Why Your Brand Needs an Entity Passport | James Dooley ft Paul Truscott, Peter Jones & Kasra Dash

James Dooley: Entity passport. What is an entity passport? Why is an entity passport important? This is what this podcast episode's going to go through today. So Paul, what is an entity passport?

Paul David Truscott: Okay, so that, that the concept of an entity passport is essentially a gathering together of all of the information that determines that this thing really is all about you as an entity, so that Google can trust that that information is correct. In much the same way that a government issues a passport when you've produced enough documentation to convince that government that you are the person who you say you are. It's really the same thing.

James Dooley: So it's a great concept, the idea of an entity passport. So Peter, obviously James Dooley, myself, coined the phrase of entity passport. And the reason where I came from it was more about you need to define your entity. You need to be trying to make certain that you've got a well-known entity for AI to be able to let you into the results, like a country, unless you've got the passport, will allow you in. We're saying that the large language... The large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, they won't let you into them answers unless you've got an entity passport. Why is it important for people to understand that they need the entity passport and they need a Google Knowledge Panel to try to define who they are?

Paul David Truscott: Well, you... If Google's unsure about who they are, then it's not going to be sure enough to include them in the results with any confidence and therefore not give them the Knowledge Panel. Um, so... And the, the emphasis behind it is create enough documents on the web with... That all mirror the same thing and give the... To give Google the confidence and clarity that that person is who Google thinks they are and they do what Google thinks they do, um, with the assurance from third-party sources.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And then Kasra, with regards to an entity passport, how important do you think that this is going into 2027? Do you believe that every business owner or entrepreneur that wants to take their businesses onto the next level, do you think it's important for them to have an entity passport, but also for corporate brands as well to try and get that KGM ID and try to get that entity passport in place?

Kasra Dash: Yeah, I think... I think it's, it's very important. I think if you've not got an entity passport, if you've not got the correct foundations, now is the time to start doing it. Otherwise, if a few of your competitors in the space does have a Knowledge Panel or they've got the correct foundations in place to get that entity passport, um, it could make or break certain businesses. Um, it could literally be the, the valuation of a company going from 4 million to literally not valued anything at all. AI won't trust your business. Google won't trust your business, and you probably won't be able to generate those high-quality leads as well.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And obviously here I'm speaking to Peter Victor Jones, Paul David Truscott and Kasra Dash, who are the co-founders of DefineYourEntity.com. Paul, I just want to expand a little bit on DefineYourEntity.com and how these can create you an entity passport. Can you explain a little bit about how Define Your Entity can create a business entity, a KGM ID and a Knowledge Panel, which is an entity passport, but also for entrepreneurs and business owners to have a personal KGM ID and Google Knowledge Panel?

Paul David Truscott: I think this comes down to most people online, uh, or business people that... That their business is, you know, getting customers and keeping their, their everyday business online and keeping track of everything. But they don't understand the fundamentals behind it, what drives everything. And Google's Knowledge Graph, maybe to some degree they're aware that Google has a Knowledge Graph, but they have no idea what that really means. So I like to think of Google's Knowledge Graph as a safe, right? So, there are loads and loads of things on the web. They exist in vector space, and Google can compute stuff using maths and, and can show your website and can show things to, to your potential customers. But those are, um, kind of like a superficial, uh, thing. But when it comes to the Knowledge Graph, Google wants to trust that these things are fact before it's going to lock it in there, okay? And it's more important than ever now with AI search tapping into all of this, that you have that Knowledge Panel and that Knowledge Graph entry so that all these facts about you are no longer being picked up in just searches and, and Google's hoping it's the right information. They know it's true because you've got enough information across the web corroborated to get that passport, to get that identity, so that you can convince Google that all of these things that you're saying about yourself are true. And then you... Once you've got that Knowledge Panel, I mean, the other thing is everyone Googles you now. Like, if you... If even if you send a quote, even if you're in the offline world and you send a quote to someone or you outreach someone, the first thing they're doing is Googling you, right? And if you... If you have a Knowledge Panel that comes up, that's instant credibility, 100%, because people just look at that and think, well, you clearly are somebody or this company is some... Someone. It's, it's established. And so it's more important than it's ever been now because of people using, uh, AI and using Google to make decisions or to help them make decisions at the end of the day.

James Dooley: And then Peter, I want to expand a little bit on someone's listening to this now and they say, okay, I want an entity passport. And within DefineYourEntity.com, within the brand of what we've created that helps people get Knowledge Panels, we've got a framework and the framework is called Clarity, Consistency and Confidence Framework. Can you expand a little bit upon that framework of how Define Your Entity looks at that clarity, consistency and confidence throughout the web to not only create the entity passport but strengthen it, to not only be cited but start being recommended by the large language models?

Peter Victor Jones: Yeah, sure. So first of all, what we do is look at what the person or the brand already has out there on the web about them and compile all that data together and look for where it's... Where there's misalignment in the data. So where one document on the web says one thing and then there's another document that says the opposite. And then we aim to correct those and get more documents out on the web about the brand to corroborate the truth of and lead towards getting the entity passport for the brand or the person.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And anyone who wants to know more information about the Clarity, Consistency and Confidence Framework, check out the link in the description where we do a whole podcast episode about that framework and the importance of it. And then one last question and it's for you, Kasra, and it comes back down to this 125-point checklist. Obviously, there was a lot of debates going between the four of us going through how many points should we have on that checklist and we went to town on understanding the trustworthiness of what's needed. And obviously, internally we created this scoring mechanism and we called it the Entity Confidence Score. How important is it to get that 125-point checklist, tick them boxes off, tick... Not only, again, create the entity passport but strengthen that entity passport?

Kasra Dash: At first, I thought you were going to say name all 125. I was going to say we're, we're going to be here all day. Yeah, it's massive. So I'm sure people have seen this before where there might be two people named the same. So, for example, Peter Victor Jones on this call, there's also Peter Victor Jones on Dragons' Den, right? What you need to do is you need to demonstrate to Google that you are the more popular version or you are the one that people are searching for. So that's massive. There's so many, like, websites and businesses that we've seen over the years where there might be a plumbing business, but there might be a bakery, for example, called the same thing, or there might be another plumbing business in America called the same thing. And when somebody searches for that, Google kind of gets confused. So you want to make certain that the foundations are set up correctly, and you also want to demonstrate to Google that it is the correct business or entity that people are searching for.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And anyone who wants to know more information about the Entity Confidence Score, that 125-point checklist, again, make sure you check out the link in the description. We do a whole episode with regards to the Entity Confidence Score, which is going to help you strengthen your entity passport. It's so important for you to get this entity passport. If you want to know more information about it, make sure you reach out to DefineYourEntity.com, where we can then start to look at how you can trigger your own entity passport and also strengthen it up. Guys, Paul, Peter, Kasra, thank you very much.

Kasra Dash: Thank you.