Leadership In Law Podcast

49 How Google Knowledge Panels Help Your Overall SEO with Jason Barnard

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 49

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Unlock the secrets to maximizing your brand's digital footprint with insights from Jason Barnard, the mastermind behind Kalicube. Discover how Google's knowledge panels operate and why you don't need to be a celebrity to command authority in your niche. This episode guarantees a comprehensive understanding of how to shape Google's perception of your brand through consistent and accurate narratives across the digital landscape.

Jason shares his transformative journey from a cartoon voice actor to a recognized entrepreneur, illustrating the power of mastering digital brand intelligence. We delve into innovative strategies that move beyond traditional SEO, focusing on becoming a trusted source within your field. Explore the importance of coherent messaging and how you can guide search algorithms to see you as a credible authority, no matter the size of your entity.

Gain valuable insights into the evolving landscape of digital identity, including the debated value of Wikipedia pages versus the robust capabilities of Google's knowledge graph. Discover why a Google Business Profile is crucial for local visibility and how knowledge panels can boost credibility on a larger scale. We also tackle the limitations of various platforms like ChatGPT and Siri and discuss the necessity of a diversified online strategy. Join us for an episode packed with strategies to enhance your brand's online presence and influence.

Reach Jason here:

https://jasonbarnard.com/

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, jason Barnhart, to the show today. Jason is an entrepreneur, author, keynote speaker and CEO of CaliCube, a groundbreaking digital marketing agency based in France. Jason specializes in online brand management and his superhero skill is his ability to influence and reshape Google and AI's focus on an individual or a company. This isn't just optimization, it's a strategic manipulation of digital perceptions. He's been working on Google since the year it was incorporated and he has been successfully manipulating it from day one. Even Google itself has said they don't know anyone else outside the company with as much insight into how their knowledge panels work. I'm so excited to have you here, jason, welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, Marilyn. Lovely introduction. And I'm excited to talk about knowledge panels and how to educate AI and search algorithms, which is my speciality and what we do at Catecube.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic. Yeah, I think most people don't really know what a knowledge panel is, but you use it every time you search for someone.

Speaker 3:

Yes, Right. Well, yeah, it's the thing on the right. When you search on Google for somebody's name, when that person is famous and something that most people don't know is, you don't need to be famous to have one. It's Google's representation of the fact it's understood about somebody fact it's understood about somebody. So if I search for my name, Jason Barnard, J-A-S-O-N-B-A-R-N-A-R-D on Google, on the right hand side, you'll see that information box, which is called a knowledge panel, where Google states the facts about me. And the point here is I'm not famous and yet I have a beautiful knowledge panel and it's my VIP pass. It's my mark of credibility and authority according to Google. And I think if we just take one step back and say well, why do people use Google? They use Google because they trust Google and Google judges me to be an authority and credible within my niche of managing knowledge panels and brands in their algorithms, and so they represent me as an expert.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic. Now, I love that, and I love that you explained what the knowledge panel is, because we see it. We just maybe didn't have a label for it. So when you say that your brand is what Google says it is, how can we change that Exactly? I see that over your shoulder. I love it and I love that you have the guides that can help us with this. So how can we change what Google says about us or thinks about us?

Speaker 3:

Yeah well, it's a question a lot of people don't ask me because people assume that Google just figures it out for itself, which it does a lot of the time when it's got the information, when it's clear who you are, what you do and which audience you serve. And the idea that we might be able to change that, we might be able to educate Google so it better understands who we are, which audience we serve and what we can offer them, is alien to a lot of people. They don't realize they can do it, and at Catecube it's what we do for our clients and it's also what we do with the free guides that you mentioned that you can download on the caddycubecom website is help Google and the AI algorithms like ChatGPT, bing, perplexity, alexa, siri, help them to understand who you are, because when they understand who you are, what you do and what you offer and to whom they can represent you, to that audience much, much, much more accurately, positively and convincingly.

