On the eve of the launch of Kalicube’s 17-point Knowledge Panel Checklist freebie download, Olga Zarr asks Jason Barnard to explain Knowledge Panels in depth. In this incredibly insightful 70-minute conversation, Jason gets very enthusiastic answering these questions (plus many others).
As a bonus, Olga allows Jason to introduce all the members of the Kalicube Team, and what Kalicube can offer agencies, people, and businesses.
🔥 But the HUGE takeaway is that anyone who wants to work on Knowledge Panels can get all the information, tips, and tricks they need for free on https://kalicube.com and can take their skills to the next level with Kalicube’s free 17-point Knowledge Panel Checklist.
➡️ Get Your Free Copy of Kalicube’s Knowledge Panel Checklist: https://solutions.kalicube.com/knowle…
Welcoming the Podcast Guest, Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
[00:00:00] Olga Zarr: Hi. It’s Olga Zarr from SEOSLY. Welcome to SEO Podcast by SEOSLY. So, this is our weekly edition with SEO experts. So, our today’s guest is a very special one. This is Jason Barnard. So, I am very, very happy and excited to have Jason. Hello, Jason.
[00:00:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Hi, Olga. I’ve been saying it wrong all the time. I was saying SEOSLY, but it’s SEOSLY.
[00:00:34] Olga Zarr: To be honest, there are two pronunciations. When I first started my website, I thought it would be like seriously, so SEOSLY. Yeah.
[00:00:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, that is genius. I hadn’t noticed, but that’s genius.
[00:00:47] Olga Zarr: Then someone said, it is better if you associate it with being as sly as a fox. So then I thought, okay, SEOSLY.
[00:00:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Oh, that’s genius too. And I hadn’t seen that either. I was wondering if it’s SEOSLY. I was thinking that’s difficult. SEOSLY is brilliant, and SEOSLY is even better.
Who Is Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) and What Does He Do?
[00:01:08] Olga Zarr: And the pronunciation is okay. So, Jason, I’ve been your fan for a very long time. If there is someone on earth who doesn’t know you, can you briefly introduce yourself to the audience?
[00:01:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. I’m Jason Barnard. Right now, I call myself The Brand SERP Guy. And I coined the term Brand SERP 10 years ago, maybe, and just working on what appears when somebody googles your personal name or your brand name. I’m astonished that 25 years into the internet, nobody else is actually focused on this quite that much. So, I built Kalicube the company, Kalicube Pro the SaaS platform with my own two little hands. And I talk only about Knowledge Panels and Brand SERPs and bore people senseless with it all the time, including my daughter who just walked out of the room.
[00:02:01] Olga Zarr: So, she’s also interested in that topic?
[00:02:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No. She loves Thomas Hardy. So, when she talks about Thomas Hardy, I walk out of the room. And when I talk about Knowledge Panels and Brand SERPs, she walks out of the room.
The Story of How Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Started in the World of SEO
[00:02:13] Olga Zarr: Okay. I get it now. Okay. So, how many years have you been into SEO? I know some of your story, but if you can, in a nutshell, tell me when you started.
[00:02:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Well, I started in 1998, the same year Google was incorporated. And they were incorporated in September. And I was building my first Flash, Macromedia Flash website that I published in December 1998. So, they beat me by four months. So, Google was incorporated four months before I actually launched the website.
[00:02:51] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And one of the things that I did, it was either lucky or smart, I don’t really know which, is at the time you had all these different search engines, Excite, Magellan, whatever it was called, Yahoo, which now still exists, HotBot, Excite. I said that one already. I can’t remember the other one.
Creating HTML Pages for Each Different Search Engines and Different Keywords and Deciding to Just Focus on Google
[00:03:09] Olga Zarr: I remember AltaVista only.
[00:03:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): AltaVista. Oh, and the one with the dog, they had a black dog, Lycos. And we would create an individual page for each keyword and each variant of that keyword, including plurals. And each machine, each algorithm had a different weighting of words you needed. So, for every keyword, you would have to create the keyword, the variant, and that times 15 different search engines. So, we ended up with 15,000 HTML pages to manage for the different search engines, the different keywords.
[00:03:43] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And I thought, this is such a waste of time. And I just thought I’ll do it for one, do it for Google. And if it works for the others, that’s great. And if it doesn’t, I don’t care. And it turned out to be a hugely, hugely good bet. And we just built pages for Google from there on, and it turns out to have been quite successful. And 25 years later, I’m still working on Google. And me and Google, we’ve had this parallel path, but they’ve obviously done a bit better than I have, but it’s been fun.
Living on a Tropical Island While Managing the Website for Children, Competing With Big Companies, and Being Successful
[00:04:12] Olga Zarr: Wow. That’s nice. I remember you were, if I remember correctly, you were living in this island, Mauritius, for some time. Am I correct? Yeah.
[00:04:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yep. The website was actually a blue dog and a yellow koala. And we built games for kids, and I wrote songs, and we did animations for kids. And it was super fun. And it ended up being the 10,000th biggest site in the world. We were beating Disney and PBS all over the place. It was really phenomenally successful. And we were living in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, building this massively successful website from a tropical island, sitting on the beach. It was brilliant.
Deciding to Move in Mauritius Because People Are Saying That You Can Work Anywhere With the Internet
[00:04:56] Olga Zarr: That’s amazing, really. And you were doing it before it was even, I would say, popular to work from a distant place, hot place.
[00:05:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I remember it was before that big, the internet bubble, the first one, before it burst in 1999. Everyone is saying you can work from anywhere. You can go on a tropical island and still build a website. And I just thought, I’m going to do that. That sounds like a good idea. And in 2000s, in January 2000, we moved to Mauritius and set up the company there and set up a team of animators and developers and content creators and built this massive website. It was super.
Jason Barnard’s Topic of Expertise: Brand SERPs and Knowledge Panels
[00:05:39] Olga Zarr: That’s amazing, really. Okay. So, what’s your specialty now? So, this is Knowledge Panels and can you tell me more about this?
[00:05:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Knowledge Panels are fashionable at the moment. And so, people talk to me a lot about Knowledge Panels. But for me, Knowledge Panel is simply a subset of the Brand SERP. The Brand SERP is what your audience sees when they google your personal name or your brand name. And on desktop, you can really easily define the two sides. You’ve got the right rail, which is the Knowledge Panel, which is Google My Business, and you’ve got the left rail, which is all the blue links and the videos and so on and so forth.
[00:06:16] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The right rail is fact. The left rail is opinion and recommendations from Google. So if you look at it from that perspective, for me, we’ve got this Brand SERP that we need to manage and control. And you can optimise the left hand side, so you can optimise what Google’s recommending to your audience, and you can manage the facts that it understands and it puts in the right rail.
[00:06:40] Olga Zarr: Wow. That’s a very powerful way of looking at it there. That’s great.
[00:06:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.
Kalicube’s Case Study on Managing a Generic Name, Like Backpacker Job Board, Against a Unique Name
[00:06:48] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I love it. Okay. So, what is Kalicube then? Can you tell me more about it? I know this is a unique name, so that this brand name is not used by anyone else. So, I assume that there aren’t any other results but yours when I type Kalicube.
[00:07:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. We’ve actually done a couple of case studies. We have a client called Backpacker Job Board, which is a generic name. And then we have Kalicube, which is a unique name. And so, we’ve done a case study of each to see what the different problems are when you’re managing a unique name against when you’re managing a generic name, like Backpacker Job Board.
[00:07:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And what they’ve done at Backpacker Job Board is absolutely dominate that space and become associated entity wise with companies like Indeed, huge companies. And so, what they’ve managed to do is make the term backpacker job board, which is their brand name, basically themselves. And it’s hugely difficult to do.
Backpacker Job Board Took the Hard Route to Dominate Using a Generic Name, While Kalicube Took the Easy Route With a Unique Name
[00:07:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And Matthew Heyes is the guy who did it, absolutely brilliant piece of work. And he had this choice, do I compete and try to dominate my own brand name when it’s generic and therefore dominate my market or do I switch names and rebrand and start again to make it easy for myself to dominate just my Brand SERP? And he picked the hard route, I picked the easy route. Brilliant.
