If you’ve ever Googled your business name and noticed another company’s information box appear instead of your own, you’ve likely encountered a Google Knowledge Panel. These panels often highlight bigger or better-known brands—leaving many small and medium-sized businesses wondering why their Google Business Profile doesn’t take centre stage.
One major factor behind this is sentiment analysis, an increasingly important tool in SEO and brand recognition. Sentiment analysis is important because it helps businesses understand customer perceptions, track changes in public opinion, and analyse feedback from online sources like social media and reviews, which can directly impact online visibility.
Sentiment analysis relies on advances in artificial intelligence and computer science to interpret online content, using AI-powered tools to automate and improve the accuracy of analysing customer reviews, social media comments, and other unstructured text to gauge emotional tone and brand sentiment.
This article explains:
- What sentiment analysis is and how it impacts SEO
- Why your business might not show a Knowledge Panel
- Why larger competitors often dominate branded search
- And most importantly—what you can do to improve your own visibility
What is Sentiment Analysis?
Sentiment analysis—also known as opinion mining—is the process of using natural language processing, machine learning, and text analysis to determine the emotional tone behind written content. The analysis process involves sentiment analysis models that use machine learning to interpret text and extract meaningful insights from unstructured data. It helps businesses and search engines understand whether the sentiment expressed in online reviews, social media posts, news articles, and customer feedback is positive, negative, or neutral sentiment, with neutral sentiment being important for accurate classification.
Using a sentiment analysis model, which is trained using sentiment labels to classify text, Google analyses massive volumes of unstructured data to assess the brand sentiment around a business. Businesses collect data from various sources to feed into sentiment analysis systems. This includes a variety of data sources such as:
- Survey responses and survey feedback
- Textual data from social media platforms
- Online reviews and customer experience discussions
- News coverage and market research reports
Sentiment analysis tools and systems generate sentiment scores to quantify and scale the results, measuring positive, negative, or neutral sentiments. When determining sentiment, individual words—including negative words—are analysed to detect the overall tone of the text.
When the sentiment score consistently reflects positive feedback and trustworthy mentions, Google is more likely to classify your brand as notable—sometimes generating a Knowledge Panel as a result.
Types of Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach—there are several types, each designed to extract different kinds of insights from textual data. Understanding these types can help you choose the right sentiment analysis tools for your business needs and marketing strategies.
- Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis (ABSA): This method digs deeper than overall sentiment by analyzing specific aspects or features mentioned in customer feedback, survey responses, or social media posts. For example, a restaurant review might praise the food but criticise the service. Aspect-based sentiment analysis identifies and scores each aspect separately, giving you a clearer picture of what customers love or dislike about your offerings.
- Emotion Detection: Going beyond positive, negative, or neutral, emotion detection uses sentiment analysis algorithms to recognise emotions like happiness, anger, or frustration in social media posts and customer feedback. This helps businesses understand the emotional drivers behind customer sentiment and tailor their responses accordingly.
- Intent-Based Sentiment Analysis: This type of sentiment analysis involves identifying the underlying intent behind a message—such as a request for help, a complaint, or a purchase inquiry. By analysing intent, businesses can prioritise responses and improve customer service, sales, and support processes.
- Multilingual Sentiment Analysis: For brands operating across borders, multilingual sentiment analysis is essential. It enables companies to analyse sentiment expressed in different languages, ensuring that customer opinions from various regions are accurately understood and addressed.
- Fine-Grained Sentiment Analysis: Instead of simply labelling sentiment as positive, negative, or neutral, fine-grained sentiment analysis classifies sentiment into more detailed categories (like very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative). This provides richer insights into how customers feel about your brand, products, or services.
By applying the right types of sentiment analysis, businesses can gain a more nuanced understanding of customer sentiment, improve their marketing strategies, and respond more effectively to feedback across all channels.
How Does Sentiment Analysis and Natural Language Processing Work in SEO?
Search engines use a combination of sentiment analysis technologies, sentiment classification, and sentiment analysis algorithms to assess brand presence and trust. This process involves:
- Identifying opinion words and phrases across the web
- Categorising them into sentiment categories (positive, negative, neutral)
- Assigning a sentiment score to gauge customer sentiment
- Tracking sentiment trends over time to determine the overall sentiment
Some use rule-based sentiment analysis systems (also known as rule based systems), which have limitations such as difficulty handling complex language features like negation and metaphors, and require frequent updates to maintain accuracy. Others rely on more advanced deep learning and machine learning techniques. The goal is always the same: to extract meaningful insights from emotional responses hidden in human language.
In SEO, this analysis helps Google understand which brands are perceived as credible, trusted, and well-regarded across multiple sources.
