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Welcome to the Concur AI Search podcast from the team at AI Monitor. It's great to be back. Thanks.

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Yeah, great to be here. I'm really looking forward to this one. Today's topic, well, it feels like it's at the core of everything changing with AI Search.

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It absolutely does. And for everyone listening, this is our 10th discussion in our 11-part series. We're breaking down the top 11 AI optimization techniques, you know, the ones that really help you get visibility on platforms like Google AI Overview, ChatGPT, Perplexity AI.

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Basically how to win in this new AI world. And we've definitely covered some crucial ground already. Just to recap quickly, we've talked about things like the LLMs.txt file, that technical bit, telling AIs how to crawl, getting active on Reddit, using citations smartly.

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Right. Evolving SEO playbooks, the importance of PR, readability. Exactly.

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Quality content, long tail keywords for user prompts, and even getting reviews strategically. All building blocks. Which leads us perfectly into today.

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Today we're tackling number 10, why entity optimization isn't just important, but maybe even more important in the age of AI Search. Our goal, like always, is to dig into the key insights, give you the actionable stuff, and get you up to speed fast on this critical AIO technique. So let's jump in.

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Okay. So first things first. What exactly is an entity, you know, in this SEO world? Google calls it something singular, unique, well-defined, and distinguishable.

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But the interesting part is they don't have to be physical things. We're talking people, sure, but also places, ideas, brands, concepts, companies, events, even things like colors or dates. They're distinct concepts.

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That's a really key point. Because, you know, people hear entity and think, isn't that just a keyword? It's different, right? Totally different. Keywords are, well, they're the search terms people type in, the actual words.

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Like Apple. Exactly. Apple, as a keyword, could be the fruit, could be the tech company.

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But as an entity, the context makes it clear. If you're talking Apple alongside iOS, iPhone, Tim Cook, well, the AI knows you mean Apple Inc., the entity. Right.

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So it's about shifting from just thinking about strings of words to thinking about the actual things, the concepts behind them. Entities are kind of the bigger topics that keywords fall under. They give the context.

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Precisely. And look, this isn't some brand new idea that just popped up. Search engines, especially Google, have been moving this way for, well, over a decade now.

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Remember Hummingbird back in 2013? Yeah, that was NLP, right? Understanding meaning. Exactly. Natural language processing.

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Moving past just matching exact words. Then came RankBrain in 2015, using AI to get similarities, relationships between entities. And BERT in 2019, that got even smarter about context and nuance.

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So fast forward to now, 2025. Search engines aren't just matching words anymore, they're understanding systems. They get context, meaning relationships.

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Just optimizing for keywords, it's, well, it's not enough. Not even close. And think about how we search now.

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It's changed too. We ask complex questions, right? Especially with voice search. Oh, definitely.

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Like asking Alexa, hey, what are some good high-protein vegan dinner ideas that take less than 30 minutes? It's exactly. No simple keyword there. AI assistants need that semantic understanding.

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If your content isn't structured around these entities, these concepts, that it's basically invisible to that whole wave of searching. Entities help the AI make sense of all the information online and, crucially, figure out what the user actually wants. That's how results get so personalized.

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And behind a lot of this is the knowledge graph, isn't it? Absolutely. Google's knowledge graph is huge, billions of entities, all connected, but it's not the only one. You've got Wikidata, IMDb for movies, OpenAlex for academic stuff, Yaego, these huge networks of information.

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So it's like a giant brain connecting iPhone to Apple Inc. to Tim Cook. Precisely.

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It understands those relationships at a massive scale. And what you often see in search results, like those info boxes on the side, that's the knowledge panel. That's the visible proof of entity recognition.

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Which brings us right to answer engine optimization, or AEO, something we talk about a lot at AI Monitor. Yeah. AEO is tailor-made for these AI answer engines.

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Chat GPT, Perplexity, Google's AI overviews. And we've seen it work firsthand. You know, getting featured in Google's AI overview for what is answer engine optimization, that wasn't an accident.

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Right. That came from using AEO tactics, clear, entity-rich answers, good schema markup, basically speaking the AI's language. It really proves the point.

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Yeah. So you can speak both user and AI fluently, and you get noticed. These AI searches want to give direct answers, and entities are the building blocks for those answers.

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Okay. So we get the what and the why, but how does the AI actually do this? How does it spot these entities and content? Good question. It's pretty technical, right? It is, but it breaks down into a few key steps.

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First, there's something called named entity recognition NER. That's about identifying proper nouns, basically, and figuring out what they are. Is Paris a place? Is Amazon a company? Then comes entity linking.

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It takes the identified entity, like Einstein, and connects it to a specific entry in a knowledge base, like Wikidata. This avoids confusion, like knowing if Java means the island or the programming language. Ah, makes sense.

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Disambiguation. Exactly. And finally, there's context analysis.

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The AI looks at the words around the entity to figure out the specific meaning. Is bank a place for money or the side of a river? The context tells it. And machine learning is constantly making this whole process better, learning new entities, understanding trickier relationships.

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So for creators, this means our content needs to be super clear and interconnected. Pretty much. You're basically helping the AI do its job by making the entities and their relationships really obvious in your content.

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Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

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So we understand why it's crucial, how the tech works. Let's get practical. What can businesses, what can content creators actually do? What are the strategies? Right.