[00:08:18] Olga Zarr: Yeah, me too.
[00:08:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. SEOSLY.
[00:08:22] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I was thinking about just SEO Blog. Yeah, so sorry.
A Unique Name Will Get the Crowd to Follow You, Whereas With a Generic Name, You’ve Got to Create the Crowd
[00:08:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. If it was called SEO Blog, then it would be fun and difficult for you to optimise the left rail and manage the right rail. When you’ve got something unique, it becomes much, much easier. The disadvantage, of course, is if you think about it as a crowd, is that if you create your own unique name, you have to break away from the crowd and get the crowd to follow you, so they end up googling your brand name.
[00:08:51] Olga Zarr: Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:52] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You’ve got to create the crowd. Whereas if you choose a generic name, you’re in the middle of the crowd, and you’ve just got to get to the front of the crowd and lead the crowd. Obviously, that’s a very bad analogy, but it gives you an idea of the different options you have. And it’s very difficult to get to the front of the crowd and get the crowd to follow you. It’s easy to leave the crowd, but it’s very difficult to get members of the crowd to then follow you. So, those are the debates. And I’ve been thinking about that a long time as well.
The Meaning of the Name, Kalicube, According to Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
[00:09:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And we chose Kalicube as a name because we wanted a unique name. And somebody asked me the other day, why is it called Kalicube? What does it mean? And for me, Kali is quality and cube is solid and reliable, so it’s quality, solid, and reliable. And then the falcon is a colourful, fun icon of a bird that flies. So, you’ve got this quality and solidity that flies. And in my mind, that all makes sense, but I think it probably only makes sense to me.
[00:09:48] Olga Zarr: Yeah. It does make a lot of sense, of course.
[00:09:52] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. I think about this a lot as well.
What Does Kalicube Do and What Does It Offer?
[00:09:56] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, that’s the name, but what does Kalicube really do? Who’s behind? What are the features? Because you have Kalicube Pro, right? Can you tell me more about this?
[00:10:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Yeah. So, I didn’t answer the question at all, did I? We’ve got multiple offers. One of which is a book, Brand SERPs for Business, which is for beginners. And then we’ve got an Academy, which is for intermediate people who know a little bit about digital marketing and/or SEO. You don’t need to know about SEO to follow the course.
[00:10:26] Olga Zarr: Sorry to interrupt. The book, do you mean the book you are selling on Amazon you launched some time ago? This book.
[00:10:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That book. Exactly.
[00:10:34] Olga Zarr: Okay.
The Kalicube Academy Offers Courses About Brand SERPs and Is Preparing to Release the Knowledge Panel Course
[00:10:35] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I’m in Oxford right now, in the university library, writing a second book about Knowledge Panels, which I hope to release in the next couple of months. Then we got the Academy, which I just mentioned. And we’re about to launch the Knowledge Panel course, five hours of video recorded, done. We’re just preparing it for launch. And it shares everything I’ve figured out about Knowledge Panels over the last 10 years. And I’m really excited about that because I learned loads from writing it and recording it.
[00:11:05] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Because every time I looked at something, I thought do I know that or do I just think it? And if I realised I just thought it was a theory, I went in and looked at the data in the Kalicube database. We’ve got 500 million data points. And I check whether what I was thinking was true was in fact true. So, a lot of it is intuition and then going into checking with the data.
Kalicube Pro SaaS Platform, Which Is Offered to Agencies Only, for Managing Your Brand Message on Google
[00:11:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then the third one is the Kalicube Pro SaaS platform, which is where the 500 million data points come from. And I’ve been collecting Brand SERPs and Knowledge Panels in a database since 2017. It’s really geeky.
[00:11:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And once you start digging into the data, it’s really scary how much time you can spend looking at all these different things that don’t mean anything to anybody, that aren’t necessarily helpful. But every now and then, you find a little gem, a little nugget, and you think that’s important, that’s helpful. And it’s pragmatic and helpful to managing that factual message that Google is putting in the right rail.
[00:12:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the platform is agency only. So, you have to be an agency to use it. We’ve got onboarding, we’ve got training, we’ve got sessions where we train people up. Because it’s actually, I thought it was really easy, but it’s actually apparently more difficult than I give it credit for. Not because it’s a difficult process, but because there’s so many moving parts that you need to control.
More About the Background Operations of Kalicube and the People Behind the Company
[00:12:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And I think from my perspective, what I now realise is that I really have to get people on board. A lady called Allyssa, who runs the Kalicube Pro team, onboards with me. And there are three people in the world who really understand the platform, Koray Gubur, who just wrote a 25,000 word review about it. It’s a book published as a WordPress article. It’s nuts. 25,000 words, he managed to write. And he found every nook and cranny, every little thing that you can do with the platform, and managed to write 25,000 words. And he still didn’t put everything in.
[00:13:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then Allyssa, who runs the Kalicube team, who uses it better than I do, which is delightful to have somebody on my team who actually does a better job than I do with something I built. And me, obviously. And now we’re trying to get other agencies on board, WordLift, Site Strategics, and getting a SMA marketing guy called Ryan Shelley, who’s absolutely brilliant as well, and getting them on board and getting them managing Knowledge Panels in an efficient and effective way.
Can Individuals, Who Are Not an Agency, Still Use Kalicube Pro?
[00:13:31] Olga Zarr: Okay. So if I’m not an agency but a company that is run by two people, can I be using Kalicube Pro?
[00:13:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. There’s no limit to numbers in terms of how many people use it.
[00:13:45] Olga Zarr: You have to be an agency, a company, right?
[00:13:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You need to want to use it on multiple clients. That’s the point.
[00:13:53] Olga Zarr: Okay. That’s the point.
If You’re Going to Invest Time to Learn the Platform, It Is Better to Be Working on Many Entities
[00:13:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You can’t just come on as an individual and say, I want to use it. Because it takes me so long to onboard people, that it turns out not to be worth our time. And for one person doing one entity, managing their Knowledge Panel with their Brand SERP, it’s way too much time to invest for one individual, for one entity.
[00:14:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you’re going to invest the time to learn the platform, you need to know that you’re going to be working on 10 entities or 20 entities. So, that’s what I mean by agency. I don’t mean you have to have 15 people in your team. You have to have 10 clients for whom this is going to be useful. Sorry, go ahead.
Introducing Each Member of the Kalicube Team and Their Role in the Company
[00:14:29] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Okay. So, can you tell me more about your team? Because from my understanding, Kalicube is Jason, but I know that there are more people.
[00:14:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. We’ve had a few team meetings over the last few weeks and come to the conclusion that, as you say, people think Kalicube, that’s just Jason. And I’ve had comments that my personal social media communication is amazing. And the answer is no, it’s not. It’s Joan and Johanna and previously Mary-Ann who do all of that. And they do it brilliantly. And that’s the Kalicube social media team. And they do all the work. It’s not me, which is logical for a company.
[00:15:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And so, it made us now realise that I’ve had a team for about a year now, a little over a year, that it’s important that we communicate. Kalicube is a company with a team. I’m the founder and CEO, but it isn’t just me. And the team behind Kalicube is doing massive amounts of brilliant work, and a) deserve the credit, and b) it helps those also pursuing Kalicube as a real company and not just Jason. And I can name all the members. There’s 13 people plus me and Anton Shulke.
Working With Anton Shulke of Duda and Jason Barnard’s Ex-Wife, Veronique, Who Does the Template Designs
[00:15:50] Olga Zarr: So, Anton is on your team as well.
[00:15:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. He helps out with Kalicube.
[00:15:55] Olga Zarr: I’m going to have him on the show too. Yeah. That’s great.
[00:15:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, I consider him part of the team, although he obviously works with Duda. My ex-wife Veronique, who does all of the design, who’s absolutely brilliant. She gave us an idiot proof colour sheet, and it’s got all the hex colours that we’re allowed to use. And basically, you can mix them up in any way you want, and it always looks pretty, so you can’t mess it up.
