Why the knowledge graph is important for content writing?
“The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base used by Google and its services to enhance its search engine’s results with information gathered from a variety of sources” (read more on Wikipedia). It is a huge database with more than 18 billion facts allowing Google to directly answer more than 30% of all the queries recorded in its system. Let’s just conclude that, as a content expert, you should be aware Google is already able to answer most of the questions your content is addressing, provided it features key facts.
The knowledge panel is displayed for a lot of queries, starting by queries related to places, companies, people, animals, events, etc. Of course, this can be seen as a threat in the sense that your content is not likely to get a click (only an impression instead) as Rand Fishkin pointed out in several of his public statements. On the other hand, as Cindy Crum sometimes mentions, having your content displayed on all these new formats is definitely an opportunity and you should improve the way you measure it. Mobile Moxie is a great tool for that.
I personally see it as an opportunity to earn some visibility, notably because Google uses various sources to display several boxes, especially on mobile as pointed out in Danny Sullivan’s article.
How the Knowledge Graph will impact your copywriting
If your content is well tagged using structured data, Google may directly display it on one of their knowledge panels. This is good but you want more. You want clicks to get more traffic and more leads. That is why you should focus on the philosophy behind he Knowledge Graph and follow the 3 recommendations below.
1. Understand the structure of the Knowledge Panel
Consider structuring your article this way (as mentioned in the Google’s publication above)
- Title and short summary of the topic
- A longer description of the subject
- A picture or pictures of the person, place or thing
- Key facts, such as when a notable figure was born or where something is located
- Links to social profiles and official websites
2. Topics matter more than keywords
You should start your brainstorm by looking at topics and entities rather than keywords and their search volumes. Most of the content strategists start brainstorming on keywords tools. The difficulty I see with keywords tools is that they don’t allow us enough space to use our creativity and focus on the context of their research and not the queries they use to express it. If a searcher type “best hotels in montreal” it does not necessary means thet he is about to make a booking right? Or maybe he is just looking for inspiration. The query is a simplification of the intent. I suggest to work with the topic instead. The topic here is “hotel+montreal”. From there try to answer this question : Why are these hotels the best in the city? You will end-up with tons of content ideas around : their unique location, accomodations, the menu, their staff, distance from hot spots in the city, people you will meet at those hotels…
3. Use entities in your copy to enrich your content
The Knowledge Graph is a system that understands facts and information about entities from materials shared across the web. But what is an entity?According to Google, an entity “represents a phrase in the text that is a known entity, such as a person, an organization, or location”. Entities are not useful for SEO only, they are above all crucial for content producers.
The design of a school database for instance will include students, teachers, courses, etc. as entities. Those entities will then have attributes such as the student ID, name, date of birth, etc.
If you write a piece of content with entities in mind, you are not only going to describe you product or service but also write about the topic as a whole by using arguments that reinforce the link between your offer and the topic.
Conclusion
We have recommended content strategists to consider the Knowledge Graph. Google is the main online traffic provider and when they change the way people access to your content, you should either adapt or invest on other traffic drivers (influencers, social media, events…).
However SEO is usually the cheapest solution to acquire visitors on your web properties. Therefore, you might want to follow these instructions regarding content creation:
- Start your brainstorm process at the topic level
- Use the same content structure than the Knowledge Graph when possible
- Learn more about entities and add them to your content workflow
This article was originally published on Intent Cracker’s blog. It convers the knowledge graph topic
