Knowledge Panels for Affiliate Sites | Why You Need a KGMID (James Dooley Interviews Mike Lovatt)

James Dooley: knowledge panels for affiliate sites. Today I'm joined with Mike Lovatt and I want to talk to you about obviously you do a lot with schema with structured data with JSON LD and stuff like that and obviously now you're doing a lot more with KGM ids. If anyone that doesn't know what that means it stands for knowledge graph machine ID and optimizing for the knowledge graph. So, it's a pleasure having you, Mike. And let's jump straight in. I'm going to start with a simple question. Can an affiliate site have a knowledge panel? Mike Lovatt: Yes, they can. James Dooley: Okay, so the next question is, how does someone who's watching this that's got an affiliate site get a knowledge panel? How do they get one being created? Mike Lovatt: So you could say the usual route is kind of brute forcing it. So trying to just over time get enough press eventually maybe hoping to get some sort of Wikipedia page or enough people talking about you that in the end Google just creates one due to search demand and enough volume of discussion online. The next route would be going down a slight e-commerce route like maybe adding a small e-commerce shop to your affiliate site and getting the knowledge panel that way via like the Google Merchant Center route which you'll see a few big sites have got. They'll just sell t-shirts or some branded gear and then they'll go down that route. Another way of doing it is getting a Google My Business, making yourself classed as an internet marketing service or something like that. There are a few ways of doing it. Another way could be publishing things like books or journals. James Dooley: It was quite a loaded question. It's almost like asking how to rank a website and there's a million and one different ways of doing it, isn't there? So first and foremost, do you think it's important for an affiliate site to have a knowledge panel? Mike Lovatt: I didn't originally think it was that much. For years I've been doing content and link building, trying to get branded search and doing some off-site stuff with socials. A lot of affiliate sites have just gone and made social profiles and thought what's the point. If someone wants to search for reviews of air fryers, they're not going to dive into who has the best Facebook page. Affiliate marketers have always been slightly lazy with socials. Recently we've been discussing how it's important that you can spend a few dollars a day building up your social profiles with Facebook ads or Twitter ads just to get a bit more activity. Social profiles themselves are ranking more. In recent years, especially with the helpful content update, Google wants to rank real businesses. If you're a real business, you would probably have a knowledge panel. So it makes sense to work hard at getting one. James Dooley: Anyone watching this, check out the link in the description. Myself and Mike did an in-depth podcast episode on dollar a day social media promotions and being omni-channel. Back to knowledge panels. Let’s say you've got a gambling affiliate site. How important is it for the founder or the author attached to get a KGM ID and a knowledge panel? Mike Lovatt: Two reasons. First, entities in Google's knowledge graph must connect to other entities. If your affiliate brand entity is unknown but you have a presence, connecting yourself as founder helps. Secondly, there was a Google patent called entities as experts. Google tries to decipher who is actually an expert and who is just a pen name. Affiliate marketers used to add doctor names to health sites which doesn’t necessarily work. Being seen as an expert helps you rank better, but it needs third-party corroboration. If you hire a doctor to review content, that doctor needs to mention your site elsewhere or be referenced in press releases. It needs third-party mentions. Google wants to rank real experts, especially after the helpful content update. E-commerce sites often rank more because Google knows more about them. They have legal names, business addresses and Trustpilot reviews. Bloggers often have no entries in the knowledge graph. So building yourself as a subject matter expert helps. James Dooley: I want to re-emphasize third-party corroboration. It has to work both ways. Not just adding a name. There needs to be first-party, second-party and third-party confirmation across the web. What about Trustpilot for affiliate sites? Mike Lovatt: Trustpilot is trusted but expensive. They skew ratings if you’re not paying. Smaller affiliate sites might not see it as worthwhile. There are cheaper options like reviews.io. It can help, but it’s harder for affiliate sites to justify the cost compared to e-commerce businesses. James Dooley: What about Crunchbase? Mike Lovatt: After the helpful content update, Google wants real businesses. If you've gone the extra mile and created profiles like Crunchbase alongside social activity, why not. Real businesses have Crunchbase profiles. James Dooley: What about adding a phone number, address and email? Mike Lovatt: Google said years ago they want to see real business signals like terms and conditions and shipping details. The same applies to affiliate sites. You don’t need your home address. You can buy a business address cheaply. You can get a phone number for a few dollars a month. Add it to your schema and third-party sources. It all helps. James Dooley: Let’s talk about schema. Some people say schema isn’t needed. Can you explain how schema improves clarity and confidence? Mike Lovatt: Schema reduces disambiguation. If your page isn’t written in a formal semantic structure, Google can make mistakes. Schema increases clarity and confidence about who you are and what you do. For knowledge panels, schema is the glue. Google sees information scattered across the web. It sees a Facebook page, Crunchbase, Wikidata. Schema connects them and confirms this is who we are and these are our profiles. There’s also more you can do like awards, people involved and services provided. It’s not just name and sameAs links. James Dooley: If you're in the affiliate game, the quality threshold has increased. Just publishing content and building links is not enough. You need to build a real brand and aim for a knowledge panel. Attach a real name, address, phone number and email. Work towards getting that KGM ID for long-term trust. Mike, it’s been an absolute pleasure.