[00:16:21] Olga Zarr: Oh, that’s interesting.
[00:16:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. And she does templates for everything. And basically, she provides us and our team, we’re not necessarily good at design, with idiot proof assets that we can put together anyway we want. As long as we follow the simple rule she gives us, everything’s okay.
[00:16:39] Olga Zarr: That’s great.
The People Assigned to Social Media, Press Releases, Communications, Marketing, Kalicube’s Done-for-You Service, Kalicube Academy, Kalicube Tuesdays, and Guesting
[00:16:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. And then Joan is running the social media team with Johanna. Mary-Ann, who’s moved from the social media team now, does a lot of design and is going to be working on press and press releases and communications and the customer journey. And Katrina, who’s working on the marketing funnel. Allyssa, who runs Kalicube Pro team. And we actually have Kalicube Pro for agencies, and we also do a done-for-you service. And she runs both of those.
[00:17:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if somebody comes to us and say, I’ve got one entity, we can do that entity for you. And Allyssa does it. And she’s absolutely brilliant, so you’ve got no worries. She’s going to get you a Knowledge Panel. We did this for Jason Hennessey, merged three Knowledge Panels, got him four social media profiles, a description, and Knowledge Panel cards. And it was absolutely stunning. He’s so happy. We did a case study on that. So, visit kalicube.com to read the case studies.
[00:17:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Faith is running the Academy. She’s a pedagogue rather than a digital person. So, she’s really approaching the Academy from a pedagogical’s point of view and keeps telling me, Jason, it’s too geeky. And then she puts these slides up that make it all much, much clearer. And she’s right. And I’m a hundred percent on board with that. Then we’ve got Maria, who runs the Kalicube Tuesdays events, all of our events with the guests and my guesting, who’s wonderful as well.
Other Members Assigned to the Internal Content, Link Building, Transcripts, and Social Media Content and Sharing
[00:18:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Jean Marie, who does all the internal content, the link building. She’s the knowledge of all the content we’ve got, because we’ve created so much content now that we need somebody who actually knows it all. She works with a lady called Marie Rose, who’s just come on board, who’s helping her and will probably join the Kalicube Pro team. Nell, who’s on the Kalicube Pro team as well.
[00:18:24] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And Kristine, who does the transcripts and prepares lots of the stuff for the social media and the sharing. And the transcripts are really there for helping Google to understand all of the different things that we do in video and podcasting, to create text from all of this audio, because obviously Google remains text based principally. And so, that’s the helping hand it gets. And Kristine basically just makes sure Google has fully understood what it is we’ve said.
The People in the Kalicube Company Only Learned About Digital Marketing and SEO Through the Kalicube Process
[00:18:52] Olga Zarr: Yeah. And do you have a dedicated SEO person or is it like that each member or some of your team members have some not SEO knowledge? And do you do SEO?
[00:19:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No. In fact, nobody in the company knew anything about digital marketing or SEO when they started. So, everybody comes on board and learns the way that we’ve been doing it, the Kalicube Process. And there’s an article on kalicube.com about that, that explains exactly how it works and it’s not SEO driven.
[00:19:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): SEO, for me, is simply a way to package things for Google. It’s principally marketing and branding. And SEO comes third as the way of packaging that marketing and that branding for Google. So, I would consider myself now, not so much an SEO, but more of a brander and a marketer who uses SEO techniques, because I’ve been doing SEO for so long.
What Can You Learn in the Kalicube Academy and Are the Resources Free?
[00:19:51] Olga Zarr: Okay. I get it. Can you tell me now more, because you mentioned academy, who can sign up? Is it free for everyone? What can I learn there?
[00:20:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, that’s a really good question. We’re about to release a PDF download of the 17 point checklist for how to get a Knowledge Panel and how to manage a Knowledge Panel. And the 17 points are actually relatively simple. You just need to go through the process, and you’re almost certain to get a Knowledge Panel if you do it correctly, and you really apply yourself to it. And then we’ve got maybe 2,000 articles across the different sites that Kalicube runs.
[00:20:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you want to do all of this for free, get all of that information for free, it’s all out there. If you want something structured, the course is for you. There’s obviously some things in the course that we haven’t shared yet or we may well never share, but basically you don’t need all the stuff in the course. The course will be for somebody who’s saying, well, I want to upgrade and become more proficient in Brand SERP optimisation and Knowledge Panel management.
Because Everybody Needs Brand SERPs and Knowledge Panels, Kalicube Offers the Kalicube Process Article, Courses, and a SaaS Platform
[00:20:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But basically, we’re sharing everything we learn because I believe, if you think about it, Brand SERPs and Knowledge Panels, everybody needs it, every company needs it. That’s 20 billion potential clients for Kalicube. There is no way I can serve 20 billion potential clients. So, I might as well just let everybody else get on with it and say, here’s how we do it. If you want to follow that process, come along, you’re welcome. Read the Kalicube Process article. Search on Google for what is the Kalicube Process, and it will tell you, obviously.
[00:21:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then you can work through that on your own using the free resources, absolutely no problem at all. And the idea for me is the book is a nice thing to sit and read in bed and get the overall concept. It’s the summation of the concept and the strategies that we use. And if you want to upgrade, use the courses to learn more about it. If you want to manage multiple Brand SERPs, multiple Knowledge Panels, and if you’re an agency or a small company that has multiple clients, upgrade to Kalicube Pro. It really takes you to the next level.
You Can Do Everything for Free Without Using Kalicube Pro; It Is Just an Organisational Tool and Provides Industry Insights
[00:22:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the thing about Kalicube Pro is you don’t actually need it. You can do it, once again, all for free. And we’ve got a case study where somebody did it for free. And that’s fine. But what the Kalicube Pro platform does, and that’s the reason it needs to be for agencies, is it simplifies the process, it speeds the process up, and it makes it manageable at scale. So, you could manage a hundred clients, and it wouldn’t be a problem. And you couldn’t do that manually.
[00:22:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, it becomes basically just an organisational tool, but it also provides industry insights. It’s got absolutely loads of data. So if you’re a little bit geeky, it’s going to be really helpful too. I can’t remember where that question started, but I’ve gone on and on and on. And I do apologise.
What Does Kalicube Pro Look Like, How Does It Work, and What Can You Expect When Using It?
[00:22:46] Olga Zarr: Yeah. You can go on and on for as long as you wish, but maybe you can, is it possible for you to show us Kalicube Pro in action? What does it look like? What can we expect?
[00:23:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yep. I definitely can. What I will do is show my example because I always do. I don’t want to share my clients, because obviously that’s all to do with what they call NDAs. I can’t remember. I’m going to share my screen.
[00:23:22] Olga Zarr: Okay. Let me, okay, I changed it. Yeah.
[00:23:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Can you see that?
[00:23:28] Olga Zarr: Yeah, I can see. I can see that.
[00:23:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): This is the platform. What we do is we create Entity Groups, which is this menu on the left, and then multiple entities that are all related to each other in here. And what we try to do is build entities in groups. So, a family would go together, a company and CEO would go together, because they mutually support each other.
[00:23:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The more I can get Google to understand about me, the more I can get it to understand other related entities, such as my company, but also potentially my mother, my sister, my father, my daughter, my book, my Kalicube Pro SaaS Platform here, me as The Brand SERP Guy. We are trying to do an entity as a pseudonym or a pseudonym as an entity.
Kalicube Pro Can Track Your Brand SERP in Five Different Locations and Presents a Six-Step Process to Manage Your Knowledge Panel
[00:24:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then, basically, we have this whole thing. We set up the entity here. We can track five locations, which is great for the Brand SERP, because then you can keep an eye here on what appears when somebody googles your name. This is mine across different places. Then the Knowledge Panel, which is the part that most people are interested in.
[00:24:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s a six step process. You go through it. You choose the Entity Home. You write the description. We’ve got this beautiful, this is lovely. If you write the description, you analyse it using Google’s NLP. And when it wants to, I didn’t click on the button properly. Oh, yeah, there I do. It’s just a bit slow. It shows you which entities it’s recognised and what its confidence in each entity is.
