#SMX #13a @cshel

What We’re Seeing and How We’re Using It

Entity Search Today

#SMX #13a @cshel

Carolyn Shelby - PresenterDirector, SEO/SEM at Tribune Publishing

I am a search engine

optimization professional and

webmaster with more than 20

years of experience building

and promoting websites.

Technical SEO

Organic SEO

Forensic Audits

Holistic Optimization

Rebuilding websites

Speaking & Training

#SMX #13a @cshel

#SMX #13a @cshel

Uses Google’s Knowledge Graph (vast index of entities and their relationships) to answer the user’s question in the SERP.

Especially fun in Google Now because it reads the “answers” to you. Quick Answers get read just like Graph Panels.

It’s easier to get a Quick Answer.

What is “entity search” anyway?

#SMX #13a @cshel

Graph Panel

Quick Answers

Local 3-Pack

Shopping

#SMX #13a @cshel

#SMX #13a @cshel

Google’s getting the answers from partners (usually Wikipedia), so if you want one of these, you have to have content on one of those partners.

Encourages users to stay on SERP rather than click-through to content.

Graph Panel

#SMX #13a @cshel

#SMX #13a @cshel

If a question can be discerned or answered concisely, Google wants to provide that answer in the SERPs.

Takes information from “authority” sources.

Encourages users to stay on Google.

Quick Answers

#SMX #13a @cshel

#SMX #13a @cshel

Must submit compliant product feed through Google Merchant

Obviously, must have things you sell.

Encourages customers to shop based largely on price.

Shopping

#SMX #13a @cshel

#SMX #13a @cshel

Must have physical locations.

Seems to help greatly to have a fully completed Google+ Page.

Obviously isn’t going to be useful if you don’t have a brick and mortar store.

Local 3-Pack

#SMX #13a @cshel

The current state of things

#SMX #13a @cshel

“Moving away from keyword optimization” and “Moving toward entity optimization”Not as big of a difference as it sounds…

Everything save Graph Panels are trackable.

Quick Answers are easier to manipulate acquire than the others.

Schema and microformats not really as necessary as I originally thought – at least not for Quick Answers.

What do we know so far?

#SMX #13a @cshel

Quick Answers in Quantities

#SMX #13a @cshel

#SMX #13a @cshel

Traditional ranking factors matter less than the perceived authority of the publisher, the presentation of the content, and the phrasing of the question.

If your content has the easiest (for the bot) to read answer, you’ll become the truth.

What Matters

#SMX #13a @cshel

No microformats.

No Schema.

Not as many links/as strong as Wikihow.

It’s all in the presentation…

#SMX #13a @cshel

Huge photos (Not necessarily bad)

Ads in every “step”

But most importantly… no clean stretch of text in a proper <ul>

Bad HTML

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Do Links Matter Anymore?

#SMX #13a @cshel

#SMX #13a @cshel

Keyword research still matters because you need to know how to phrase the answers to match the questions being asked.

Worry less about dropping links, and more about getting your info into authoritative publications.

Look for spaces where your competitors are not providing answers.

Opportunities/Take-Aways

#SMX #13a @cshel

THANK YOU!

Carolyn Shelby

Director, SEO

Tribune Publishing

@cshel or cshelby@tribpub.com