Knowledge Panel
Triggering a Knowledge Panel isn’t quite as easy as it might seem. I have made a lot of mistakes, time, effort, and have wasted considerable money in doing things the wrong way. There is actually a process to it.
Many guys in the industry have been speaking about Brand SERPs and how important it is to have that Knowledge Panel. In this post, you’ll learn most of what you can do to trigger your Knowledge Graph.
What is a Knowledge Panel?
If you look at a Knowledge Panel, you will be able to see people’s social media, their website, their date of birth, and many other details about them.
It really is incredibly important to dominate your brand SERP on the right side of any Google search page.
Knowledge Panel also matters a lot if you’re attempting to build a personal brand, but for pretty much any other entity, for that matter. It effectively makes you more visible in front of so many other people.
If someone googles Brian Dean, for example, you’ll see his website and probably a bunch of his other profiles.
People can look at that, but the knowledge panel is on the right-hand side, and you see ‘Brian Dean’ — American entrepreneur. You also see his nationality, his date of birth, and you see suggestions at the bottom for other people in the industry.
Therefore, someone could be looking at Rand Fishkin, for example, just by clicking on the ‘People also search for’ section in the Knowledge Panel belonging to Brian Dean.
So you can drive huge amounts of traffic just by having one and showing up in other people’s suggestions.
Jason Barnard’s Knowledge Panel is a little more detailed, having a bio, photos, his SEMrush profile, his YouTube and Deezer accounts, his TV show (he had a cartoon several years ago), as well as all of his social media profiles.
Naturally, Jason has worked a lot on his Knowledge Panel — while other people almost never work on theirs.
The Knowledge Panel is excellent for your personal brand visibility, you can drive traffic with it, and you can also be found just by being in the same industry as other individuals who have also created knowledge panels for their personal brands.
How to get a Google Knowledge Panel
Knowledge panels are automatically generated. As such, the part you have to play is to be the connector of all the dots so as to show Google who you are.
You should get on the right websites, pad out your brand account, get some PR — all of this to get your Google Knowledge Panel.
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The first thing to do is to go into your Google Account, turn it into a brand, put up a picture, your links, all of your social media network profiles, and any other data you might have at hand.
For me in particular, I also put in all of the locations/events that I have spoken at or publications was featured in when it comes to PR, and my website.
I was merely trying to connect the dots for Google. Did that work? Absolutely not.
Following that failure, I had to add schema to my website.
I got my About Me page, put my picture there, got a bunch of info there with URLs to a massive number of events, social media accounts, and my Amazon Author profile, too.
The most important thing here is to add Person Schema — this is what makes the connection between your name and the social media profiles, links, and everything else.
The schema has been added to the body script, and I linked everything there. Did that trigger my Knowledge Panel? No. It still didn’t offer any result in this sense.
Part of the problem for me is that there is another comedian with the same name as mine. Therefore, I needed to do a bit more.
What I did to trigger the Knowledge Panel was to go on sites like Legiit and find someone to create a Knowledge Panel for me.
These people can create it for you, but I had my title as ‘SEO specialist’, which is the wrong thing to do. The way that people look at it is that I am not a Hollywood celebrity, and I’m an SEO guy trying to take more of the landscape.
If we go back to Brian Dean’s and Jason Barnard’s panels, you’ll see that they don’t have ‘SEO specialist’ as their main job.
Aleyda Solis is the only one that has her title like this, but she’s been in the industry for many, many years, and she’s very well-known.
I added this title time and again to my panel, and it got removed repeatedly. You also put your birth place, country, and some other info. The freelancer comes back to you within about a month and then shows you your knowledge panel. It’s then up to you to go to it and claim it.
When claiming it, you are going to have to provide evidence that it’s you and not someone else. Google asks for further details.
So, you can pay someone to do it if you don’t know how to get a Knowledge Panel on Google. That is the route I went down because I didn’t manage to trigger it organically.
Many people say that you need a Wikipedia profile to be able to get the Knowledge Panel, and that’s not entirely accurate.
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If we look at Jason Barnard’s panel, you can go and see if there is a Wikidata page. There are a bunch of entities there that you need to claim, too, after you claim your knowledge panel.
Google is pulling this data from a number of high-profile sources, collecting it all together, and that then forms a knowledge panel.
Do you need a Wikidata or a Wikipedia page? The answer is no.
I had to go around that because I made some mistakes with my Wikidata and Wikipedia as well in the past. Apparently, you are not allowed to personally modify your Wikidata, and I did not know that.