Speaker 2:

Excellent, because I know that most of us feel and have always had it in their head. When it comes to teaching them, teaching the search engine, it's going to be through like blog articles and just more content and more and more and more, as opposed to let's begin where they're looking and give them exactly what they want in the knowledge panel.

Speaker 3:

That's delightfully put and it's exactly what you need to do is take a step back. I'm not saying don't create content, but sort out what you already have. Figure out where they're looking, correct that so that it's all consistent. Bring the engine's attention to your own website, because you want the machine to look at your website, you want Google looking at your website, you want chat GPT looking at your website to understand the basic facts about you, your version of the facts, your brand narrative, your personal brand narrative or corporate brand narrative and then go around the web and they will find that same brand narrative, those same information around every single reference to you.

Speaker 3:

If you clean it all up, if you make it all consistent, and you'll realize very quickly when you look around the web at your Twitter account, your Facebook account, your own website, your corporate website, articles you've written in the past, podcast episodes you've been on. Your message has changed over the years and that creates confusion in the minds of these algorithms. And if you simply go around and make sure that everything is the same the same information, the same brand narrative, the same priorities in terms of what you're trying to communicate the machines will understand much more easily and much more confidently, and that's key confidence. The machines might have understood you, they might have understood me, but they've understood me and they are very, very confident in that understanding, which is why Google represents me so well, so accurately, so positively and so convincingly. And if you ask ChatGPT, who is Jason Barnard, it will do exactly the same thing, because my digital footprint is so clear, consistent and accurate.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So then let's think about it. If our message because we as people and as businesses, we also evolve over time, so our message has evolved over time how do we clean that up? How do we? And if we do this just for Google, for that knowledge panel on Google, how does everyone else get it? You've got Yahoo and Bing and ChatGPT and Claude and all of these people. How do we make sure they get the right information as well?

Speaker 3:

Which is a great question. Number one is they are all using the same source of information, which is the web, so you can rely on them all using your website, your company website, your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter profile, articles about you, your podcast appearance, articles you've written. They will all collate all that information and build that picture of you. And the web is the source of information for all of these machines and you mentioned Claude, you mentioned Perplexity, chatgpt, microsoft, bing, google, alexa, siri.

Speaker 3:

They are all using the web and they are all looking to understand who you are, what you do and who you serve and are you credible, whether you like it or not. So if you just sit back and say, well, I'll let them get on with it, you're taking potluck. And if you go out and you intentionally correct all the information, you make it all very consistent. You make sure that they are all focusing in on your website as the source of absolute truth about you and simply using all of those other sources as corroboration of what you're already saying. You've won the game and it really isn't complicated.

Speaker 2:

OK. So that's very interesting, because one of the questions that's come up is and we're seeing some headlines about this is seo dead? Um, apparently the new gens, xz, whatever, whatever the new younger people are starting to use ai for their search engine, and so people like do we really need to pay attention to seo anymore? And my answer to that is absolutely. The information comes from somewhere.

Speaker 2:

You know the chat, gpts and the other AI platforms are getting the information, so what you're saying is they're all looking across the web, so SEO is still super important. Is that your opinion as well?

Speaker 3:

Yes, seo has changed in terms of what is actually very useful to do, because the machines have changed. What we have is search is still a huge part of it, but it's only one third. You have another third, which is knowledge, and knowledge is represented by the knowledge panel in Google, which is why the knowledge panel is such a great KPI, if you have one. They've understood Nice. And the third is the large language models, the chatbots like ChatGPT, and you bring those three technologies together the web, large language model chatbots like ChatGPT and knowledge graphs like the knowledge panels that we were talking about earlier on.

Speaker 3:

Every single technology in the future that is serving Gen Z, gen X, older people, younger people, anybody in terms of search and research online, are going to be using those three technologies in differing measures. So, for example, google Search is using just the search aspect, but it's starting to integrate the knowledge in the knowledge panel and starting to integrate the large language model chat aspect in AI overviews. Chatgpt is an LLM chatbot that's now integrating search and will soon integrate knowledge. So you can see they're all simply coming together into this a very, very, very similar way of working, with different weightings for each of those three technologies and Google LearnAbout, which is an experiment in the US, is absolutely knocking it out of the park. If you want to know what's going to happen next, get yourself a VPN, pretend you're in the US and have a look at Google LearnAbout, and they are bringing those three together in a way that makes total sense for research. So SEO is now all about optimizing for research through these three technologies, rather than just search.