[00:24:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And there, it’s recognised me correctly. It’s recognised my company correctly. It’s recognised my book correctly. And that means really this text here, without any context, Google can completely understand exactly what I’m talking about. And that’s the key. This, for me, is the single most important thing that people underestimate. You can see here, it’s recognised that Jason Barnard is a founder, an author, a musician, and an expert. Woo-hoo.
[00:25:30] Olga Zarr: That’s nice.
Kalicube Pro Allows You to See How Google Is Understanding Your Text Content and Other Different Related Entities
[00:25:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): The tool allows you to actually see how Google is understanding this text and then all of these different related entities. And if you’re wondering why some are in blue and some are in black, the blue ones are the ones that are specifically recognised, and the black ones here are things that it’s guessing. And so, this is a really good way to understand what is it guessing at.
[00:25:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Here, for example, it doesn’t understand The Brand SERP Guy is an entity. It isn’t in the Knowledge Graph. But from the context, you can guess that The Brand SERP Guy is a work of art, apparently. And then the fundamental facts is just Schema Markup. People will recognise that. We then take all of the sources that we can find about the entity that Google’s looking at for knowledge. I’ve got zero because we’ve classified it.
You Can Also Use Kalicube Pro to Add Schema Markup Into Your Entity Home, Which Can Be Merged if You’re Using Other Tools
[00:26:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): What Kalicube Pro does is it classifies all of the different sources, knowledge sources. And then we get you to double check it, because obviously our algorithms aren’t perfect. They get about 80% right, maybe, but we need to be sure. Because when we add this stuff to the Schema Markup, if you add things that are confused or inaccurate, it makes things worse.
[00:26:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, here, volume of the number of references that you can put into your Schema Markup or the sameAs or subjectOf is not what you’re looking for. You’re looking for quality and consistency. So, you need to go through it manually. And then you add this little snippet here, and it injects the Schema Markup into the Entity Home, into one single page, the Entity Home, where the entity lives in Google’s brain online.
[00:27:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you’ve already got Yoast or WordLift or Rank Math or InLinks, this will merge into it. So, it becomes part of their Schema Markup. So, we don’t create this massive Schema Markup that a lot of sites have, because we’ve seen that that confuses Google too. So, we are really careful to insert ours on top of theirs or merge it into theirs to make sure that it’s all consistent.
The Process for Managing and Triggering a Knowledge Panel: Consistent Information, Clear Description, and Regular Updates
[00:27:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then you’ve got this beautiful list of corroboration. This is mine. And these are all the sources that Google is looking at for knowledge and information about me, factual information. I’ve got quite a long list because I do a lot of stuff. And you simply go through this entire list, and you click on each and every one. And you make sure that this is what you want and that the message across the web is consistent. It’s as simple as that.
[00:27:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): That’s the entire process for optimising, managing, and triggering a Knowledge Panel. And it’s the same thing all the time. It’s consistent information, clear description, and making sure that you’re updating this all regularly. And I switched my subtitle from musician to author. And using this list, it took me three hours to go through every platform that talked about me and correct them all. And it took two weeks for Google to update me from musician to author in the Knowledge Panel.
[00:28:29] Olga Zarr: Wow. That’s nice.
[00:28:31] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, it’s incredible. It’s really powerful, and it’s really simple. For me, I think it’s really simple, but obviously not for everybody. We’ve got tracking, obviously.
[00:28:39] Olga Zarr: It doesn’t seem so simple to me.
Looking at the Differences in Jason Barnard’s Knowledge Panel in Different Locations
[00:28:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Sorry. And with the tracking, you can look at the historical Knowledge Panel. And if I look here, you can see this is our representation of, I was looking for the, oh, it’s Paris. In Paris, you can actually see how the Knowledge Panel is growing. If I look at geo, you can see how different it is across different countries. And the information is obviously below. This is a representation.
[00:29:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Here, for example, in New York, I’ve got filter pills, I’ve got People Also Search For, and I’ve got my subtitle, but my subtitle isn’t showing in Canada. And I don’t have People Also Search For, I don’t have filter pills. So, it’s a really simple visual way to understand and visualise how your Knowledge Panel is.
[00:29:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): In Italy, I’ve got my description in the Knowledge Panel. And it actually comes from my own website. If we look at it down here, I did an Italian version with help from Valentina from WordLift. And if you can see here, Google is taking my description from my website in my Knowledge Panel.
[00:29:48] Olga Zarr: This is fascinating.
The Power of Having a Recognised Entity Home by Google and the Concept of Entity Equivalents
[00:29:52] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. This is the power of an Entity Home, because Google recognises that jasonbarnard.com is where this entity lives. And it trusts that source because I’ve been working on it for so long and I’ve been consistent and I’ve been truthful. So, now when I publish this, for example, it is happy to show my own description of myself because it trusts me.
[00:30:12] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[00:30:15] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, that’s the platform, and I absolutely love it to bits. And there’s a whole bit here, which is industry insights from Entity Equivalents. And it’s basically looking at equivalent entities, so same entity types, same geo regions, same industry. And we can map them to you, to the entity you are looking at, and we can tell you what the commonalities are. So, we can basically template your Brand SERP and template your Knowledge Panel, so you know exactly what you’re aiming for.
[00:30:44] Olga Zarr: Okay. Wow.
[00:30:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): There you go. Yeah. So, it’s geeky.
[00:30:49] Olga Zarr: It is. I love it.
Koray Gubur Wrote a 25,000 Word Article About Kalicube Pro as a Platform
[00:30:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): This is what Koray Gubur wrote. And I won’t scroll through the whole thing. Because if you can see here on the right hand side, there you go, look at that, 25,000 words about Kalicube Pro, about that platform that I just tried to explain in ten minutes.
[00:31:04] Olga Zarr: Yeah. He is geeky too.
[00:31:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. He’s wonderful. So, there you go. That’s the Kalicube Pro platform. And I spend vast amounts of time working on it for clients and trying to improve it and make it better, make it more, what’s the word, effective and efficient. And I think effective and efficient are the really key areas for agencies. If you want to impress your client, you need to be effective. If you want to make money, you need to be efficient.
[00:31:39] Olga Zarr: Exactly.
Kalicube Pro allows you to be effective and efficient with Knowledge Panels and Brand SERPs.
jason barnard (the brand serp guy)
[00:31:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And Kalicube Pro allows you to be effective and efficient with Knowledge Panels and Brand SERPs.
No Other Platform Does and Provides Anything That Comes Close to What Kalicube Offers
[00:31:44] Olga Zarr: Yeah. And Brand SERPs. So, I think you’re the only company who provides that. Yeah. I cannot recall anything like that.
[00:31:55] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, no, it’s totally unique in the world. No other platform does anything, even in my opinion, close to it. You’ve got people like WordLift, who focus on building internal Knowledge Graphs, or InLinks, who focus on topical authority and topics, or Schema App, who focus on building the Schema yourself. They’re all great tools. I love them all.
[00:32:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): We focus on cleaning up your digital ecosystem and educating Google like it was a child to ensure that it has understood who you are, what you do, and which audience you serve. And that’s what Kalicube does. The whole thing with the Entity Home is we only focus on one page on your website, and it’s the one page that Google will keep looking to for information about the entity from the entity.
[00:32:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then it just goes out and corroborates and confirms with all the corroboration that you’ve gone round and corrected that what you’re saying is true. And at that point, it really is so simple getting a Knowledge Panel and managing it. And the thing that we found is it’s now not a question of if we can change information in a Knowledge Panel, if we can trigger a Knowledge Panel. It’s a question of how long will it take us. And that depends on ambiguity and how much of a mess the entity has made in their digital ecosystem.
What’s the Difference Between a Knowledge Graph and a Knowledge Panel?
[00:33:13] Olga Zarr: Wow. Okay. So, I will ask a few, maybe more specific questions because I’m so impressed. Okay. So, what’s the difference between a Knowledge Graph and a Knowledge Panel? Because I guess a lot of people will have that question. What’s the difference?
