If you’ve ever looked up an important person or company on Google, you’ll get a little table on the right side of the results page displaying their name, an available picture of them, a short description, and some further information. That’s called a “Knowledge Graph”, and it’s a relatively new addition to Google, wherein people with sufficient clout and a large online presence get their own graph added. Or at least, that’s what it may seem like at first.
In truth, getting a Knowledge Graph simply requires you to work with Google to put your business or name onto your search results through your own official website. With Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can declare and verify the existence of your company website and link it with your own Google profiles – and after a review process, Google will create a Knowledge Graph for you.
In the past, these cards were formulated and built by Google and whatever information it could muster from your website and related sources of information regarding you and your business. You had no say or capability to verify or edit the information – until now.
Just very recently, Google has unveiled the ability to actually go about and edit your Knowledge Graph. If Google considers you a central figure to this person or company, and if you take a couple minutes of your time, you can update your own Knowledge Graph right now.
How It’s Done
While you can’t blatantly edit the card as you please, you can suggest an edit, so long as Google registers you as an official representative. Official representatives, according to Google, have to be signed into a Google account that places them as the owner of the topic or subject at hand – whether they’re the owner of the Google+ page, official website or YouTube channel.
When you search yourself or your company on Google and Google has a Knowledge Graph dedicated to you, you can either send in feedback like any other Google user through a little option on the bottom of the card, or you can – if recognized as an official representative – access another option that allows you to suggest edits to the content in-place, such as correcting key facts or providing a better, updated image.
You can also add profiles to the Knowledge Graph, so that readers would be more easily able to contact you or your company through your social media accounts and web presence. This can be done through the Google Webmasters tools. Finally, Google also allows you to add social profiles to your Knowledge Graph. According to Google’s information on Structured Data, the social networks you can link to are:
- Google+
- YouTube
- Myspace
- SoundCloud
- Tumblr
Finally, before you can suggest an edit, you need to ensure that your Web & App Activity settings are on. According to Google itself, the easiest way to do this is through your Account History page. Once you’ve suggested an edit, simply hit send, and you’re good to go. Google will then undergo its own review process.
How Google Reviews Your Changes
Although it’s an in-house process, Google asserts that it simply double-checks your edits with other available sources online to see whether or not the information you submitted is correct – so you cannot embellish yourself or your company to disproportionate levels through the Knowledge Graph.
Once Google has overseen your edit and approved it, you will receive an email from them declaring your new edit as successful.
While you cannot exaggerate on your descriptions and entries – which wouldn’t be in your best interest, anyways – you can see to it that people looking up your company or you through Google, they get the most up-to-date information possible on who you are.
Why Your Web Presence Matters
By maximizing your presence and involvement in most of the social networks that Google can pin onto you, you increase your own web presence both in search engine results, and in terms of social clout.
Online clout through social media is big nowadays, from the small entrepreneur all the way up to the largest corporation. As the Internet continues to expand and expound on the way people communicate, one of the most common topics of communication is the discussion of various products and services.
Word-of-mouth is becoming a powerful marketing tool, and maintaining a powerful online presence allows you to retain control over most of the top search results about you, your company, or your product/service. It also lets you weed out negative reviews – such as on review sites/segments like Amazon, or complaints on your social media accounts – and find ways to ensure that they happen less, while addressing the individual problem at hand publicly.
Your best tool when it comes to maintaining a respectable online reputation for yourself and your business is information. Whether it is Google’s Knowledge Graph, or a well-maintained company blog, every scrap of positive information linked to your name and the name of your business helps you.
How To Build Your Web Presence
In order to get a Knowledge Graph of your own, you need to add your company or personal website to Google’s Search Console, in the Webmaster tools of the company. There, by choosing the “adding a property” option, you can authenticate yourself as the owner of the website, and also do a number of optimizations that allow you to further push your website up in Google’s search rankings.
That’s where an established SEO company comes in. Through the expertise of an SEO specialist, you can set up your website with all the right details and information in order to seriously increase your web presence.
An affordable website advertising company is really all you need that can help you out in filling in all the hidden details that make so many popular blogs easily outrank the competition, despite similar content and posting frequency. Getting the help of a professional can really give your Knowledge Graph the boost it needs.