Marketing Takeaways from Google’s Knowledge Graph

Vinny La Barbera
Written by

Vinny La Barbera

Have you ever wished you could find a quick fact right from a Google search without having to scour through multiple websites first? With the launch of Google’s Knowledge Graph this is becoming much more of a reality.

In this post we are going to help you easily understand what Google’s Knowledge Graph is all about, how it could possibly affect you as a marketer and what opportunities or tips we would recommend to stay on top of Google’s constant search evolution.

What is the Google Knowledge Graph?

Google has always been a great tool for finding relevant resources on the web to help with research projects, making buying decisions and a slew of other tasks. It has also been really handy for getting quick answers to things like math calculations, unit conversions, flight times or even local weather. What Google has not really been strong at has been providing valuable, relevant fact based information to searchers without forcing them to sift through Wikipedia articles or other online almanacs and encyclopedias.

Up until now that is…

With the introduction of Google’s new Knowledge Graph, Google will make it faster and easier for its users to find useful, highly relevant information, tied to the user’s search query, right within the search results. Once the Knowledge Graph has been rolled out to everyone in the coming weeks and months, users will no longer have to search multiple web pages for the quick facts that they were searching for.

To help give you a better, more visual, representation of how the Knowledge Graph will work, take a couple minutes to watch this video from Google on their new search improvement.

How Will the Knowledge Graph Affect Marketers?

Anytime Google makes an announcement about a new product, service or upgrade to its search features the online marketing industry lights up with questions, doubts, fears and dollar signs.

The announcement of Google’s new Knowledge Graph is no exception as there are a few things that are definitely getting the wheels turning in many marketers’ heads. Here are some of the primary ones as we see them…

  • Searchers will not need to click on paid or organic results as much as answers may be found right on the results page thus causing publishers to lose search traffic
  • There are no opportunities for marketers or publishers to get featured in the “Knowledge Panels” (currently)
  • The “Knowledge Panel” does not feature any calls to action to drive commerce for companies (currently)

As the new feature launches nationally and we are able to play around with it more we will most likely come across a few more of these. Until then, let’s start to think about how to leverage these changes.

Another Example of Google Knowledge Graph

How Marketers Can Leverage the Knowledge Graph?

As educational as we like to be, we wouldn’t be worth our weight in gold if we didn’t present some useful, actionable tips on how to leverage Google’s new search enhancements.

Instead of worrying about how these changes can hurt your business, let’s take a look at some ways to be proactive and use these changes to your advantage:

  • Users will most likely be spending more time on the 1st search results page so it will be even more important that you work to get your website organically placed within the top 3 results
  • Since users will be spending more time on the 1st page, optimizing your already obtained organic results through title and meta description optimization will help to increase click through rates
  • Understand what search queries, relevant to your business, will trigger the “Knowledge Panel” and develop content around those terms and/or try some targeted paid search marketing to capture some of that “stickier” traffic

Again, as the new features roll out for everyone, and we all get a chance to really experience these new features, more opportunities will certainly present themselves. In the meantime, Danny Sullivan has provided a very insightful analysis of Google’s Knowledge Graph that we recommend you check out if you’re interested in learning more about this topic.

If you’re interested in speaking to someone on our team about how you can start leveraging these new features before they become mainstream, then we welcome and encourage you to either leave us a comment below or contact us to schedule a consultation.

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