[00:33:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Google’s Knowledge Graph is Google’s understanding of the world. It’s a machine readable encyclopedia that Google uses in all of the entity based algorithms that it’s got. And there are entities involved in all of their algorithms in the search field, at least, that they’ve got now. So, the Knowledge Graph is its understanding of the world. And you can think about that as an understanding of a child or a person because it functions like a brain.
[00:34:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): A Knowledge Graph is simply entities related to other entities, which is actually simply subject-verb-object. So, Jason Barnard works for Kalicube. Subject, Jason Barnard, works for is the relationship, verb, Kalicube is the object, the other entity. Everything functions like that. It’s as simple as that. It really is. And that’s what Kalicube does is basically keeps repeating these, what we call semantic triples, to Google. And in the end, Google understands by pure repetition and pure consistency. And then the Knowledge Panel is, sorry, excuse me.
The Knowledge Graph Is the Understanding; The Knowledge Panel Is the Representation of That Understanding
[00:34:40] Olga Zarr: Like a child. Yeah. I like this like analogy to a child.
[00:34:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I wouldn’t educate my child that way, but brute force of repetition and consistency works with Google. It’s a child that doesn’t have emotions, so we don’t have to worry about it sulking.
[00:34:55] Olga Zarr: I don’t have children, so I don’t know how it works.
[00:35:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then the Knowledge Panel is the public representation of that knowledge. So if you have a Knowledge Panel, then Google is basically saying here’s the facts I’ve understood, the summary of this entity that I can give you from my understanding, from my Knowledge Graph. So, that’s the difference. The Knowledge Graph is the understanding. The Knowledge Panel is the representation of that understanding.
What Is a Knowledge Panel Sprout and What Do You Have to Do if You Have Managed to Acquire One?
[00:35:24] Olga Zarr: So, I have quite, I would say, a limited knowledge about all of this, but I think I read one of your articles, I think on Search Engine Journal. It was an article about how to generate a Knowledge Panel. And I remember there was one thing that you recommended, adding links to your publications from your About page. And this is basically what I did. I embedded all the videos that had interviews with me. I added sameAs Schema to point to, for example, my publications on some other sites. I think I did all the mentions there.
[00:36:07] Olga Zarr: I don’t know if this is the result of that action. I didn’t do anything else. I’m not sure if this is the result. But after some time, I had this Knowledge Panel sprout. And can you tell me what it is? What can I do with this now? I think I’ve had it for a year now. And what should I do?
[00:36:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Okay. Great question. Basically, yes, what you did is exactly what Google is looking for. You basically made your About page, the Entity Home. You presented the facts to Google. You also presented it with corroborative information from around the web and pointed it to that corroborative information. And Google said, okay, great, I understand. I understand Olga, and everybody else agrees with what she’s saying about herself. So, we generated a Knowledge Panel sprout.
If You Want to Trigger a Complete Knowledge Panel, You Need to Build It up With a Bigger Description
[00:36:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And a Knowledge Panel sprout is just a tiny little Knowledge Panel with potentially your name, maybe a photo, and maybe a subtitle. And that will tend not to appear when somebody searches your name, tend not to appear, sometimes it will. Because Google doesn’t have enough information, and that information adds no value to what it’s already got in the left rail.
[00:37:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you want it to trigger, you need to build it up to be something bigger with the description, with your date of birth, with your social media profiles, and so on and so forth. And the trick to that is actually just to keep repeating what you’ve done. Now, I haven’t looked at your web page, but I would guess that Google probably doesn’t understand your description of yourself.
[00:37:36] Olga Zarr: Okay.
The Trick Is to Have a Very Clear Description and Link the Knowledge Panel of Your Company to Indicate the Relationship
[00:37:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that’s where the description analysis that I showed you in Kalicube Pro makes all the difference. So, what I would suggest is what you’ve done is what a good SEO would do. And it works. It works absolutely fine. And the trick that you’ve missed is having a very clear description, that works in terms of Google’s NLP being able to explicitly understand the information about you.
[00:38:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Then the next trick would be to get your company a Knowledge Panel, link the two together, indicate that relationship, the founder. Jason Barnard is founder of Kalicube, I would use. I was going to say Olga, but I can’t say your second name. So, Olga is the founder of SEOSLY. And if SEOSLY can get a Knowledge Panel, then you can use each of them to build the other one up, little by little like that.
The Idea of Having a Dedicated Entity Home for Each Entity and the Signals of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness
[00:38:27] Olga Zarr: Okay. But should I set up a separate page on my side about the SEO company or can I just do it all on the About page?
[00:38:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No. That’s a great question. No, you can’t. Each entity has to have a dedicated Entity Home. And so, even if you think, oh, I don’t really want a page about my company, for E-A-T, you need an About page about your company because Google wants to know and your users want to know who’s behind the website.
[00:38:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, you would have an About page about you, an About page about the company. Each is its own Entity Home. And they would talk about each other, and they would mutually support each other. And then you would corroborate each entity around the web. And your sprout would grow into a blossoming flower, let’s say, which is what we did for Jason Hennessey.
Kalicube Pro Successfully Managed to Merge Into One of the Three Different Knowledge Panel Sprouts of One Person
[00:39:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): He had a sprout with a few photos, and we merged that with a couple of other sprouts. Google duplicated him. In fact, there were three of him. And what we simply did was merged the three together. Google went, right, it’s the same person. And all of that power, all of his online presence and branding, and Google’s understanding was divided by three.
[00:39:35] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And as soon as we put them together, it all came together as one. And all his social profiles, he got a description, he got Knowledge Panel cards. And it blossomed because Google went, right, it’s the same person. And you’ve got these light bulb moments in Google’s brain where it goes, oh, I’ve got it. And that’s the moment when Kalicube Pro lights up and all these flashing lights come on and signs and clapping soundtrack because we did it.
If Google Explicitly Understands Who You Are in the Knowledge Graph, It Can Fully Apply the Signals of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness
[00:40:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you think about E-A-T, this is something I think is really, really important with E-A-T. Whatever the signals are for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, if Google explicitly understands who you are in the Knowledge Graph, it can apply all of those signals fully. If it has to guess using its NLP, so if you think about the screen cast from earlier on, if it’s got a blue link, it’s understood explicitly E-A-T signals can be applied fully. If it’s guessing, then it’s the black text, then necessarily those E-A-T signals will be dampened because it isn’t confident.
[00:40:40] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that confidence that Google has in its understanding about the entity is absolutely key. So, you can build all the E-A-T signals you want. If Google doesn’t understand who you are, it doesn’t mean anything. And so, from your perspective, I would suggest that your next step is to write a brilliant description that clearly states who you are, what you do, and which audience you serve in a manner that Google understands who you are explicitly. And we can look at that after the show.
The Importance of Associating Yourself as a Different Entity From Your Company in Google’s Mind
[00:41:09] Olga Zarr: Yeah. And create a page about my company, even though I’m the company basically.
[00:41:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Now, that’s another great point is I’ve done it all my life. A lot of company bosses do that. They can’t disassociate themselves with their own company. Even in the case of Kalicube, it was just Jason. It isn’t just Jason. It’s Kalicube the company. It’s a different entity. And with other entities, the team, the Kalicube team working for that company. So, being able to separate that very clearly in your own mind and expressing that very clearly to Google is incredibly important.
[00:41:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I’ll give you another example. Jono Alderson has a company called John Alderson Ltd. And Google had understood Jono Alderson Ltd the company, but not Jono Alderson the person. And one of the reasons for that is that Jono wasn’t being very clear between the two, and what he then did was clarify. And Google’s much, much happier now.
[00:42:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, as a solopreneur, I think they’re called, you need to be very clear in your mind that although you are a person, that’s one entity. Even if the company is called, my old company was Jason Barnard EIRL, which is a solopreneur system, that was a different entity, even though it carried my name.
The Importance of Inbound Links in Old Style SEO and Differentiating Entities With One Another in Entity Style SEO
[00:42:30] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m learning new things. That’s great.
