From the Host: Jeremy Rivera on Brand, Entity & Visibility
The conversation around brand and entity in SEO has shifted more dramatically in the past two years than in the previous ten. What was once a vague concept — “brand signals matter” — is now a specific, measurable, and buildable discipline. The guests I’ve brought on for this topic — from Jason Barnard, who literally wrote the book on entity SEO, to Mordy Oberstein, who runs brand at Wix — have completely changed how I think about authority. The key insight: brand isn’t just about recognition. It’s about what search engines — and now AI engines — believe you are qualified to talk about, based on the web of signals around your entity. That belief is buildable. This page is about how.
“Authority is not declared, it’s assigned. What others say about you is the only signal that counts to AI models.”
— Jason Wade — on the entity authority principle Jason Barnard pioneered
Why Brand and Entity Are Now Core SEO Disciplines
Google’s move toward entity-based understanding of the web — and AI engines’ dependence on training data about named entities — has made brand and entity optimization a core technical SEO discipline, not a brand marketing luxury. When Google’s Knowledge Graph associates your name with specific topics, and when AI models have been trained on enough third-party sources mentioning your expertise, you gain a fundamental visibility advantage that keyword optimization alone can’t replicate.
The guests on this page have built the conceptual frameworks, the measurement tools, and the practical playbooks for entity-based authority building. From Knowledge Panel management to LinkedIn SEO to brand SERP strategy, these episodes cover the full spectrum of what brand-signal-aware SEO looks like in practice.
Episodes on Brand, Entity & Visibility
Entity Optimization and AI with Jason Barnard
Jason Barnard — The Brand SERP Guy, Founder of Kalicube
Jason’s algorithmic trinity of modern search — understanding, trust, and corroboration — is the most complete conceptual framework for entity optimization I’ve encountered. This 2025 episode goes deep on how AI engines work differently from Google’s traditional algorithm, and what that means for entity-first SEO strategy. His practical strategies for AI search visibility are built from Kalicube’s proprietary research across thousands of entities.
Brand SERP Bombshells: Jason Barnard’s Exclusive Tips and Tricks
Jason Barnard — The Brand SERP Guy
In this earlier conversation with Jason, we focus on Knowledge Panel management, brand search optimization, and why controlling what Google says about you is the most important SEO task most businesses ignore. His specific tactics for building and verifying a Knowledge Panel — and the specific mistakes that prevent panels from appearing — are directly actionable for any brand or personal brand.
Behind the Scenes with Dixon Jones: The Unseen World of Entity SEO
Dixon Jones — CEO, InLinks | Author of Entity SEO
Dixon Jones built InLinks as a tool specifically designed to help practitioners implement entity optimization at scale — which means he understands entity SEO not just conceptually but mechanically, at the level of what actually needs to change in the code and content to send the right signals. His book and his tool together represent the most complete practitioner guide to entity optimization available.
Mordy Oberstein on Brand: The Intersection of Brand & SEO
Mordy Oberstein — Head of SEO Brand, Wix
Mordy’s case that brand is now the most durable ranking factor — and his specific frameworks for building brand signals that actually move organic performance — comes from his unique position running brand at Wix, one of the most-studied SEO platforms in the industry. His argument that brand and SEO have fully merged is one of the most important strategic shifts in how I think about the discipline.
“Brand is what third parties say about you consistently, over time, across channels. The algorithm has always rewarded it. It just couldn’t measure it well until recently.”
Mordy Oberstein: Podcast Royalty Revealed
Mordy Oberstein — Industry Voice & Head of SEO Brand, Wix
In this earlier, more personal conversation, Mordy shares how he fell into SEO in 2014, what the industry looks like from his vantage point at Wix, and the unfiltered hot takes that made him one of the most followed practitioners in the field. Essential listening for anyone who wants to understand how Mordy thinks before diving into his more technical takes.
