Fatrank Podcast

James Dooley: Brand entity SEO in 2026 from knowledge panel to AI recommendations. This is episode number 11 of 11. So it's the finale. So Jason Barnard, you've been called the architect of digital brand intelligence. You've tracked this space longer than anyone. Looking at everything we've discussed across these 11 episodes, how does all this connect together?

Jason Barnard: Yeah, it's it's been quite a marathon sitting here today with you talking through all of this stuff. And it is um really interesting to see that although we've talked about a lot of different aspects of SEO, digital marketing, brand management, it always comes down to the same caliq process. Does the machine understand who you are? Does it think you're credible? Does it want to recommend you to the subset of its users who are your audience? And you achieve that by making your claims, framing them to your advantage, and proving them. And if that doesn't mean anything to you, if you're watching this, go back and watch the whole series, and it will make absolute sense.

James Dooley: So, I want to just quick some quickfire questions. Where does the knowledge panel fit into this journey?

Jason Barnard: It's the start. It's the kickoff point. The knowledge panel on Google is does Google understand who you are? That's the key. And if Google understands who you are and you've done the job properly, and we talked about in that in the knowledge panel episode, if you've done the job properly for Google, all the other AI will understand who you are and you have that bottom of funnel foundation. When somebody searches your name, you look like a superstar.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And down I'm just checking now what episode it was. Episode number eight in the 11 part series was how to create a knowledge panel. um for anyone that's not watched it. So what comes after we've created a knowledge panel, we've got the KGM ID. What comes after the knowledge panel? What's the actual end goal here?

Jason Barnard: Well, after the knowledge panel, before jumping to the end goal, you've built your knowledge panel. It understands who you are and it can explain who you are on your brand ser on Google or your AI resume on chat GPT Google AI mode which is basically your biography as told by AI to somebody who doesn't yet know who you are or who doesn't know who you are and is asking sorry about the next step up is to get the machine to understand that you are the best in market. So it's understood who you are. It understands what you do. It understands what your niche market is. Now you need to prove to it that you're the best. That's credibility. Then the end game is making sure that it recommends you, advocates for you even at the top of the funnel when somebody's talking about your topic. So at the bottom of the funnel, does it understand who I am, what I do, who I serve and represent me as a trusted partner in a way a trusted partner or an employee would in the middle of the funnel when people are having the consideration phase thinking about whether or not they're going to be working with you or the competition. Does it recommend you above the competition? Does is it your sales force that convinces that person to choose you and not the competition? And at the top, is it out there shouting your name when somebody is researching your your niche topic? Is it your advocate?

James Dooley: Yeah. So, obviously you've worked with thousands of brands. These could be entrepreneurs, high net worth individuals, solopreneurs, local tradesmen. It could be the business knowledge panels and stuff like that. What separates Jason Barnard at Cali Cube from Mr. Fiverr person who can go and create one very fast, very quickly, very cheap, but then doesn't show up anywhere. What separates your work compared to others that might be cheaper?

Jason Barnard: Right. Brilliant. Lovely. We work on strategy. We work on a strategy that's going to make you money. And for Fiverr, no offense to anybody on Fiverr, but it's going to be a sticking plaster on your particular problem. They're not looking at the strategy. They're not looking at the overall picture and they're not looking at your business. They're looking at a one-off job, achieve whatever KPI you've given them, and there's no consideration for the bigger picture. What we do at Cali Cube is cement the bottom of the funnel. Stop the leakage when people are searching your name. The leakage is when somebody searches your name, you don't look like the superstar you should, and the person goes and buys from the competition. Then in the middle of the funnel, stopping the leakage there. So you win those battles against the competition and the top of the funnel get the opportunities that you would otherwise not get because the machine is advocating.

James Dooley: No, no, no. It's just more now after this now. So how long does this take? Right. There's some people out there saying it takes 12 months. Some take saying it takes going to be three to five years. Realistically now there's a lot more work involved. But how quickly can you get the knowledge panel, get that trust, get that corroboration, clarity, and confidence that's needed for the knowledge graph and then also have that AI resume that you're happy with. Then not only does Google and the algorithmic trinity of the Google web search, the knowledge graph, but also the LLMs are all spitting out the information exactly as per what you want it. Is it a one year job, a three year job, a five year job? How long is this going to take?