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Let's talk actionables. First up, identify your core entities. Simple but foundational.

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What are the key people, products, concepts, places for your specific niche? Map them out. These are like your main pillars. Exactly.

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Your anchor points. And don't just think narrowly. Use Google itself.

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Search for relevant stuff. See what knowledge panels pop up. Check Wikipedia.

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Look at industry forums. Build out that list. Okay.

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Step one. Know your entities. What's next? Topic clusters.

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This is huge. You group your content around those core entities, often using a pillar page and supporting cluster pages. This shows search engines you have real depth, real authority on a topic.

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We've seen some amazing results with this, haven't we? Like Windows Report. Oh yeah. They went all in on an entity-based content model.

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Saw what was it, 61% organic growth in like eight months? Ooh. Over a million monthly visitors. That's the power of showing topical depth.

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SMA marketing saw huge lifts for a client too, using semantic SEO and clusters. Diggity marketing used Powerhub. Same idea.

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Big traffic increase. So clusters prove you're a serious resource. Then what? Then you need to talk directly to the machines using structured data.

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Or schema markup. Right. The backstage pass.

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Huh. Yeah. Kinda.

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You tag your content with specific schema types. Person. Organization.

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Event. Product review. Local business.

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Whatever fits. This gives search engines a really clear, structured understanding of your content. Plus, it can lead to those nice, rich snippets in the search results.

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Lovish Madan's client saw big impression and click increases with schema. Okay, so schema helps the AI categorize. What about the content itself? That's number four.

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Craft content with depth and context. Don't just name drop your entities. Explain them.

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Why are they important? How do they work? Give the background. Demonstrate real understanding. And this ties into EEAT, right? Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness.

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Absolutely. EEAT signals are crucial for AI trust. Is this content reliable? Is the source credible? AI needs to know it's surfacing good info.

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Look at Serious Eats, the food site. They nail EAT showing their history, readership, expert writers, real photos. That helps drive massive traffic and authority.

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Makes sense. Deep, trustworthy content. What else? Strategic, internal linking.

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Connect the dots within your own site. Link-related articles, related entities together. It helps search engines map out the relationships you see as important.

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Plus, it gets rid of orphan pages that have no links pointing to them. Building your own mini-knowledge graph internally. Kind of, yeah.

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Artings.com does this well. Linking related reviews, adding recommended articles. It strengthens the whole structure.

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Okay, internal links. We're almost there. Next, maintain brand consistency across directories.

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This sounds like old-school local SEO, maybe. But it's vital for entity verification for AI. Consistent name, address, phone number, NAP on Google Business Profile, Facebook, industry directories.

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It tells AI, yes, this is a real, stable, verifiable entity. It solidifies your digital identity for the AI. Exactly.

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WasteCycle saw an 87% jump in local traffic, partly because they nailed their Google My Business visibility, which relies on that consistency. Regularly update entity information. Things change.

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Brands launch new products. Concepts evolve. Keep your content current.

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If you're talking about an entity, make sure the information is accurate now. Stale info hurts your perceived authority. Right.

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Accuracy equals reliability in the AI's eyes. That's a solid set of strategies. How do we know if it's working? How do we measure this stuff? Good question, because it's not just about keyword rankings anymore.

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You need to look for different signals. Are you showing up in knowledge panels for your brand or your experts? Okay, that's a big one. Are you ranking better for related searches, not just exact keywords? Is your organic traffic growing from those longer, more specific entity-related queries? Are you getting higher click-through rates, maybe because of rich snippets you earned through Schema? Are users sticking around longer on your page, bouncing less? That shows relevance.

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And are you capturing featured snippets for those entity-focused questions? So a broader set of KPIs. And there are tools to help, right? Like Google's NLP API. Yeah, that can give you some insight into how Google itself is parsing the entities in your content.

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It's a bit technical, but useful. But the key thing to remember is entity optimization. It often takes time.

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It's not instant. No. Search engines need to build confidence in your site's semantic relevance.

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So track these things, but be patient. It's a gradual build. Okay.

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So stepping back, thinking about the future. Entity SEO isn't just a tactic. It's really fundamental now.

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It's the foundation. And it's only going to get more important as AI experiences become the norm. And think about this.

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As AI gets better at summarizing info, users need new skills to evaluate those summaries. AI needs to help us use our intuition, our common sense. Which means... Content needs to be clear about why it's saying what it's saying.

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Transparent about its entity connections. Exactly. Transparency and how you connect the dots becomes really important.

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Which leads to a pretty interesting thought. Yeah. This whole shift, it moves us away from just being like keyword hunters.

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It empowers us to become entity masters, focusing on the actual concepts, the relationships. That's how you future-proof your content. That's how you position your brand as a source that AI actively wants to trust and promote.

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Well said. It's about showing you understand the world your content lives in and making that understanding clear to both humans and AI. Absolutely.

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Build that trust through clarity and depth. And that wraps up today's episode of Conquer A Search. Thanks so much for tuning in.

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If you enjoyed the conversation, make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you're listening, whether that's Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Amazon Music, or right here on YouTube. And hey, if you got value out of this episode, consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps us reach more listeners like you.

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See you next Saturday with our 11th and last AI optimization or generative engine optimization technique.