The Scientificness of SEO with Crystal Carter
Crystal Carter — Head of SEO Communications, Wix
Crystal’s work bringing rigor and evidence to how SEO is taught and practiced is exactly what the industry needs. Her focus on what the research actually shows — as opposed to what the conference circuit repeats — makes her one of the most reliable voices in the field on questions of brand authority, E-E-A-T, and what Google’s quality systems are actually measuring.
Charlie Birch on Where Brand Strategy Meets SEO: What Every Founder Needs to Know
Charlie Birch — Brand Strategist
Charlie’s Brand IdQ Framework and his observation that copying competitors makes you more like them rather than better than them is one of the most contrarian — and most correct — takes on brand differentiation I’ve encountered. His argument that most founders make themselves the hero of their own marketing story (when they should make the customer the hero) connects brand strategy to SEO in a way that’s rarely articulated this clearly.
Brand Building and SEO Strategy: Key Insights from Charlie Sells
Charlie Sells | 15 years of brand messaging, four years at Ramsey Solutions
Charlie’s experience building brand messaging at Ramsey Solutions — one of the most recognizable personal finance media brands in the US — gives him a perspective on connecting brand clarity to organic growth that most SEOs don’t have access to. His frameworks for positioning, message clarity, and connecting brand to organic search performance are directly applicable to businesses at every stage.
International SEO & Building Brand Authority with Erika Varangouli
Erika Varangouli — Head of SEO Brand, Semrush
Erika’s position at Semrush — where she works at the intersection of international SEO strategy and brand-led organic growth — gives her one of the widest lenses on brand authority building in the library. Her insights on how international SEO strategy intersects with brand, and what most global teams get backwards when trying to build authority across markets, are essential for any brand with an international dimension.
Write for Humans, Rank for Algorithms: Daniel Alfon’s LinkedIn SEO Strategy
Daniel Alfon — LinkedIn Expert | On the platform since 2004
Daniel reframes LinkedIn not as a social network but as a search engine — one that Google organically ranks above most people’s own websites, and one that updates entity signals in approximately 20 seconds. His frameworks for profile optimization, the B2B angle in every B2C business, and why LinkedIn metrics are the wrong metric to track are immediately applicable for any professional building personal brand authority.
“LinkedIn is the only platform where you can be successful without posting content. What interests your reader is whether your specialty is the specialty they’re looking for — not what you posted last week.” — Daniel Alfon
SEO from the Eyes of a Google Quality Rater with Cyrus Shepard
Cyrus Shepard — Founder, Zyppy
Cyrus’s work with Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines gives him one of the most grounded perspectives on what E-E-A-T actually means in practice — not as a ranking factor to game, but as a signal of genuine brand authority that quality raters are trained to identify. His frameworks for building content that passes the human quality test are the most evidence-backed E-E-A-T guidance in the library.
Jeremy’s Key Takeaways: Brand, Entity & Visibility
- Your entity is what search engines believe about you. That belief is formed from third-party sources, not your own website. Wikipedia, podcasts, PR mentions, LinkedIn, and industry citations all feed it.
- Knowledge Panel = entity confirmation. If Google has built a Knowledge Panel for you, it’s confirmed your entity. If not, you have entity optimization work to do before you can compete at the highest level in brand-heavy queries.
- Brand and SEO are not separate disciplines. The Helpful Content Updates, E-E-A-T scoring, and AI visibility all reward brand authority. Every brand investment is now an SEO investment.
- LinkedIn is underused as an entity signal builder. Updating your LinkedIn profile updates Google’s view of you in 20 seconds. It’s the fastest entity signal you can send, and most practitioners ignore it entirely.
- Copying competitors builds their brand, not yours. Brand differentiation — genuine positioning on what makes you different — builds entity authority. Category kingship requires staking out territory no one else owns.
- E-E-A-T is a proxy for trust signals, not a checklist. Experience, expertise, authority, and trust are built through consistent, third-party-validated behavior over time. They can’t be added retroactively to a page that doesn’t deserve them.
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