Digital account executive Tom Williams is back with another week's worth of SEO news and views....

1. SEO Weekly Roundup: Facebook Does LinkedIn, Twitter
Does SEO, and More
Digital account executive Tom Williams is back with another week's worth of SEO news and views.
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Removal: Everything You Need to Know About Google Penalties - and How to Recover Lost
Rankings.
Facebook Working on Social Network to Rival LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the undisputed queen of 'career' social networks, and has proven to be an invaluable
marketing and outreach tool for many brands.
However, there may soon be another career-focussed social platform that maybe, just maybe, could
be in with a chance of challenging LinkedIn's crown.
'Facebook at Work' could offer Facebook's 1.35 billion active users the chance to create an 'at-work'
identity, separate from their main profile, according to a report by The Independent today.
The paper also says the in-development platform will allow users to collaborate on documents and
communicate with work contacts.
If the reports are accurate, then Facebook is clearly flexing its muscles in LinkedIn's direction.
However, it seems Facebook is less interested in crushing the current dominator in career social
networks, and more interested in keeping users engaged whilst they work. As The Independent
wrote: "The company is said to be building the network in the hope that employers will allow
'Facebook at Work' [...] as many block or discourage workers from accessing the original site during
business hours."
The network will initially be free and will be funded by advertising revenue, reports the paper.
Google is Testing and Improving Knowledge Graph Direct Answers
Google's 'answer box' has been around for a while now. The feature, which draws on Knowledge
Graph data to provide direct answers to search queries, has met with a mixed response from search
marketers, with some concerned that it could reduce their share of search traffic.

2. Answer box
result for 'how old is Justin Bieber?'.
And so the worries shall continue. According to Search Engine Land's Eric Enge, Google is testing
new ways to answer user's queries
And where there are tests, there are usually improvements. And improvements to the answer box
could mean it appears in more search results than ever before.
In his report, published last Monday, Enge wrote:
The TL;DR is that Google appears to be testing various possible direct answers to search queries. If
the results are not to its liking, it is trying a different answer source, until user data tells them they
have one that works."
...And Here's How to Work With the Answer Box, Not Against it
As the last news summary demonstrated, Google seems pretty well convinced of the viability of the
answer box. So it makes sense for SEOs to work with it, not fight against it. Or worse, sit there and
grumble without doing anything at all.

3. Source: bark at
Flickr.
But how can we optimise for these knowledge graph results? As Barbara Starr pointed out over at
Search Engine Land, the answer lies in understanding the emphasis on search-over-data, rather than
search-over-documents.
Starr goes into lots of detail, so we'll summarise. Search engines have moved on from simply
providing ten blue links to website documents. They now make use of all kinds of meta data to
provide better results based on context. So, as Starr writes, brand should "ensure [they] can provide
consistent high-precision data in as many ways as are appropriate."
And you can do this through structured markup like those collated at schema.org, or through
Google's Structured Snippets.
We've been thinking about this an awful lot too. For our take on the issue, read our post Google
Authorship is Dead - But Schema Markup is a Big Deal for SEO.
Twitter Does SEO, Sees Ten Times More Visitors
Social and SEO are big, interconnected beasts - a fact aptly demonstrated by Twitter when it search
engine optimised some of its hashtag pages, and saw logged-out visits increase by a factor of ten.
According to Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land, this apparently means a jump from 7.5 million
logged-out monthly visits to a whopping 75 million. Phenomenal.
The social platform shared the results at the Twitter Analyst Day event on Wednesday, where
director of product management Trevor O'Brien said the firm wanted to ensure search engine users
could better access 50,000 hashtag pages.
How Might Local Search Work on Smartwatches?
Smartwatches - a niche new toy for nerds, or the flag-carriers of an 'always-on' revolution?

4. Apple Watch.
We just don't know. Which is why it's important to consider how these new devices might impact
local search marketing, as Search Engine Journal pointed out in an article published November 8.
Writer Bernadette Coleman shared four predictions for the fledgling smart devices. Here's a quick
summary:
Opt-in messaging will be the norm: Coleman argues that brands will have to bend to an increased
demand for concise, relevant content. This means giving users say in whether or not they receive
marketing messages. She also makes the case that customised search platforms, like Google Now,
may be the favoured model for smartwatch search.
Proximity-triggered messaging is a huge opportunity: Smartwatches are perfectly placed to deliver
relevant messaging to users, since all they have to do to absorb information is look at their wrists.
Coleman identifies this as a big opportunity, writing: "If it can be that much easier to gain a user's
attention, then local businesses would be wise to start implementing some sort of location or
proximity-triggered interactions now."
Location-specific keywords are going to be more important than ever: Coleman describes this as a
'no-brainer'. If users are accessing information while they're out and about, on a small screen that
doesn't allow for ambiguity, it's going to be increasingly important for businesses to provide
location-specific content and optimise for local search keywords.
Apps are where it's at: Again, the small screen presents a challenge for marketers. Coleman reckons
users will be more comfortable using a specially-designed app than scrolling through a website on
their wrist. As Coleman writes, businesses should "consider creating apps that give concise,
streamlined content and tools, rather that it mimic their website."
Hungry for more wearable tech predictions? Back in September, we shared our own thoughts on the
Apple Watch and local PPC over at the BidCops blog.
Google Axes Local Carousel Results for Certain Industries
We've never had the pleasure of experiencing Google's local carousel, as the feature was never
launched in Europe.

5. However, our friends in the United States have seen local results in carousel form since June 2013.
Now it seems Google has lukewarm feelings about the feature, as according to Search Engine Land,
it's axing it entirely for results http://www.dailystrength.org/people/4197949/journal/10912033
related to restaurants, hotels, nightlife and entertainment.
The carousel results are being replaced with a 'three-pack' of local results.
There's no official explanation as yet. But Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land was never too keen
on the feature, writing: "I have always found the Carousel to be limiting and awkwardly
disconnected from the rest of the page."
Perhaps Google shares his sentiment.
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Read last week's SEO news roundup.