a Follow-Up Episode
[01:07:41] Olga Zarr: Okay. Thanks for sharing that. We’ll link this.
[01:07:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I’m now sitting in this semi dark cellar thing. This is actually a nightclub, scaring people, telling scary stories and horror stories about Knowledge Panel cards and filter pills and Wikipedia horror stories of having your Wikipedia page deleted. And I’m feeling terribly Halloween-esque now.
[01:08:10] Olga Zarr: Yeah. And I put a red t-shirt just like you so that I am in the similar mood, I would say.
[01:08:20] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right, no, yeah. It’s lovely having the matching red shirts, but you’ve got a much better microphone and super duper headphones. I’m terribly impressed.
[01:08:29] Olga Zarr: You have better light. So, I have over. I have too much light from my screen, huge screen. So, okay Jason, again, I learned that all. I think the audience learned that all too. So, thank you so much. I hope we can do a follow up some time because I think the questions about that are never ending, and I already have one more in my head.
More About Kalicube’s Facebook Group, Where Some of the Members Share Their Experiments
[01:08:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. I would love to. With the soft launch of the course, we’re going to get people thinking about this, I hope. And we’re going to get people starting to experiment, starting to see what happens. And in the Facebook group, we’ve already got a guy called Josh King Madrid and DC Glenn, who do experiments. They’re having a great time. And I love it when people share them.
[01:09:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Josh King did an amazing thing. He took his confidence score in the Knowledge Graph from 4 to 24,000 in about 2 months using Kalicube Pro, because he did the same thing that we did for Jason Hennessey, merged everything and brought it all together. So, this fragmented understanding that Google had suddenly turned into one solid piece of understanding.
[01:09:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): He was at the ultimate tipping point of Google really not understanding his digital ecosystem. He joined it all together, made it into a neat package, gave it to Google, and Google went, right, I’ve gone from confidence score of 4 to his confidence score 24,000. I have never seen that before, and I probably won’t see it again.
The Amazing Works of People Who Use Kalicube Pro Even Better Than Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Does
[01:10:06] Olga Zarr: That’s really impressive. Yeah. So, that’s Jason in action, I would say, the power of your knowledge.
[01:10:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. But it’s Josh King doing better with Kalicube Pro than I was doing. And that’s the beauty, that’s something I really am looking forward to, people doing hugely impressive things with Kalicube Pro. I built the machine, but Allyssa, who’s the team lead for Kalicube Pro, she’s doing stuff with it that I can’t do or I hadn’t thought of. And it’s hugely impressive and hugely exciting. And I thought I might be a little bit jealous or envious of all these people doing this amazing work, but actually I’m just super pleased because they share it with me.
[01:10:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, and another guy, Keeton Storts, he’s doing amazing stuff. He can build a Knowledge Panel in a couple of months. He does it faster than I do. And that’s wonderful. And he does it incredibly neatly because he’s very, very, very rigorous in the way he works. And I’m much less rigorous. I keep doing experiments and getting it wrong. But I think people taking this to the next level is what I’m really looking forward to.
Some Last Few Reminders About Knowledge Panels From Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
[01:11:16] Olga Zarr: Sure. And I have some homework to do, so I hope the next time we catch, my Knowledge Panel will look a bit better, will be bigger. We’ll see.
[01:11:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the last thing I would say is really think about the timeline. Don’t be impatient. Google needs to digest. It needs to A/B test. Your timeline for a Knowledge Panel, if you do the work correctly, is a year. And you won’t be working every day on it. You won’t even be working every week. After that initial spring clean at the beginning, it’s about Google digesting, becoming confident, building that confidence over time.
Don’t get impatient, stick to what it is you’re doing, and make sure that you are clear and consistent.
jason barnard (the brand serp Guy)
[01:11:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, don’t get impatient, stick to what it is you’re doing, and make sure that you are clear and consistent across the internet, the corroboration makes sense, and never ever, ever forget the importance of your Entity Home. That’s the single most powerful and important aspect for managing your online Entity Identity in Google’s brain, in Bing’s brain, in Apple’s brain, all of these machines.
[01:12:20] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, thank you, Jason. Thanks, everyone. And we’ll see each other in the next live, I think. So, bye, everyone.
[01:12:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): A quick goodbye to end the show. Thank you, Olga and everyone.
[01:12:36] Olga Zarr: So, bye, everyone. I won’t sing. Bye bye.
[01:12:40] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Thank you.
