• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, October 13, 2015

Google's Knowledge Graph keeps people searching for answers on the search engine by providing information in results rather than requiring people to click through to the Web page. Answer boxes give us quick answers. The Info Panel presents searchers with answers about basic queries directly in the search engine results page, and searchers then go about their business with no further interaction.

Some information boxes include directories and movie times, store hours, Facebook brand pages and Twitter accounts. John Dee, COO at PlaceWise Media, believes marketers need to embrace the change and go with the flow. Understanding how it works can help marketers more effectively work with the Knowledge Graph rather than against it, supplying it with content and information while building alternate channels of audience development outside of Google.

Dee -- the author of the white paper, "Mind The Google, Understanding the Impact of the Google Knowledge Graph on your shopping center Website" -- analyzes the impact of the Google Knowledge Graph. To understand this impact, PlaceWise analysts looked at traffic from 2011 to 2015 for 125 shopping centers, normalizing the study group to include only traditional malls, no power centers, tourist centers or outlets.

Analysts looked at the results of one center in a suburban metro area for 30 days, in which the information panel served up 16,000 times. Of the 900 clicks on the panels, PlaceWise found about 600 clicks for directions, which led directly to Google Maps, 80 clicks for phone calls likely from mobile phone, and 150 clicks through to the mall Web site.

As Dee notes in the whitepaper, when consumers land on a Web site exposed to other content, it leads to greater engagement on the site and hopefully more sales. Google's Info Panel stops the site visitor at the search engine. The opportunity to up-sell or cross-sell is lost. We will see a decrease in this kind of traffic, and there is little that can be done to regain it. Indeed, SEO professionals scratch their head on how to respond to this new reality.

For starters, per PlaceWise, optimize data schema on sites. With the growth of Knowledge Graph, new standards of data schemas that identify information in a way that the Google bot really understands makes content easier to consume and establishes authority over the entity. Update Wikipedia entries with accurate information, and manage entries in online databases that feed the Knowledge Graph. Beyond Wikipedia are other sources of data that provide unbiased data about entities across the world. Google relies on these databases, and assuring data integrity will help feed Google with the right information.