SEO SOP: Earn a Knowledge Panel for an Actor, Artist or Film Without a Publicist

An actor, musician or independent film can have streaming credits and a real following and still have no knowledge panel. Ethan Felizzari-Castillo, the director and producer behind CK Productions in New York, got one for his partner, actress and creator Rosie Dean, without hiring a publicist. He walked me through how when we recorded this Unscripted SEO interview in January 2025. His summary: “keep getting more people talking about it and keep populating more images and content with that same exact thing that you want to be recognized for, because that’s what’s worked.” This SOP turns that into a procedure you can start this week for a person or a film.

Objective

You finish with a creative entity (an actor, a recording artist, a director or a film) that Google can tell apart from everyone else with the same name, backed by enough third-party coverage and a clean IMDb record that a knowledge panel can form. This is the people-and-projects version of the job. If you’re building a panel for a company, use our knowledge panel SOP for businesses instead. Everything attributed to Ethan comes from the January 2025 recording.

Key Steps

1. Search the name before you pitch anyone. Write down what Google shows today: a panel or not, and whose pages come up. Do the same for a film title, then the title plus “film.” Ethan’s check for his own movie: “if you type in Backyard Desert, do a bunch of backyards come up or does our movie come up?” Note any other person who shares the name. That’s the merge you’ll fight in step 8.
2. Sort what you have from what you need to boost. Ethan starts every project by placing it on the commercial scale: a famous cast makes the job easy, and an unknown cast means you have to figure out “what do you have here that we can utilize and what do we need to boost here?” List the credits, the streaming titles, the follower counts and any press that already exists.
3. Keep a running outlet list, every size. Ethan keeps one in the notes app on his phone. When he finds a blog, podcast or news account on Instagram, he saves it, whether it has 100 followers or a million, and carries it into the next project. Note the outlet, its handle and how to reach a writer. (the fields are inferred)
4. Pitch the smallest outlets first, and early. The big trades want big names. Ethan’s order: “I find the smallest ones and then I find those really large ones. And what I do is I immediately make a plan for us to start reaching out to those small ones right in the beginning, right? Develop that relationship really, really early on.” For a film, start before there’s anything to sell. “You search up our film, Backyard Desert online, and you’re going to see a handful of articles already and some interviews. The movie’s not even shot yet.”
5. Get about ten articles per release. Treat every song, role or trailer as a reason for coverage. For Rosie’s music: “When a song comes out, let’s get like 10 articles written about it, right? Let’s find people who are willing to write articles without a publicist.” That meant emailing writers directly. Ask for interviews where the person speaks, since Ethan ranks those first in any press plan.
6. Make every mention say the same thing. The coverage has to tie the name to the art form you want recognized, whether that’s music, acting or social media. Use the same spelling of the name and the same one-line description in every pitch, bio and caption. (the shared bio is inferred)
7. Clean up IMDb and the profiles you control. Ethan’s team organized Rosie’s credits, added a photo and filled in more images and content. “We actually went through and organized her credits, put a picture there, did little things that we didn’t think initially were going to help. And they actually helped a whole bunch.” Get social accounts verified where you can. He calls the result social proofing.
8. Fix the wrong person when Google merges you. Once Rosie’s panel began to fill in, it pulled in pages and links for a different Rosie Dean, an actress from years ago who has died. The fix was getting Google to recognize her consistently, including help tickets. In Ethan’s words: “Some of it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” Use the feedback link on the panel itself, and claim the panel through Google’s verification once you can. (the specific Google routes are inferred) Then keep publishing coverage that names the right person.

Cautionary Notes

• Don’t open with Variety, Deadline or the Hollywood Reporter. Ethan says they want the biggest names, not the small story, so they come after the small outlets.
• A shared name is the biggest risk. If someone better known has it, plan the disambiguation from day one, and for a film, test the title before it locks. Our indie film entity SEO breakdown covers the title check.
• Help tickets aren’t a guaranteed fix. Keep building correct coverage while you wait on them.
• Ethan gave no timeline. Rosie’s push ran across a stretch of music releases, and his own panel showed up “after some time of just being on interviews.” Don’t promise a client a date.
• One impressive-looking asset isn’t enough. I self-published a book partly to earn an author panel, and as of this recording I still didn’t have one.
• Ethan’s results come from an independent production company doing its own marketing. They’re one team’s experience, not a measured rule.

Tips for Efficiency

• Reuse the outlet list across clients and projects. It gets more valuable each time you add to it.
• Time the ten-article push to land in the week of a release so every piece has a fresh hook. (inferred)
• After the panel appears, check whether other databases start listing the person. Rosie showed up on Famous Birthdays soon after. “The second she got the knowledge panel, we started seeing her name pop up on other databases.”
• Recheck the name search after each release and log what changed, so you can see which coverage moved it. (inferred)
• Browse more repeatable plays in the SEO SOP archive.

Sources & Relevant Episodes

• Ethan Felizzari-Castillo, CK Productions – described how he and his team earned Rosie Dean’s knowledge panel and how CK builds press for independent films before release, recorded January 2025. Find him at ckproductionsnewyork.com and on Instagram.
• Read the full breakdown: indie film entity SEO with Ethan Felizzari-Castillo on SEO Arcade. Read the episode recap: Ethan Felizzari-Castillo on indie film marketing on Unscripted SEO.
• My take on the knowledge panel side: how to get a knowledge panel without a publicist.
• Building a panel for a company instead? Start with SEO SOP: Creating and Optimizing Knowledge Panels for Businesses.