Entities

Entities help search engines and AI assistants understand the topics and concepts your content covers. When you tag posts with the right entities, Google gets clearer context about what your content is about. LLMs can cite and recommend it more accurately.

What are entities?

An entity is a named concept, topic, or thing from schema.org that your content discusses. Think of them as tags with structure: not just keywords, but recognized concepts with a name, type, and optional metadata. For example:

• A technology like "React" or "Kubernetes"
• A product like "iPhone 16" or "Tailwind CSS"
• An industry topic like "serverless computing" or "accessibility"
• A concept like "technical SEO" or "Core Web Vitals"

Entities are not the same as your site's author or organization profile. That is what the Schema feature handles (see below). Entities are about the subjects your content discusses.

Why should you use entities?

Clearer topic signals. Instead of relying on keyword frequency, you explicitly tell search engines which concepts a post covers. This helps Google rank your content for relevant queries.

Better AI citations. LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews use structured data to decide who and what to cite. Clear entity signals make your content a more reliable source. When someone asks about a topic you cover, the AI is more likely to point to you.

Consistent information. Create an entity once (like a product or technology), then reuse it across dozens of posts without re-entering details.

Richer search results. Structured data can trigger enhanced results in Google, like knowledge panels, FAQ carousels, and sitelinks. These make your listings more eye-catching and clickable.

Getting started

1. Enable entities for post types

1. Go to Slim SEO > Settings in your WordPress admin.
2. Click the Entities tab.
3. Under Allowed Post Types, select which post types should show the Entities panel in the editor (for example, Posts, Pages, or custom post types).
4. Save your settings.

Once enabled, you will see an Entities tab in the editor for those post types.

2. Create your entities

Still in Slim SEO > Settings > Entities, click the Add Entity button to add a new entity.

Fill in the fields:

• Name - The entity's name (for example, "Kubernetes", "Tailwind CSS", "Core Web Vitals").
• URL - The official page for this entity (for example, the project homepage or Wikipedia page).
• @id - A unique identifier (URL or IRI) for this entity in structured data. It helps search engines connect mentions of this entity across your site.
• Same as - A list of related URLs (one per line), like official docs, Wikipedia, or social profiles.
• Description - A brief description of what this entity is.
• Type - The schema.org type. It defaults to Thing. Most topic entities work well as Thing. You can use more specific types like SoftwareApplication or People if they fit.

Then click the Add Entity button to save the entity.

Repeat for each entity you want to create. You can always come back to edit or delete them later.

3: Attach entities to posts

1. Open any post or page to edit.
2. Click the Entities tab in the Search Engine Optimization meta box.
3. Browse or search your entity library and select the ones relevant to this content.
4. For each selected entity, assign its role:
   • Main Entity - The primary topic of the post. Only one entity can be the main entity. This becomes mainEntity in the structured data.
   • About - Topics the post covers in depth. These become the about property.
   • Mentions - Topics briefly referenced in the post. These become the mentions property.
5. Update the post.

4: Verify your structured data

After publishing, check that the structured data is rendering correctly:

1. Visit the published post on the front end.
2. View the page source and search for "mainEntity", "about", or "mentions" to confirm the entities appear in the JSON-LD script.

Or you can use our browser extensions to check the entities.

How are entities attached to schema?

Slim SEO Pro injects entities into your JSON-LD output automatically. You do not add them to the schema properties by hand.

With the Schema feature

With the Schema feature, you choose which schemas receive entities:

1. Open a schema in Slim SEO > Settings > Schema.
2. In the schema panel, open the Entity tab.
3. Turn on Enable entities.

You can also enable entities for a schema you add to a single post. Open the post's Schema tab and turn on the toggle under the schema properties. See post schemas for details.

After you assign entities to a post, Slim SEO Pro adds them to every enabled schema. The role you set for each entity decides the property:

• Main Entity becomes mainEntity.
• About becomes about.
• Mentions becomes mentions.

Article is enabled by default. Your existing posts keep their entities without any change. To stop entities on Article, turn the Article toggle off.

These schemas have no Entity tab: Custom JSON-LD, SearchAction, BreadcrumbList.

When you do not use the Schema feature

Entities need schema output to attach to. If you do not use the Schema feature, the target schema depends on your SEO plugin:

SEO plugin	Schema type entities are attached to
Slim SEO	Article
Slim SEO Pro	Article
Yoast SEO	Article
All in One SEO	BlogPosting
SEOPress	Article
The SEO Framework	Article
Squirrly SEO	Article

Entities appear as mainEntity, about, or mentions inside the enabled schemas or the article schema of your SEO plugin. If neither exists on the page, entities do not render.

Entities vs. Schema: when to use each?

Slim SEO Pro has two features for structured data: Schema and Entities. They serve different purposes and work best together.

Schema creates the full JSON-LD markup for your site and content. It defines your site identity (WebSite, Organization, Person), page structure (WebPage, BreadcrumbList), and content type (Article). This is where you set up your company profile, author bios, and detailed organizational information. Think of it as the foundation. It tells Google what your site is and what kind of page this is.

Entities identify the topics and concepts a particular post covers. They attach to posts as relationships (mainEntity, about, mentions) and enrich the schema your site already outputs. Think of them as the subject matter. They tell Google what the content is about at a conceptual level.

Use Schema when you want to:

• Define your site-wide identity (Organization, Person).
• Add full markup (like article type, datePublished, author).
• Control the full structure of your JSON-LD output.

Use Entities when you want to:

• Mark which topics or concepts a post discusses.
• Indicate what a post is about vs. what it merely mentions.
• Reuse the same topic entity across multiple posts without re-entering details.

Use both when: You want the full picture. Schema handles the page-level and identity structure. Entities adds the subject-level context. For example, Schema marks a page as an Article with author info. Entities marks it as being about Kubernetes and mentioning Docker.

FAQ

Do I need to fill in every field?

No. Only Name is required. Fill in the other fields as needed. The more details you provide, the more useful the structured data will be.

What's the difference between "About" and "Mentions"?

Use your best judgment. If a post goes deep on a topic (like a tutorial), assign it as About. If a topic is just referenced in passing, use Mentions.

What happens if I delete an entity that is attached to posts?

The post will no longer include structured data for that entity. You can reassign a different entity or leave the post without entity data.

Can I use the same entity across multiple posts?

Yes, that is the whole point. Create an entity once and attach it to as many posts as you like.

Why do my entities not appear on a page?

Entities need a schema with Enable entities turned on, or the article schema from your SEO plugin. Check that the schema is active on the page. Article has the toggle on by default.

Which SEO plugins are supported?

Entities work with Slim SEO, Slim SEO Schema, Yoast SEO, All in One SEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework, and Squirrly SEO. The plugin detects which one is active and hooks into the appropriate filter automatically.