[00:42:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And it’s one of the hardest things is to figure out in your own mind what entities am I talking about. Another example would be kalicube.com is an entity. That entity is a website. Kalicube is an entity, and that entity is a company. The two are different things. The website represents the company online. The website, in and of itself, actually isn’t important, other than the fact that it’s an entity.
[00:43:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, you have that idea of inbound links, for example, terribly important in old style SEO. But in entity style SEO, the understanding of Kalicube the company and references to Kalicube the company are the primary focus for me at least. And links to the website indirectly applied to the brand, because the links to the website that represents the brand.
[00:43:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, from my perspective, links are important. I’m not saying they’re not. What I am saying is the most important thing today is to build up Google’s understanding of the entity, which is the company and not the website.
What Are Some of the Things in Jason Barnard’s 17-Point Checklist of Getting a Knowledge Panel?
[00:43:42] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, can you share a few of those things you have in the checklist? What should I do to get a Knowledge Panel other than list the things on my About page? What are other things you can mention?
[00:44:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, right. That’s a difficult question, because remembering all 17 points off the top of my head isn’t simply not going to be possible.
[00:44:08] Olga Zarr: Yeah. So, just one or two.
[00:44:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I use my own checklist.
[00:44:13] Olga Zarr: So, I will link the checklist.
Identifying the Entity Home, Writing the Description, Correcting Social Media and Second and Third Party Sites, and Adding Schema Markup
[00:44:16] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. It’s coming out in a couple of weeks. It’s almost finished. It’s absolutely wonderful. It’s a combination of great design by Veronique and Mary-Ann, great presentation and writing by Katrina and by Allyssa. And then the 17 points, which is my contribution, the 17 points are listed down with what exactly you need to do. So, basically, you start with identifying the Entity Home. You write the description. You correct your social media profiles. You correct third party sites. You correct second party sites. You add your Schema.
[00:44:57] Olga Zarr: And for the next, people have to wait until it launches.
[00:45:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, brilliant. You’re very good at this. I just keep giving everything away. Yes. And download the free pdf. It’s absolutely brilliant. And I can safely say that without saying, oh, look at me, I’m brilliant. It’s a brilliant team effort.
Is It a Good Idea to Claim Your Knowledge Panel and How Do You Claim It?
[00:45:19] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I have one more question regarding Knowledge Panels. So, I think there is an option to claim a Knowledge Panel through Google Search Console. Is it a good idea? Should I be doing that now? All I see is my photo and my name, and I think it says author. I think it says author in my Knowledge Panel sprout. Should I claim it? How do I do that? Should I do that?
[00:45:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. A Knowledge Panel sprout, claiming a Knowledge Panel sprout is a tricky business. It depends on the case. But generally speaking, certainly if you can claim it through Search Console, when you click on the Claim This Knowledge Panel and it says Claim It Through Search Console, or Twitter or Facebook or YouTube are also sometimes options, you can claim it because Google will look at it. So, that’s safe.
[00:46:14] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[00:46:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you have to fill in that long form where you send your photo and you sign in to social media platforms, it’s an incredibly complicated form, somebody at Google will analyse and look at what you’re asking for. And if they think your Knowledge Panel is useless, unclear, unhelpful, or spam, and that’s an important concept. Knowledge Panel spam is a huge problem for Google. They will delete the Knowledge Panel.
[00:46:40] Olga Zarr: Oh, okay.
Claiming the Manual Way Is Something You Have to Be Careful About; Claiming the Automatic Way Is Absolutely Fine
[00:46:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, claiming the manual way is something you need to be very careful about. Claiming the automatic way is absolutely fine. And some Knowledge Panels are simply not claimable. So if you don’t see the Claim This Knowledge Panel, it doesn’t necessarily mean somebody else has claimed it. It just means that that Knowledge Panel is not claimable. And there are multiple reasons for that, and I go into that in the course.
[00:47:04] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[00:47:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And I will go into it in the book, because it’s too long to explain. There’s too many caveats and different things going on. So, it’s not that I’m hiding the information. The information will be out soon. There is an FAQ that talks about that as well, how to claim your Knowledge Panel on kalicube.com. We’ve actually got a FAQ that explains this. So, it is up there and it is free.
If Somebody Tricks the Machine Through Knowledge Panel Spam, Google Will Delete the Knowledge Panel
[00:47:24] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): What was I going to say about the claiming? Oh, yeah, with Knowledge Panel spam, Google have got a huge team of people behind this. And what you’ve got is this machine that’s been tricked. Somebody has tricked the machine by one of the many spam techniques that I will not share, because I don’t condone them at all. I sounded like my own teacher from school, how terrible.
[00:47:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And they’ve got a team. And the trick they’re playing is basically when you try to claim it, the team looks at it and they delete it. And the deletion is corrective data for the algorithm. It says to the algorithm, you were tricked, you got this wrong. And the machine goes, okay, right. Okay, I’ll do better next time, sir.
The Concept of Machine Learning by Google to Manage Knowledge Panel Spam
[00:48:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that’s incredibly important, which is why, and John Mueller pointed this out to me years ago, sometimes you think, oh, Google is letting lots of really simple spam through. Why on earth are they not just blacklisting this particular site? The reason for that is that they want to teach the machine. So, they use that. They keep deleting these things. Then after a while, the machine goes, oh, right, okay, that site is spam.
[00:48:40] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that way, they’re not just blacklisting one site. The machine will then be able to see the patterns in that site and understand it when it sees the next spam site that pops up. So if they leave the door open, spammers get in, do their thing, and then Google can gradually teach the machine to spot this.
[00:48:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you think about the link spam algorithm update from last year, that’s exactly what it is. They’re patiently waiting their time to help the machine to figure it out. And they said, we don’t need Penguin anymore, because the machine understands. And it can spot the patterns in these spam sites, even though it’s never seen them before. That’s what machine learning is all about.
What Are the Common Mistakes People Do With Knowledge Panels?
[00:49:19] Olga Zarr: Yeah. That’s really fascinating. And can you name a few common mistakes people do with Knowledge Panels? So, they submit it to Google to manually review, right?
[00:49:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Well, the first mistake is spam. The thing that spam is, once Google has been told it was wrong or the knowledge algorithm has been told by a human being at Google it was wrong, it’s going to be much more difficult for you to then recreate that Knowledge Panel. Because the machine thinks that what it had understood about you was not true. So, it’s like the child understood something and then somebody, its teacher has said that’s not actually true. Convincing the child that it’s true later on is much more difficult. So, that’s mistake number one.
[00:50:05] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Getting your Knowledge Panel deleted is a huge mistake because it makes that difficult. Wikipedia, Wikidata, typical mistakes that people create these pages when they’re not notable enough, those pages get deleted. It’s the same problem. Google thinks that it’s true. Somebody at Wikipedia or Wikidata deletes the page. And that’s explicitly saying the child, Google, that it’s not true. Recreating a Knowledge Panel becomes 10 times, 100 times more difficult. Actually, I’d say 10 times. Let’s not exaggerate. So, those are the two main mistakes that people make.
Another Common Mistake People Do Is to Claim Their Knowledge Panel Too Early
[00:50:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Claiming a Knowledge Panel too early, which is, as you said, if you claim a sprout and you get a human being to review it, they don’t always delete it because it might not be spam. And they might think, oh, that’s going to grow into a huge blossoming flower, and that’s wonderful. But you’re asking a human being who knows nothing about you and who has 10 seconds to make the decision.
[00:51:01] Olga Zarr: Yeah.
[00:51:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Because Google don’t give these people much time. So, they’re just going to go, oh, god, look at that, doesn’t look good. Click delete, poof, gone. And they’re not going to investigate to figure out who you are. They’re not going to investigate to see exactly how you did it. It’s going to be a snap judgment to teach the machine.
[00:51:23] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[00:51:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you can claim it automatically through Search Console, go ahead. If you’ve got to go through a human being at Google, be careful.
