Entity SEO & knowledge graphs: the complete guide
Before AI can recommend you, it has to know you exist — as one unambiguous thing, with facts attached. That's entity work, and it's the least visible, highest-leverage layer of AI visibility.
An entity is a thing machines can identify — your business is one. Knowledge graphs are the databases where machines store facts about entities. Entity SEO makes sure your business exists in those graphs as one clear record with the right facts attached: correct category, location, services, relationships and reputation. Get this wrong and every other visibility effort leaks.
Strings vs things
Old search matched strings: the words on your page against the words in the query. Modern search and AI reason about things: "Brand Visibility" isn't fifteen characters, it's a business entity with a location, services, people and a track record. When machines resolve your name to the right entity, everything written about you anywhere accrues to you. When they can't — because two businesses share the name, or your record is inconsistent — your evidence scatters and your authority dilutes.
Where your entity lives
Google's Knowledge Graph is the biggest, feeding Search, Maps, Gemini and AI Overviews. But your entity also lives in Bing's graph (feeding Copilot), in maps and review platforms, in Wikidata for larger organisations, and — increasingly important — in the learned representations inside LLMs themselves. Each was built from public sources. Which is why the fix is always the same: fix the sources.
Building a strong entity record
One canonical identity
Decide the exact name, category, one-sentence description and service list — then use them verbatim everywhere. Variations are how entities fracture.
Anchor it with schema
Organization schema on your homepage with sameAs links to every profile ties the whole record together. Your website is the entity home page.
Claim every surface
Google Business Profile, Bing Places, LinkedIn, Facebook, industry directories, association listings — claimed, consistent, current.
Corroborate with independent sources
Machines believe facts that multiple unrelated sources agree on. Press mentions, directory listings and reviews that describe you consistently are corroboration.
Disambiguate deliberately
Share a name with another business? Lean on qualifiers — location, category — in your schema and profiles so machines never merge your records.
How you know it's working
Ask the assistants "what is [your business]?" monthly — answers get more accurate and more confident as your record consolidates. Watch for a knowledge panel appearing (or correcting) in Google. And track whether AI stops confusing you with similarly-named businesses. This is exactly what our Entity & Knowledge Graph Optimisation service manages end to end.
Related: the schema guide (your entity's technical backbone) and the complete AI search guide.
Playbooks by industry
What AI needs to understand about you depends on your category. These playbooks work through entity signals industry by industry.
Keep reading:the AI search glossary, AEO vs SEO vs GEO, and how Google AI Overviews work.