When working on Entity Optimisation, you will have one Focus Entity which is the main basis of your work: a person, a company, a music group, a product… Cornerstone Entities are the foundational entities within the ecosystem of the primary entity.
The concept is similar to cornerstone content in search engine optimization (SEO): you can build on top of these and they will support your work on peripheral entities.
For a company like Kalicube, which is the Focus Entity, the Cornerstone Entities are Kalicube (the company itself), Jason Barnard (the CEO and founder), Kalicube Pro (the SaaS), Kalicube Academy, Kalicube Tuesdays (the Livestream Event Series), and a few key people within the company.
For Yoast as a focus entity, the Cornerstone Entities are Yoast (the company itself), the Yoast SEO plugin, and its founder and Founder Joost de Valk , CEO Thjis de Valk.
For a person like myself Jason Barnard, the Cornerstone Entities would include Jason Barnard, Boowa and Kwala (because my wife and I created them and they became popular), Kalicube (the company I founded), The Barking Dogs (my music group from the 1990s), “With Jason Barnard” (my podcast), and The Fundamentals of Brand SERPs for Business (my book).
In these examples, you will notice that Cornerstone Entities are those that have the closest, strongest, and longest relationships with the focus entity. Building Google’s confidence in its understanding of the relationship with these Cornerstone Entities will cement Google’s understanding of who you are and what you do.
So, leverage the relationships between your focus entity and its Cornerstone Entities to build Google’s understanding. It’s a virtuous cycle: If I can improve Google’s understanding of them, I will improve Google’s understanding of me. And if I can improve Google’s understanding of me, I will inevitably improve Google’s understanding of them.