Benefits of Sentiment Analysis for SEO and Branding
Leveraging sentiment analysis can transform the way your business approaches SEO and branding. By systematically analysing customer sentiment from online reviews, social media, and survey responses, you unlock a range of benefits that drive growth and strengthen your brand reputation.
- Improve Brand Reputation: Sentiment analysis helps you monitor how your brand is perceived online. By identifying negative sentiments early, you can address issues proactively and reinforce positive sentiment, building trust with your audience.
- Enhance Customer Experience: Analysing customer feedback allows you to pinpoint pain points and areas for improvement. By acting on these insights, you can deliver a better customer experience and increase overall satisfaction.
- Inform Marketing Strategies: Understanding the sentiment expressed in customer conversations helps you tailor your marketing strategies. You can identify which messages resonate, spot emerging trends, and create campaigns that align with your audience’s preferences.
- Optimise SEO: Sentiment analysis helps you discover keywords, topics, and content themes that matter most to your customers. By aligning your SEO efforts with positive sentiment trends, you can improve your search rankings and attract more qualified traffic.
- Stay Ahead of Competitors: Monitoring competitor sentiment gives you a competitive edge. By analysing sentiment data, you can identify gaps in the market, anticipate shifts in customer opinion, and adapt your strategies to maintain or grow your market share.
In summary, sentiment analysis helps businesses gain meaningful insights into customer sentiment, optimise their SEO and marketing strategies, and build a stronger, more resilient brand. By making sentiment analysis a core part of your digital strategy, you position your business for long-term success.
Why Your Business Might Not Show a Knowledge Panel
If your business isn’t showing a Knowledge Panel, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It simply means Google may not yet recognise your brand as a distinct entity. This often happens when:
- Your business shares a name with a larger, more established brand
- There’s limited or mixed customer sentiment available online, and Google aims to filter out negative opinions and personal biases to assess true brand perception
- Your brand has fewer mentions on high-authority sites
- Your social media analysis and coverage are minimal
- There’s not enough accurate sentiment analysis data about your brand
Google typically gives priority to brands with strong visibility, high engagement, and a history of positive sentiment expressed across social media platforms, news, and customer reviews. However, a history of negative sentiment in customer feedback or reviews can reduce the likelihood of a Knowledge Panel appearing.
Can You Compete with Bigger Brands?
In most cases, it’s unrealistic for a local business to replace a global brand’s Knowledge Panel—even with good SEO. But that doesn’t mean you can’t improve your visibility and build your own brand authority.
By conducting market research using sentiment analysis, you can identify areas where smaller brands can differentiate themselves and better understand customer motivations.
Here’s how:
Practical Steps to Improve Your Online Visibility
1. Optimise Your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile plays a key role in local SEO. Strengthen it by:
- Selecting accurate business categories
- Adding quality images
- Encouraging positive customer reviews
- Responding to negative feedback promptly
- Keeping opening hours and contact details up to date
→ Learn more: Google Business Profile optimisation
2. Strengthen Your Brand Mentions and Brand Reputation on Trusted Sources
Google relies on sentiment analysis based on data from external platforms. Increase visibility by getting listed or featured on:
- Wikipedia, Wikidata (if eligible)
- Crunchbase, Bloomberg, and LinkedIn
- Industry-specific directories and market research sites
→ Build visibility through technical SEO strategies
3. Use Structured Data and Schema Markup
Add structured data to your website so search engines can better identify:
- Your business name and location
- Products and services
- Reviews and ratings
This supports entity recognition and improves your chances of showing up prominently in branded searches.
→ Learn more about schema markup and structured data
4. Invest in Content and Social Signals
Positive mentions matter. To gauge customer sentiment effectively, aim to:
- Publish blog posts that highlight your expertise
- Encourage social media sentiment analysis through shares and engagement
- Respond to comments and reviews across platforms
- Monitor and adapt based on sentiment trends
→ Strengthen your strategy with content marketing
5. Work with a Digital Marketing Agency
Managing sentiment and visibility takes time. A professional agency can help:
- Apply sentiment analysis tools for better insight
- Monitor brand reputation and online mentions
- Tailor a strategy using machine learning based sentiment techniques
- Improve customer satisfaction and brand sentiment over time
→ Partner with a trusted digital marketing agency in Sydney
Final Word: Focus on What You Can Control
While you may not be able to override a competitor’s Knowledge Panel, you can shape your brand’s presence using the power of sentiment analysis, natural language processing, and social media monitoring.
Remember, sentiment analysis helps Google understand how people feel about your business. Positive signals lead to better rankings, stronger visibility, and ultimately, more customers.