Speaker 2:

Okay, very, very interesting, and you've been working on these knowledge panels and this type of information since the beginning of Google. Can you tell us a little bit about your beginnings?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I started working on this when my rock band I was in a rock band and we were a little bit famous in France for 10 years and made a living at it and then the band split and my wife and I decided to create cartoons for children and I launched a website to promote it. And the website was a phenomenal success because I picked Google to focus on. At the time, you had 15 different search engines. I picked Google and I just focused on Google. Google won the game and it pulled us along with it because we dominated Google for every single search term around children's activities, children's songs, children's games, children's entertainment online. We were beating Disney PBS. We had more people, more kids, coming to our website than Disney had to theirs.

Speaker 2:

Which is impressive, huge.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that's when I realized that understanding the algorithms of Google in particular was key. And when I then sold that company and moved on to a new career, the new career was how can I help people and especially in our case? We serve entrepreneurs, founders, ceos, national lawyers, international lawyers, people who want a big presence, where their credibility as represented by these machines is vital. How can we help them do what I did, which is change the perception of the machines? Because when I left the company this is a nice story I left my company and Google, when you search my name, said Jason Barnard is a cartoon blue dog, because I did the voice for one of the cartoon characters that our company produced the TV series for, and so Google is focusing on that aspect of my career and not the fact that I'm a successful entrepreneur with three successful businesses.

Speaker 3:

So I spent a couple of years figuring out how do I change Google's perception of me so that it represents me the way I want. And now, if you search my name, it says entrepreneur talks about my success as somebody who is a world authority on digital brand intelligence. And the blue dog is still there, but it's a tiny part of the result for me. So it's prioritizing what I offer now to our clients and we offer now to free for everybody else. If you go to calicubecom slash guide, download it. It will teach you everything you need to know to manipulate, control how these machines perceive you. And what I find interesting is I'm the only person that I've found in the world who can actually do this properly. A lot of people will try.

Speaker 3:

Seos will come in and say we use the SEO strategies, that all works, but it doesn't, because it isn't just search anymore, it's search knowledge, large language models. You need to master all three.

Speaker 2:

Now, if you're consistently blogging and maybe posting those articles on Medium or any other places like that, maybe you're using your podcast and LinkedIn newsletters. Are all of those helpful? Yes, because those are, you know, and those, of course, would link back to your website, and so you're getting those good backlinks as well. And then, of course, when you put your blog posts on your Google Business profile, does that help build your knowledge panel?

Speaker 3:

It does, as long as you join all the dots for the machine. You talked about links and traditionally in SEO, links are incredibly important link juice all of this stuff but they're actually much more important to join the dots for the machine. Okay, so the power of the link from Medium doesn't actually matter very much anymore. What does matter is the link goes to the right place with the right anchor text that shows the machine what's on the other side. So you link back to your personal website. Then from your personal website you link out to other content and the machine just goes round and round like this sees all the information that you're identifying for it. It all consistently corroborates what you're saying the machine will understand.

Speaker 3:

So links are much more now about joining the dots. So you should never be scared of linking out to content that corroborates what it is you're saying, whereas a traditional SEO would say don't put a link, keep the link juice for yourself yourself. Link juice isn't very important anymore. What is important is joining the dots so the machine can follow the breadcrumb trail and figure out everything it needs to know about you. And when you're doing all the podcasts and the blogging, make sure you consistently join the dots and that each time you blog or you're on a podcast, that that message that you're giving through the medium be it a podcast, an article, a video, whatever it might be that the message you're giving is consistent with the message you're giving from that website that you have, that you own, which we call it the entity home okay, that's where you're talking about.