Jason Barnard: Right. Well, with Cali Cube, the data points we have, we can get you as a person. So, we'll talk about personal brand right now, which are faster than corporate brands. for a personal brand. We can get you from whatever wherever you are today to having that perfect AI resume, the perfect brand SER, the knowledge panel, plus the recommendation tier above where you're beating the competition, plus the advocacy in a year. We'll give you the strategy, walk you through it, and get you to that point where you are the thought leader, the dominant person within your niche industry. You need to think niche here. For a corporation, it takes twice as long. It takes twice as long for a corporation because their digital footprint is messier. And our entire strategy is optimize your digital footprint, feed it to the machines. So, it takes longer because the digital footprint is bigger and also because you have teams involved and that slows the process down because you got to go through multiple departments and they all have to agree and the politics within the company is always going to create a problem. So, those are the two basic timelines. One year for a person, two years for a corporation.

James Dooley: So you started knowledge graphs in 2015. You was the first person in the whole community to be talking about this. You brought out the concepts of entity home and you always seem to be two steps ahead of the game in comparison to everybody else that's doing knowledge graphs and knowledge panels. How do you manage to keep yourself two steps ahead of the game?

Jason Barnard: I spend a lot of time looking at my data which sounds really boring but my degree is in economics and statistical analysis so numbers are my thing logic is my thing and luckily for me AI thinks in an incredibly logical manner so what I've now done and this is very recent is taken Caliq Pro which was a platform that maps out your entire digital footprint prioritizes what needs to be done and presents you with a list of things that you need to do to optimize that entire digital footprint that will get you the knowledge panel and demonstrate your credibility. Now, what I've done is built smart AI assistants where I can feel my entire brain going into these what we're calling components within the AI assistant. It's a Lego block system whereby I can now put in the brand voice and brand goals for a corporation or a person. Click a button and it will tell them exactly what I would say exactly what I would recommend and I don't even need to think about it.

James Dooley: So if you are always two steps ahead of the game, what do you think is going to be happening in the next 12 months?

Jason Barnard: The next big big thing is I think people are going to wake up to the fact that we're in a world of assistive engines that the engines that we're using chat GPT Google AI mode are generative and that's why we use the term generative engine optimization but they're much more than that. Their assistance getting us to the solution to our problem and the best solution. It's Google who says that we want to get people to the best solution to their problem as efficiently as possible. And AI is the perfect way to do it and it's doing a significantly better job than search was a few years ago. People are going to get used to that and it's going to become the norm that the AI will get me from wherever I'm now with a problem to the best solution to that specific problem incredibly efficiently. And if you can't as a business educate and train the machines to do that on your behalf and we were saying in one of the other episodes as your pseudo employee, you're not going to win the game.

James Dooley: So, for someone that's watched these 11 episodes in our playlist of what we've put together, what are the next steps? Like, someone wants to take action. They're they're on board now. They realize entity SEO, branding SEO, knowledge graph optimization, AI resume optimization, always. They're like, I'm in. I'm all in. I realize the importance of it. I need to build my business brand. I need to build my personal brand. What are the next steps to take action? What is the path forward from here? Now, what's the key takeaway from this playlist?

Jason Barnard: Well, I can really give you quickly the steps. Number one, identify what you're trying to optimize. Which entities? You, your company, your products. Let's say identify exactly what they are. Exact identify exactly what they are, what who they serve, what problems they solve. Then figure out why they're the most credible and how you can prove it. Once you've done that, you've got your story. Write your story. Put it on your entity home. That's the about page on your own website. However good you think your entity home is today, it isn't good enough. It never is. Literally never. That's where you have to start. Identify what you're optimizing, what you're optimizing for, why you and how you can prove that you're the best. and make sure your about page, your entity home expresses that incredibly and clearly. Then go out, make sure the rest of the web agrees with that and your job is done.

James Dooley: Quality. Well, Jason Barnard, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. I hope anyone who's watching this likes all 11 episodes within the playlist. If there is any follow on questions any of you have, leave a comment in the comment section. If there's some really important topics, we could do another series. No problem. but we want to keep everything related to entity SEO, branding SEO, knowledge panel optimization. This is where everything seems to be coming away from just the importance of the branding element. It also lifts all keywords on the websites that are ranking as well. There's so many secondary factors as well that this brings which is absolutely huge. It brings a player employees into the business. Gives you investment opportunities when you've got a great knowledge panel. It's infinite amount of new opportunities that it brings. Jason Barnard, I absolutely love you to pieces and I'll see you again soon.

Jason Barnard: That was a brilliant outro. Thank you, James Dooley.