If You’ve Got Google Search Console as an Option to Claim Your Knowledge Panel, It Means Google Has Recognised Your Entity Home
[00:51:32] Olga Zarr: Okay. So I will do it just using Google Search Console.
[00:51:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. But if you’ve got Google Search Console coming up as an option, that means Google has recognised your Entity Home.
[00:51:43] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I have that option.
[00:51:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Which means that you’re in a hugely, hugely powerful situation. Because once it has understood your Entity Home and it’s accepted it, you can start teaching the child from that Entity Home. You become its parent. You become the educating parent. And then the parent, as a parent, you say, here are the facts, here’s the information, here’s my audience, here’s what I want you to know.
[00:52:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Now go and check it with the school teacher, check it with grandma, check it with the police woman down the road, or whatever. And so, the child is then coming to you for information and then going out and checking that information with third parties. And that’s hugely powerful. That gives you control.
If You’re Well Known in Your Industry and You Have to Change Your Surname, What Should You Do?
[00:52:23] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, one more question.
[00:52:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I suddenly sound very serious. I’m more and more sounding like my old school teacher at school, who I absolutely hated.
[00:52:34] Olga Zarr: Oh, I’m learning so many things. If women often change surnames, so let’s say I am a well known SEO and I changed my surname, what should I do? I won’t be able to probably change that surname on all the publications I’ve done, so I can only change it on my website, on social media. Will that be enough for Google to now understand that I’m now called in a different way?
[00:53:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. It is a hugely interesting question. And one thing you need to do, you change your name, but then you can add alternate names to your Schema.
[00:53:18] Olga Zarr: Oh, okay.
Changing Your Name Is a Rebranding Exercise, Wherein You Can Use Kalicube Pro to Sort It Faster Than by Doing It Manually
[00:53:19] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, you can actually add the previous name to your Schema. It’s basically a rebranding exercise, which sounds horrible from a marriage perspective, but it’s rebranding. And then I would use Kalicube Pro, but in fact, you can do it manually. You find all the sources that talk about you. Allyssa did a manual check, and it took her 12 hours. And with Kalicube Pro, it took her about an hour to find them all, classify them all, and get them all sorted out. So if you want to do it manually, go ahead. It will take you 12 hours.
[00:53:52] Olga Zarr: I won’t.
[00:53:52] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s really boring. It’s so boring. And then you go around, and you correct as many as you can. You change the Schema Markup on your page, on your Entity Home, saying this is the current name, this is the alternate name, which is the previous name. And you write a description, where it’s incredibly clear that these two people are one and the same.
You Can Change Information on Your Wikidata Page and Other Sources, But Always Provide Supporting Evidence
[00:54:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you’ve got a Wikidata page, you can change that information there. That’s a legitimate change that the editors probably won’t do anything about. So, people are scared of having something deleted on Wikidata. That’s the kind of change that is reasonable. But always provide supporting evidence. Whether it’s for Google or Wikidata or in fact, the human beings at Google with a feedback button in the Knowledge Panel, they don’t know you. They don’t have any context.
[00:54:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, you need to provide third party links that corroborate what you’re saying. Maybe one, maybe two, maybe three if you’ve got them, but certainly never without any corroborating information. Whether it’s to Google, to Wikidata, or on your Schema Markup, corroborate everything always.
The Trick Is to Explain to Google That the Two Names Are Synonyms and That They Are the Same Person
[00:55:00] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And then the interesting question about the articles that you cannot change is that you should not change it. Because at that point in time, your name was…
[00:55:13] Olga Zarr: Yeah. It was correct.
[00:55:15] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, the trick there is simply to explain to Google that it’s a synonym. At which point, you can say, I can leave that name because all I need to do is convince Google or educate Google, rather, to the fact that the two names are actually the same person. And once it’s understood that, there is absolutely no problem.
[00:55:35] Olga Zarr: Okay. So, it’s not that scary.
[00:55:38] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, not at all.
[00:55:38] Olga Zarr: As I thought it might be. Yeah.
The Idea of Being Consistent With Everything and Creating a Timeline in Google’s Brain
[00:55:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No. It’s a question of being consistent with everything you control. And you can also potentially create, using Schema Markup if you’re a bit geeky, create a timeline, so it can understand where you were or when the name changed. So, potentially you could use role and then have different jobs and have the name change at one of the jobs. That would be, it’s an idea. I don’t know. I’ve never tried it. But instinctively, that seems to me to be a good way to create a timeline for Google in its brain, and it will see at what point that name changed.
[00:56:18] Olga Zarr: Okay. Yeah. That’s very, very useful advice. Thanks.
Olga Zarr Is Thinking About the SEO of Changing Her Name, Which She Realised Is Not a Scary Process After All
[00:56:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Are you thinking about getting married or is that a terribly personal question you don’t have to answer?
[00:56:27] Olga Zarr: I’m already married. Yeah. I was just thinking.
[00:56:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): All right. So, you are wondering about whether you should change your name or is it already changed?
[00:56:36] Olga Zarr: No. I haven’t changed my name. And yeah, I was thinking that maybe if I decide to change it in the future, what should I do? And because I haven’t changed my surname, because of running reasons, because I used to be a bit not famous, famous is too much, but well known in running. And I didn’t want to change my name and I didn’t, but I think I won’t. Because when I was thinking about the SEO, then I thought, oh, no, I will never do that. But now it seems like not such a scary thing after all.
It’s Not a Question of if Google Can Understand; It’s a Question of How Long Will It Take
[00:57:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I think it’s absolutely manageable. I’ll come back to that thing. It’s not a question of if we can get Google to understand this. It’s a question how long it will take us. And that’s a really interesting point. I’m sure we’re coming up to the end of the time here, because we are at 57 minutes. But I think it’s really important to bear in mind the timeframe you’re looking at.
[00:57:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): People think, oh, I can just change a couple of things. People often think, I can just put Schema Markup on my web page and everything’s good. And it seems to me strange that people in SEO will say to their clients, you have to give us two years to get this running. And yet think that educating this algorithm, the knowledge algorithm, which is foundational to Google’s future, would be as simple as just adding Schema Markup to your site.
[00:58:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s the same thing is that you need to work and you need a strategy. It’s not just a question of putting Schema Markup on your web page, and you need to be realistic in terms of timeframe.
Kalicube Can Generate a Knowledge Sprout in 3 Months, Show It on the Brand SERP After 6 Months, and Stabilise It for Another 6 Months
[00:58:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And at Kalicube, what we’ve seen is that we can generally get a Knowledge Panel sprout or a reasonable sprout within about three months. It takes about six months for that sprout to then turn up on the Brand SERP, if we work hard at it. And then it takes another six months for us to stabilise it to the point at which it won’t disappear on the next Google knowledge algorithm update.
[00:58:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And we track the knowledge algorithm updates on Kalicube. There are four different ways of tracking it. We track them all. And what will happen with the knowledge updates is that Knowledge Panels disappear, Knowledge Graph references disappear. It’s a big shake up. It’s like a normal Google algorithm update. It shakes everything up.
Does the Knowledge Panel Updates Influence or Coincide With the Google Core Updates?
[00:58:56] Olga Zarr: I just wanted to ask if those Knowledge Panel updates coincide with Google core updates, or do they influence one another, or are they completely separate?
[00:59:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Yeah. So, it’s a year to get any kind of stability. And then I would argue, you need to keep managing it over time, because what happens is your digital ecosystem changes over time. Google’s algorithms evolve over time. And the features Google has in a Knowledge Panel evolve and change. And if you are ready for the features, you get them. We got Knowledge Panel cards for Jason Hennessey because we were ready. We got them for me because I was ready. If I hadn’t been ready, I wouldn’t have got them.
You Should Always Be Tracking, Improving, and Working on Your Knowledge Panel
[00:59:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, my argument is you should always be tracking, and you should always be improving. You should always be working on it. It’s not a daily task, but it’s certainly something you’ve got to keep an eye on. And if something goes wrong, if your Knowledge Panel disappears, if you’re not tracking it, you won’t know when it disappeared. And so, you won’t be able to investigate why it disappeared.