Speaker 2:

You took it took you two years to stop being a voiceover actor and becoming an entrepreneur in the eyes of the machine yeah, I made a few mistakes along the way because I was trying to figure it out.

Speaker 3:

What we can now do at caddy cube is we can switch that kind of understanding in google's brain in between three and six months, so we shorten the period because we actually know what we're doing. We have three billion data points. So when, when I did that, I started collecting the data, and we have data on millions of people, thousands of industries, that allow us to pinpoint exactly what needs to be done. And, once again, coming back to SEO, we talk about high domain authority websites, which is something traditionally we all look at.

Speaker 3:

We say, well, wikipedia is a high authority website, semrush is a high authority website, but today what's important is their credibility as a trusted source for knowledge, and you can be a trusted source for knowledge without being a Wikipedia or a Guardian or the New York Times, without being a Wikipedia or a Guardian or the New York Times. My website, jasonbarnardcom, which is tiny and not important at all, gets crawled very quickly and I get control over my own identity as transmitted by Google, but also my rock group that I was in and the cartoons that I created that I no longer own Because Google trusts me and my website for information about those particular topics much more than it trusts the company that owns those characters, the original group members from before or Wikipedia or any other source. So you can actually gain trusted authority on specific topics and specific entities people, corporations, cartoon characters, music groups if you can prove to Google and to the AI that you can be trusted as a reasonable and honest source of information about them.

Speaker 2:

That is so interesting, so I'm going to definitely have to look into that. What is your opinion of like doing a wikipedia page because I've heard varying decision, your thoughts on the process and seems like for a regular company or a regular person looking for local marketing, it's really more work than it's worth. You get more more work than the juicer. How do you say that squeeze? The squeeze is more than the juice yeah, definitely don't.

Speaker 3:

um, if you're not notable enough to have somebody else create a Wikipedia page for you, don't even try. You're going to waste a lot of money, a lot of time, it will be a lot of stress and it's unlikely to stick. It's unlikely to work and the problem is if you get one created and then somebody deletes it, it's even worse than not having one in the first place. The good news for us all is about three years ago, google increased the size of the knowledge graph about fourfold for people, so it's now got 54 billion people, companies, events, films, music, groups, things in its brain. It understands 54 billion things.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

And Wikipedia is 6 million. So you can see Google isn't using Wikipedia very much anymore. So if you're not notable, you simply don't need it. And if you do have one, the problem will be that Wikipedia will dominate and you don't become the source of information, true information about you. Wikipedia does, so you're giving away and anyone can edit that, yes, yeah, and you don't become the source of information, true information about you. Wikipedia does, so you're giving away and anyone can edit that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, and you don't have any control over that.

Speaker 3:

No, and we have clients who have Wikipedia pages and it's a constant struggle, it's a constant fear for them that they'll lose it, and it's as you said. Other people can change it and there's nothing they can do. We can help protect, but we can't control what Wikipedia editors do. So my advice to anybody who doesn't where the page isn't created by a Wikipedia editor off their own bat.

Speaker 2:

Don't do it. You don't need it. That makes sense. You need something you can control, like your own website. You can control that content.

Speaker 3:

And today there is no need for it. There used to be. 10 years ago you needed a Wikipedia page. Google is so much bigger now. Think again 6 million versus 54 billion. 54 billion is 10,000 times bigger than 6 million. Yeah, excellent.

Speaker 2:

And I think it would be interesting for a local business it's not a global business, but a local business to do the same thing. If you want to stand out in your neighborhood or in your community, whether it's a small city or a large city, is a knowledge panel valuable for that?

