By explicitly stating areas of expertise, you help search engines and users recognize the authority and trustworthiness of your content.
And the “knowsAbout” schema improves the depth and accuracy of entity information by linking experts to specific topics. This comprehensive approach helps search engines create a more detailed and accurate knowledge graph.
This article will explore how to use the “knowsAbout” schema, the key properties to include, and how it can enhance your website’s Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) while providing better entity information.
What is the “knowsAbout” Schema?
The “knowsAbout” schema is a property of structured data that indicates a person’s or organisation’s areas of knowledge. By implementing this schema, you can explicitly signal to search engines the topics or fields that an entity is knowledgeable about, which can help in establishing authority and expertise in those areas.
For instance, I can use the “knowsAbout” schema to highlight my expertise, make connection between me and the topic that I want to be associated with.
knowsAbout schema example
For example, if you’re marking up The Doctor and his/her knowledge on Gallifrey and TARDIS, your schema will look like:
{
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Doctor Who",
"knowsAbout": [
{
"@type": "Thing",
"name": "Gallifrey",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/0397j",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallifrey"
]
},
{
"@type": "Thing",
"name": "TARDIS",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/07g92",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS"
]
}
]
}What to include in knowsAbout schema?
knowsAbout is used within a Person or Organization schema to provide additional context and information about the subject.
As our goal with knowsAbout schema is to provide information about your entity, I would recommend using Thing to connect different entities, instead of just a string of text.
Things, not strings
Knowledge Graph Update, Google
When adding the “knowsAbout” schema, I usually include:
- @type: Thing
- name: The topic or area of expertise
- sameAs: Use Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Google’s Knowledge Graph to specify the entity you are referring to.
How to Implementing the “knowsAbout” Schema
Step 1: Define the subject of knowsAbout schema
The first step is to decide what or who the subject of your structured data is, because this will be the backbone of your schema.
It helps you decide which type of schema and which pages or sections of your website would benefit from the “knowsAbout” schema. Usually, it is used in:
- Author under article schema
- Author ProfilePage
- About page
Step 2 Find the relevant entities for knowsAbout section
You can identify the relevant entities using resources like Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Google’s Knowledge Graph. Use these to provide clear references and enhance the semantic richness of your markup.
When I assemble the knowsAbout schema, I use the sameAs property to link to these authoritative sources, ensuring unambiguous identification of the topics. It’s a common practice to use Wikipedia, Wikidata and also Google Knowledge Graph ID.
If you are unsure about the entity’s knowledge graph ID, you can use Kalicube’s Google Knowledge Graph API Explorer.
Step 3: Create the JSON-LD Script
Next, you can piece all the necessary information about the subject together and create the schema markup. For a person, this might include their name, job title, social media profiles, areas of expertise (which you will use under knowsAbout), etc.
An example of a ProfilePage for The Doctor:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "ProfilePage",
"mainEntity": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Doctor Who",
"alternateName": "The Doctor",
"jobTitle": "Time Lord",
"affiliation": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Gallifrey"
},
"knowsAbout": [
{
"@type": "Thing",
"name": "Gallifrey",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/0397j",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallifrey"
]
},
{
"@type": "Thing",
"name": "TARDIS",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/07g92",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS"
]
}
]
}
}
Step 4: Place the JSON-LD in your HTML and Validate
Place the JSON-LD script in the <head> section of your HTML document to ensure that search engines can easily find and parse it.
After implementing the structured data, don’t forget to validate your schema markup to ensure there are no errors. You can use tools like:
Conclusion
Using the “knowsAbout” schema is a powerful way to establish your website’s E-E-A-T. It provides supplementary information about the author or organisation, by clearly defining the areas of expertise and making a connection with the specific topic.