[00:59:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And what we’ve got at Kalicube, obviously, is we can see the exact moment it disappeared. And then we can look at the information around the web and figure out what happened, what went wrong, and correct it and get the Knowledge Panel back. And to your question, which I’ve already forgotten.
Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Is Tracking and Working on Google Core and Knowledge Graph Updates for Many Years
[01:00:11] Olga Zarr: Wait a second. What was the question?
[01:00:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You forgot it too. It was a great question as well.
[01:00:16] Olga Zarr: Yeah. I know. If those core, are you short of time?
[01:00:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, not at all.
[01:00:23] Olga Zarr: Yeah. The question is if Google core updates coincide? Are they connected?
[01:00:32] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): In fact, historically, I’ve been tracking them for seven or eight years now and working on them for 10. But have you ever heard the theory about AC/DC records and economic slumps?
[01:00:47] Olga Zarr: I think I have. Yeah.
The Theory About AC/DC Records and Economic Slumps in Relation to Knowledge Algorithm Updates
[01:00:49] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Because I was an economist, and it’s a story in the economist world. When there’s an economic boom, AC/DC sell very few records. And when there’s an economic slump, AC/DC sell boatloads of records. And that’s because when there’s a slump, people want cheering up and AC/DC cheers them up. And when there’s a boom, they don’t need cheering up, so they don’t buy AC/DC records.
[01:01:13] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[01:01:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And it’s this inverse wave where you’ve got when one’s up, the other one’s down and vice versa. And it was the same with these algorithm updates. You would not ever see a Knowledge Graph knowledge algorithm update at the same time as a blue link or a general update. And this year that’s changed. They started to sync, not always, obviously, but sometimes you will see them sync. And not sink as in go down, as in synchronise.
[01:01:48] Olga Zarr: Yeah.
Some of the Recent Knowledge Algorithm Updates and the Effect It Has on Google and the Blue Links
[01:01:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And there was an update in April and then in one of the knowledge algorithms. And there wasn’t one again until last week, so six months. And you’ll notice there were a lot of updates around SEO during that period. So, Google, because knowledge is so ingrained or increasingly ingrained in the needs of their future algorithms across the board, they’ve really got to be careful about to what extent and how they integrate the knowledge and the knowledge algorithms into the general algorithms.
[01:02:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And so, you have this situation, whereas if you’re going to shake up the blue links, don’t shake up the knowledge at the same time.
[01:02:35] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Makes sense.
[01:02:35] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Sometimes, you have to shake them up a bit at the same time. And that happens from time to time. But the shake ups in the knowledge section are generally very small when you see a major shake up in the blue link section.
[01:02:49] Olga Zarr: Okay. That’s good to know.
Kalicube Shares One Measurement of Knowledge Graph Updates, But They’ve Got Four Different Measurements Internally
[01:02:51] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I spend my life looking at these graphs and trying to figure it all out. And publicly, we share one measurement of Knowledge Graph updates. But internally, we’ve got four different measurements that we use. And so, the six month period was actually just the Knowledge Graph itself in terms of the confidence scores moving around. But internally, we saw multiple other updates.
[01:03:14] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): For example, in June, the Knowledge Graph got much deeper. And it didn’t get more information added to it, but it joined up more dots. And this is interesting if you’re a bit geeky. Generally speaking, the Knowledge Graph is full of entities and relationships between those entities. And it seems to me, and I don’t have any data proof for this, Google is in June started to look at associations.
Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Is Very Interested on the Effect of the Associations in the Algorithms, But He Doesn’t Have the Answer to It
[01:03:43] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you think about the child, it’s really interesting. Because the child, you say to the child, mother-daughter relationship. It’s simple. You say to the child, what do you think of if I say bunny rabbit? And the child says, orange potatoes. And you go, what? That doesn’t make sense. There isn’t a relationship. But for the child, there’s an association, because at some point once they saw a cartoon with an orange potato and a bunny rabbit.
[01:04:10] Olga Zarr: Okay.
[01:04:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And these associations, I’m really curious about them. What are the associations? Why is it making the associations? And how much do these associations affect the algorithms and the way Google is presenting us in Knowledge Panels, and even in the left rail with those recommendations that it’s got? But that’s a huge question that I don’t have the answer to.
[01:04:34] Olga Zarr: Yeah. Okay.
[01:04:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You wish you hadn’t asked now, don’t you?
The Offers of Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) to Learn More About Brand SERPs and Knowledge Panels
[01:04:40] Olga Zarr: No. Now it’s time for you to plug whatever you want people to do. So, join the academy, join the course. I will provide all the links.
[01:04:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Really, if you’re just getting into Brand SERPs and Knowledge Panels, read the book. It’s cheap. It’s from Amazon. It’s cheap and cheerful, but quite informative. Pardon me?
[01:05:06] Olga Zarr: I just wanted to say I love it. I recommend it. I was one of the first people, I think, who was able to read it. So, I bought it right after it was published. Sorry. Go ahead.
[01:05:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You gave a great review as well, I remember. So, the books are really good introduction. The courses are the next step up, if you really want to start geeking out. And once you really start geeking out, if you’re an agency, come on to the platform. We also have a Kalicube Knowledge Panel and Brand SERP support group on Facebook. You’re welcome to come and join that.
Join Kalicube’s Knowledge Panel and Brand SERP Support Group to See More Stuff That Jason Barnard Shares and to Meet Interesting People
[01:05:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the idea of that is that I share stuff there that I don’t share elsewhere. And also, other people, really smart people come into the group and share what they know. We’ve got a guy called DC Glenn, who’s Wikipedia king of the world and who’s done an amazing job. He was an 80s rap star. And he’s been moving all of the information that’s offline, online in order to manage his Knowledge Panel. That’s genius.
[01:06:06] Olga Zarr: Wow.
[01:06:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And a guy called Josh King, who’s got the most confusing digital ecosystem you’ve ever imagined. And he has got his confidence score in the Knowledge Graph to go from, I think it was 10 to 43,000 using Kalicube Pro. And it only took him about two months. And that’s the moment when I’m saying some of the people are going to use this tool better than I do. And it’s disappointing in one sense, but it’s so pleasing in another, that other people can take what I’ve built and use it much better than I can. And that’s absolutely glorious.
[01:06:42] Olga Zarr: Yeah.
By Searching Someone’s Name on Google, You Can Choose How You Want to Interact With Them in Their Brand SERP
[01:06:44] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that was it. I think that’s all I was going to plug. Listen to my podcast. Search my name, Jason Barnard, on Google. And the other thing about your Brand SERP, and this is maybe a good way to finish it, is that when you search somebody’s name, Google is suggesting how you might want to interact with them in the left rail.
[01:07:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, you get to choose Twitter, LinkedIn, my site, my company site, my videos, my articles. And on the right hand side, it will give you a summary of who I am and what I do and what information might be important to you. And the aim of a Knowledge Panel is to save you the time of going to all of those sites individually, finding that information to figure out who I am.
[01:07:24] Olga Zarr: Yeah. That’s perfect.
[01:07:26] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s Google’s summary of who I am, who you are. Your summary is quite small, but I’m absolutely sure with very little effort, you can build that up with a description, the social media.
[01:07:36] Olga Zarr: I will try.
[01:07:37] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It will be a blossoming Knowledge Panel.
To Find Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy), Search His Name and Choose How You Want to Interact With Him
[01:07:40] Olga Zarr: Okay. So to find Jason Barnard, just type his name, and yeah, and choose the way you want to interact.
[01:07:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Olga.
[01:07:50] Olga Zarr: Thank you. Thank you so much. I am very honoured that you wanted to spend this hour with me. And I learned so much, and I think my audience will learn so much as well. So, thank you again.
[01:08:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. I’m honoured to be invited, and I’m absolutely stunned that you would be willing to listen to me for one hour and eight minutes.
[01:08:09] Olga Zarr: Of course. So, once again, thank you, and yeah. And see you in the next episode. Bye bye, everyone.
[01:08:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Thank you. Bye bye.
