A Breakdown of Ontologies, Entities, and Schemas for SEO Marketing
In philosophy, ontology refers to the nature of being or how the world is organized through things, qualities, and the relationships between them. In SEO, ontologies have adopted a similar meaning – and understanding their complexity will keep you on the cutting edge of SEO. Why? Ontologies carry meaning for human users and the algorithm’s data model by building logical relationships across entities. Entities refer to real-world people, places, things, or concepts that can be represented and recognized by search engines. Google’s Knowledge Graph relies on entities to provide more relevant and informative search results. Technical marketers should develop well-organized ontologies via maps of entities and their connections to prepare for success in AI platforms and Google Search, as well as improve user experiences.
Similarly, schema markup is a structured data format that helps search engines better understand web pages’ content and context. It allows webmasters to mark HTML code with specific tags describing different entities, such as products, events, recipes, reviews, and more. Using schema markup can enhance search visibility and increase the chances of appearing in rich snippets and knowledge panels.
Google uses the Knowledge Graph and artificial intelligence algorithms to understand entities, relationships, and user intent. AI-driven algorithms enable search engines to process natural language queries and deliver more relevant search results based on entity recognition and semantic understanding.
To optimize your website content for entities, consider using descriptive titles, incorporating schema markup, creating structured and comprehensive content, and establishing authoritative relationships between entities within a website.
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