With a market share of 86.02%, Google rules the search engine market. However, getting on the top of the search engine results page isn’t easy. Thankfully, Google has a knowledge panel that enables businesses to attract potential customers’ attention.
Google knowledge panel shows a short brief of your business for branded queries. Since the knowledge panel occupies a huge space in the search results page, it can be a great branding opportunity.
Related: Top Alternative Search Engines Other Than Google
What is the Google Knowledge Panel?
Google knowledge panels are information boxes that appear on the right side of the search engine results page. It shows a summary of the main topic being searched.
Here is an example of the Google knowledge panel. The box includes basic information like the CEO of the company, stock price, founders, headquarters, subsidiaries, and social media profiles.
6 Steps to Acquire a Google Knowledge Panel for Your Business
According to Google, knowledge panels are automatically generated, and the information comes from various sources across the internet. However, there are several strategies that can increase your chances of getting a knowledge panel.
Here are six ways to acquire a Google knowledge panel for your company:
1- Claim Your Google My Business Listing
The first thing you need to do is claim your Google My Business listing. Also known as local listing, GMB improves your chances of appearing for location-based searches and knowledge panels.
Related: Google My Business Listing Optimization Guide
Here is how you can claim your Google My Business Listing:
- Visit Google My Business.
- Enter your business name.
- Choose your business category. As you start typing, you will see various suggestions. Pick the most relevant one.
- If you have a physical store, click on “Yes” when Google asks, “do you want to add a location?” If you don’t have a physical location, tick on “No.”
- Specify your business details, such as location or delivery area.
- Add your contact information, including phone number and website URL.
Lastly, verify your business. There are two ways to do so:
- Via phone call
- Via mail
Depending on the nature of your business and location, Google will tell you which way applies to you.
Once your account is verified, add more business-related information, such as operating hours, photos, logo, description, products you sell, and attributes.
Here is an example of a knowledge panel for location-based searches. When I searched for McDonald’s California, MO, Google showed a local knowledge panel. It contains the address, directions, reviews, and phone number of the McDonald’s California outlet.
The above example indicates that when the search gets localized, Google is likely to serve a local knowledge panel.
Related: Local SEO Ranking Factors Used By Google
2- Create a Wikipedia Page for Your Business
Wikipedia is the primary source of information for Google. Having a Wikipedia page can significantly increase your chances of getting a knowledge panel.
Here is how you can create a Wikipedia page for your business:
- Visit any page on Wikipedia.
- Click on “create account” at the top right corner.
- Enter the necessary details, such as username and password.
- Once your account is created, get promoted to an autoconfirmed user. You can do so by making at least ten edits to the encyclopedia. Spend a few days making changes to old content on Wikipedia.
- The next step is to create your business page. However, make sure that it is grammatically correct and easy to understand.
- Submit your page to Wikipedia. They will analyze the content and citations to determine whether the information is credible. After they deem your page reliable, it will be posted on the platform.
Tip: Citations are a vital part of a Wikipedia entry. The sources that qualify as citations include books, newspapers, magazines, and journals.
3- Earn Positive Customer Reviews
Reviews are a vital part of the knowledge panel. When more customers give reviews to your business on Google, your chances of acquiring the knowledge panel increase significantly. This is because Google thinks you provide good service to your customers.
Here are some great ways to earn customer reviews:
- Send emails to customers asking about their experience. Request them to rate your business if they are satisfied. If not, ask how you can make their experience better.
- Provide great customer service. Many people leave reviews after interacting with the customer support team.
- Add a custom Google review link on your website to encourage customers to leave reviews.
- Create physical “leave us a review” cards. Add a short quote like “your review helps us improve our business and provide a great experience to valuable customers like you. Please take a few minutes to rate us on Google.”
- Put a Google review request in your email signature. Every time a customer reads your email, they are reminded about leaving a review without being pushy.
Note: Respond to all the reviews you get, even the negative ones. It helps improve consumer perceptions of your business. Also, avoid buying Google reviews as it does more harm than good in the long run.
4- Implement Structured Data
Structured data helps Google study and understand your website better. It is a standardized form of the content on your site. Implementing structured data can also enhance your online visibility and click-through rates.
Most websites use Schema.org vocabulary to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data. It was founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex to make it easier for webmasters to understand and add structured data to their website.
Here are two types of structured data that can increase your chances of getting the knowledge panel:
- Site logo: It allows you to specify which image Google should use for your business’s logo in the knowledge panel. To add structured data (logo) on your website, add the URL of your logo and the URL of the website associated with it.
- Breadcrumbs: It helps Google understand your website’s hierarchy. Add the required properties on your website to make it easier for Google to determine each page’s relationship to other parts of your site.
Watch this video to know where exactly you should add the information on your website.
5- Build a Robust Social Media Presence
The knowledge panel consists of your business’s social profiles. Building a robust social media presence increases your chances of acquiring the knowledge panel and helps reach your ideal customers.
Besides, Google has deprecated the need for social profile markup for the knowledge panel. Google says it will automatically identify the profiles to include. This makes it even more important to improve your social presence.
Here are some tips for building a robust social media presence:
- Analyze the right social platforms for your business. Determine which networks most of your target audience uses. Then create a business account on those platforms.
- Research your customers on social media. Identify what kind of posts resonates the best with them. Check what types of content your competitors are publishing. This will act as a roadmap for your social media content creation.
- Publish relevant posts consistently to attract and engage your target audience. See what type of content had the highest engagement and try to imitate these results.
- Build meaningful relationships with your followers by answering their questions and responding to their comments.
- Repurpose your blog posts and share them on social media.
6- Enhance Your Website’s Domain Authority
Google promotes websites that are trustworthy and provide users with accurate information. Thus, to increase your probability of getting the knowledge panel, invest in enhancing your domain authority.
Here are some ways to boost your DA.
- Acquire high-quality backlinks. You can do so by creating linkable content, email outreach, and guest posting.
- Remove bad, spammy, and broken links.
- Optimize your on-page SEO. Make sure all your pages have a unique title, meta description, and image alt tags. Add proper header tags (one H1 only) on each page.
- Create unique, high-quality content that addresses your customers’ pain points. Avoid keyword stuffing.
- Improve your internal linking structure. It helps users find relevant content, makes them stick to your site for longer, and enhances user experience.
- Work on your technical SEO. Boost your site speed and make it mobile-friendly.
Final Thoughts
Google knowledge panel is a valuable resource for businesses. It helps increase online visibility and attract leads. Another benefit of the knowledge panel is that it indicates that your company is legitimate. Follow the six steps mentioned in this article to increase your chances of acquiring the knowledge panel for your business.