Set up your brand account, try and join all the dots for Google, but you can also simply go to Legiit, get another person to make it for you, claim it, and then you can verify it individually.
You can then request edits to the info, put in pictures, and other factual data to make sure that your panel is up to date.
I’ve also had to do some press releases and get on some other websites and entities. But if you can’t trigger the knowledge panel yourself, you can get someone else to do it for several hundred dollars.
Essential things that a Knowledge Panel contains:
- Media (photos or videos)
- Maps – your location
- Your business name
- Customer reviews
- A button that leads to your websites (or at least a link)
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Using PR to claim this knowledge panel
Another thing on how to get a knowledge panel for your brand is using press releases. Are they of any use?
PR can help you more than just for your knowledge panel, it can also help you for link building, brand building, social media verification and others. Good PR makes all the difference.
Google looks at strong sources of PR that are going to help you get seen as more newsworthy. There are some press release services out there, some of which aren’t even expensive, such as magic PR.
They have packages as cheap as 99 dollars, and the highest plans go up to $699, which is about 550 pounds in the UK.
Another website you can use to find great freelancers either for writing the press release or for publishing it on various news sites is Legiit.
Whatever you do, don’t be promotional. Do not attempt to sell your services through PR. Try to make it as if people write about you in a natural way. Your press release has to be newsworthy.
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Entities to get listed on for your knowledge panel
Another thing you should know in terms of how to create a knowledge panel is the variety of places you should be listed in so that Google is able to pull the data.
These entities are hugely important. It’s highly recommended that you get them. Jason Barnard has a website called Kalicube, which has a number of tools and sources citing the Knowledge Panel.
A company or a person can get a knowledge panel, and you can select the one you prefer, and it’s going to get you the best places to get yourself listed on.
Jason has also confirmed that you can get your brand into the Knowledge Panel without a Wikipedia page, although most of those that have one do have a Wikipedia page. There’s a whole bunch of other entities that you can get yourself on, which will allow you to get your Knowledge Graph.
Some accounts are easy to make, such as on IMDB. Crunchbase is another place where you can get a profile, LinkedIn is another, and so on. To get a Fandom page, you can go on Legiit and get someone to create your page for you – it’s just an alternative to Wikipedia, it might not be as powerful, but it’s decent.
Some other examples are GoodReads, Entrepreneur.com, Amazon, NY Times, MIT, and more. So all of these are places that you can get listed on. You either have to pay money, or you have to do something to work your way there – contribute some information or whatever that might be.
The entities change for the different locations you are going to be in. If you’re in the United States, you want to be looking at what’s working well for people who have the Knowledge Panel in America. Some of these websites are going to be different, but some are going to be the same.
The main thing is to get yourself there – pay for it, do it yourself, take the time and effort to go and get listed everywhere as these are credible places where you can show up and eventually solidify your knowledge panel.
Wikidata and Wikipedia aren’t the only places you can use, and these days, they can be very challenging to get on.
It can take months and months to be able to trigger your Knowledge Panel with entities, especially if you do all the work.
What other things can you do?
Optimize your Google My Business listing
Make sure that all of your GMB data is correct and as recent as possible. That includes your contact info, your hours, your email, and pretty much any way that potential clients can get in touch with you.
Keep in mind that GMB is useful not just for your Knowledge Graph, but also for your business as it gives your customers the information that they might need to get your services. Having all the right data in your GMB raises your chances of being listed.
Ask customers to review your services
If you know a client that’s had an excellent experience working with you, why not ask them to leave a review on your Google listing?
Not only does this increase the chance of you acquiring more customers in the long run, but it also raises the possibility of you getting your Knowledge Panel.
Increase your domain authority
If you have zero credibility, it’s highly unlikely that you will be able to trigger your Knowledge Graph. Your website should have a high enough DA and be around for at least several years to represent a good enough trust signal.
To increase your DA, you can do things like creating better content, removing toxic links, optimizing for mobile, and making sure that your page speed is up to par. Link building and PR are two other methods that you can use.
Regular maintenance for your Knowledge Panel
Whenever you change your website, your operating hours, or your contact information, the first thing that should cross your mind is to update your Knowledge Graph, too.
Remember that Google is looking for accurate information, and if people start reviewing your GMB listing and noting that you don’t have the same location or there are inconsistencies in your Knowledge Graph, you might even lose it.
Here’s a post I wrote about Knowledge Panel mistakes. Perhaps reading it will prevent you from doing them.
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Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.
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