Entities are "things, not strings" — a famous Google phrase that summarizes Entity SEO. Instead of optimizing for the keyword "digital marketing agency", you optimize the entity Quality SMI with all its attributes: services, headquarters, certifications, authors, cases.
Signals of a strong entity
- Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) across all channels.
- Complete Organization/ProfessionalService schema.
- Social profiles connected via
sameAs. - Wikipedia/Wikidata when possible (gold standard).
- Co-citation with other authoritative entities in the same thematic domain.
- Content demonstrating expertise (E-E-A-T) on the topics.
Entity SEO + GEO
LLMs internalize entities during training. A brand with clear entity, consistent structured data, and citations in authoritative sources has an extremely high probability of being cited in AI-generated answers — even without users navigating to the site.