Keywords are still a big part of SEO, but search platforms no longer rely on simple word matching. They consider the meaning behind those keywords, along with search intent and user intent, to determine which content deserves stronger search engine rankings.
This broader approach to meaning and context is known as semantic SEO. It isn’t new to us at SEO Sandwich. We’ve been helping clients take a more complete approach to SEO for years, with a focus on keywords, entities, context, and semantic understanding.
In this article, we’ll cover what entities are and how the Knowledge Graph helps search engines understand them. We’ll also look at entity salience, an important metric that many content creators still overlook.
Let’s get into it.
What Is an Entity in Semantic Search?
An entity is any distinct, real-world thing or concept search engines store and recognise independently of the words used to describe it. That’s a pretty different way of thinking about SEO compared to what most people are used to.
Here are the main characteristics of entities:
- Entity vs. Keyword: Keywords are the words or phrases people type into a search bar, while entities are the people, places, things, or concepts those words can refer to. For example, when someone searches “Jordan”, Google tries to work out whether they mean the country, the basketball player, or something else associated with that name.
- Unique and Distinguishable: Google can recognise Nikola Tesla, the inventor, and Tesla, the car company, as separate entities. Each can have its own identifier, attributes, and relationships that help Google understand which one is relevant in a given context.
- Language-Independent: Entities aren’t tied to a single word or language. Different words and names can refer to the same entity, which helps search engines connect those references to the same person, place, organisation, or concept.
- Entity Types: Common entity types include people, places, organisations, products, events, works of art, and concepts. Entities can also have attributes and relationships that help search platforms understand what they represent and how they relate to other entities.
A clear understanding of entities makes it easier to see how search engines interpret content and connect related information.
How Does the Knowledge Graph Work?
The Knowledge Graph organises information about entities and the relationships between them. It helps Google understand context and provide more relevant information in search results, and that same focus on entities has become increasingly important for AI models.
For content creators, knowing how these connections work can lead to a more effective approach to content creation. So we’ll now go through a breakdown of how they actually operate.
Search Intent: From Keywords to Concepts
Google Search once relied more heavily on matching the words in a query with words and signals found on web pages. But that approach changed considerably over time.
Specifically, the launch of the Knowledge Graph in 2012 was an important step towards helping Google understand entities, concepts, and the relationships between them.
Today, Google can use these relationships alongside keywords and other signals to better understand a user’s query. For example, a search for “who founded Microsoft” can connect Microsoft with its founders without relying solely on pages that contain that exact phrase.
Entity Storage in Semantic Search
Every entity in Google’s Knowledge Graph has a unique identifier known as a Machine ID, or MID. They can look like /m/045c7b, with each one identifying a specific entity and helping Google distinguish it from others.
Structured data on your website helps Google connect your content to the right entity record. Without it, Google’s natural language processing still extracts entities from plain text, but structured data makes that process much faster and more accurate.
Entity Relationships and Keyword Research
What can keyword research tell you about entity relationships? It can reveal the topics, questions, and concepts people associate with your main entity.
Take a restaurant as an example. Research might reveal queries about its cuisine, menu, chef, price range, or physical location. You need to group keywords around these connections instead of treating every term as a separate target.
This way, you’ll get a broader view of what your target audience wants to know and which areas are worth covering in your content.
Practical Tip: Use the search results as a validation step. If the same pages rank for several related queries, those terms may belong within the same content cluster.
Entities and Informational Intent
When a search has informational intent, people are usually looking for an answer or explanation about a specific topic. Defining the people, places, products, or concepts involved can give the content more context and make those connections easier to follow.
For instance, a blog post about running shoes might cover shoe types, materials, brands, and common uses. These details help address the user’s needs while building a fuller picture of the topic (but only if those details serve the user’s needs).
This approach can also help Google interpret the relationships between different concepts, which may be useful for search features like AI Overviews and featured snippets.
What Is Entity Salience and Why It’s Important
Entity salience is a score from 0 to 1 that indicates how important an entity is within a piece of text. The score reflects how central the entity is to the overall meaning of the content, and it can provide valuable information when analysing your main topics and key points.
The following factors can help you make sense of entity salience in practice:
- Salience vs. Mention Count: Salience reflects how central an entity is to the overall text, rather than simply how often it appears. Repeating the same keyword throughout a page doesn’t automatically make that entity more prominent, so your writing should establish its relevance through clear context and related information.
- Entity Placement: Titles, headings, and opening paragraphs are useful places to establish the main topic of a page. Introduce your primary entity early and support it with relevant keywords and key phrases that clearly reflect the content’s focus.
- Entity Attributes: If you cover an entity’s main attributes and relationships, you can provide valuable information that adds context to the main topic. For example, a restaurant page might include its physical location, cuisine, and chef.
- Low Salience Scores: A low salience score can indicate that the main entity isn’t clearly established within the content. If that happens, review your writing to see whether the main topic, relevant keywords, and related keyphrases are clear and useful to your target audience.
- Google Cloud Natural Language: You can paste your content into the tool to see which entities it detects and their salience scores. The results will provide useful insights when creating content and help you check whether the overall focus makes sense for your target audience.
In short, salience can help you assess how central an entity is to the overall focus of a piece of content.
Entities, Salience, and What Comes Next
Search engines have become better at understanding things and how they’re defined. They can also recognise how those things connect and how central they are to a piece of content.
If your content doesn’t clearly establish its core entities, it may be worth taking a closer look at your approach. Start with the core entities across your top pages, then use Google Cloud Natural Language to review their salience scores and see which topics receive the most emphasis.
And if you want help from professionals, SEO Sandwich can help you build a semantic SEO strategy that will support your long-term goals. Contact us today to get started.
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