Speaker 3:

It depends what you're trying to do. If you're a local business aiming at local foot traffic and people within the immediate vicinity, a Google business profile is enough. You don't need anything else because you're aiming to look like a statewide or a countrywide or worldwide corporation or person. I want to be a world authority in digital brand intelligence. I need a knowledge panel. Cattycube wants to be a world authority in digital brand intelligence. I need a knowledge panel. Caddy Cube wants to be a world authority in digital brand intelligence. Caddy Cube needs a knowledge panel because if somebody finds a Google business profile, we look like a tiny company in the south of France and that isn't going to do our credibility any good at all when we're trying to sign huge corporations in America like Verizon.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So if I'm an attorney that covers statewide, then it would be a thing for me. That would be something. If I'm interested in practicing for the full state, it would be more important than if I'm only looking to stay into a 100,000 population city. Then it's not quite as important that way, because the global business profile does that work for you, because the Google Business Profile does that work for you?

Speaker 3:

Yes, exactly, and you taught me that for lawyers in particular, if you're just dealing with your local town and you expect people to come into your office, google Business Profile is plenty enough, and it's extremely powerful.

Speaker 2:

I mean, both of these are extremely powerful. I just think it's. I'm seeing that what you're saying is the local business.

Speaker 3:

You should say with the Google Business Profile, really pound it, get it going, make it work, or if you are statewide, nationwide or global, you definitely should have a knowledge panel for you in your business, Exactly Because you want to reach that traffic of the people who are outside of your immediate zone, who won't walk into your office. You're much more likely to be dealing with them online. And also, if you're aiming statewide, you need to be credible. You need to look much more credible than the other people within your sphere and to do that, a knowledge panel is going to make you look significantly more credible than a Google business profile, which makes you look like a local bricks and mortar business.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. This has been incredibly. I have learned a lot here. I really appreciate your input and I want to point again calicubecom slash guides. I'll make sure that that link is in our show notes. Can I make one more point about the Google business? I was going to ask you, fred, if you had any last points. Go for it.

Speaker 3:

Sorry, I interrupted. It's also because Google is just Google. Yeah, so the Google Business Profile is super powerful on Google because you're feeding directly into Google and you get control. But it doesn't help with ChatGPT, it doesn't help with Alexa, it doesn't help with Siri, it doesn't help with Microsoft Bing. They need to actually crawl these things, they need to crawl the Google Business Profile, and they can't do it. It's too big.

Speaker 3:

So you need to bear in mind that when you're using just the Google business profile, you're just optimizing for Google, and if Google loses this battle with the AI, if ChatGPT wins or Microsoft Bing wins, or Alexa comes in now using Claude, they're all fighting, fighting so hard because this is the next opportunity, the opportunity to get Google to fall. Okay, and if you want to master them all you would need to do I would suggest both, both your strategy, google business profile. Master, google control. Simple, easy, easy win.

Speaker 3:

Get people through the door, but also educate the machines using the entity home, your website, your personal website, your corporate website, so that all of these machines can benefit from that same information from the source that is you that you control, because long term, the game is going to be much wider, much bigger, much more difficult to play. So think about the future today and start building your website either the corporate website or your personal website as the central hub of information. That indicates to these machines which information around the web is about you, which ones you want to prioritize. And the CaliCube guide calicubecom slash guides will tell you everything you need to do for that in what we call the CaliCube process, which is all about control, influence and visibility in AI and search.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love that. So we'll make sure that we have that link in the show notes. And where can people reach out to you if they've just got to do it and we need to book some time to talk to you? I love it. Okay, for those of you watching the video, we've got a QR code here. You can hit it and you can Google him and get his information.

Speaker 1:

It's.

Speaker 2:

Jason Barnard and he's got a QR code for ChatGPT, so that's fabulous.

Speaker 3:

So if you want, to find out more about me, ask Google or ask ChatGPT. What they say about me is what I've intentionally educated them to say about me, and you can have the same with the CaliCube process Either do it yourself, through the guides or working with us.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great. So I suggest everybody reach out to Jason. He can certainly help you get that knowledge panel. That's the size that you want to be known for. So this has been fantastic. I really appreciate it. I was going to ask you where can they reach you, but now we have that, and this has been fantastic. I really appreciate. I was going to ask you working there each, but now we have that and this has been really educational. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for your time today, jason thank you very much, marilyn, it was absolutely delightful thanks for joining me today for this episode.

Speaker 4:

As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.

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