Top SEO Interview Questions & Answers You Must Read Before Your Big Day

*Phone rings* Tring Tring

It is hiring from the company you have had your eye on for a while. The job role is perfect for you. However, you have just been told that they would like you to come in for an SEO interview. How do you prepare for that? What are the SEO Interview Questions they are going to probably ask you?

Undoubtedly, it is a herculean task to find talent. Good talent is nearly impossible, especially when it comes to internet marketing and SEO where there are far too many people who can talk the theory but fail when it comes to execution. Therefore, the interviewer before hiring the employee will make sure he/she is well-acquainted with the concepts of Search Engine Optimization.

We have come up with a list of SEO Job Interview Questions and Answers that you should read before going for an SEO interview!

Knowledge-Based SEO Interview Questions and Answers

Here are some of the basic questions, an interviewer can ask in order to check your knowledge about SEO:

Q 1: What do you understand by the term “SEO”?

Ans: SEO abbreviated form of “Search Engine Optimization”. It is the set of process on account of which a web page or website is being optimized that helps it to enhance their visibility or ranking on top in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Q 2: What will you do to make a website search engine friendly?

Ans: Few of the main elements that make a website search engine friendly are word count, anchor text, backlinks, outbound links, keyword etc.

Q 3: Do you know about the types of SEO?

Ans: There are majorly two types of SEO that are being practiced namely On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.

On-Page SEO

It is the process of optimizing a website that includes on-site work like writing title, content, Meta tags, ALT tag, and description along with ensuring web-page’s design and code that can be indexed and crawled by search engines properly.

Off-Page SEO

It is a method of earning backlinks from various websites with a motive to improve the ranking of the site. This method includes various SEO steps like article submission, blog posting, forum, Press release submission, classified, and miscellaneous.

Q 4: Are you aware of SEO techniques?

Ans: There are two SEO techniques: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO or Negative SEO.

Q 5: Best way of getting a natural backlink to your site.

Ans: Some of the best ways of getting a natural backlink to your site are blog commenting, article marketing, social networking site profile, link exchange, etc.

Q 6: What will you do for the company website you are working for, decides to move all the contents to a new domain?

Ans: In that case, it would be important to update the previous site with a permanent redirect i.e 301 redirection to the new pages. After that, all the previous content should be taken down in order to avoid duplication of the content.

Q 7: What are some external but important factors which impact the ranking?

Ans: Some of the external factors are time spent on the site, page views per visit, bounce rate, and returning visitors.

Q 8: How to cross check if SEO campaign is working or not?

Ans: Firstly, an attempt would be made to search all the search engines employing relevant key phrases and keywords that are to be optimized. After the analysis, the results will point out whether the methods of optimization have worked or not. The report is to be analyzed on a regular basis. Also, another aspect of website statistics would also be taken care of which talks about the origin of the traffic.

Q 9: SEO Blogs you read to keep yourself updated.

Ans: Blogs to keep yourself updated are:

• Search Engine Journal
• MOZ
• SEOSmarty
• Search Engine Land
• Jimboykins

Q 10: How many types of Meta Tags are there in SEO and what are their characters limits?

Ans: There are two types of Meta tags in SEO:

• Description Meta tag: 150 characters limits
• Keyword Meta tag: 200 characters limits

Q 11: How you will start keyword research? Which tools would you use for doing it?

Ans: First of all, you have to decide your topic that might bring traffic to your website. For that, you can use Google Trends or leverage on Twitter’s trending topics (based on geographical locations) to find the best possible topic.

Few of the tools to decide keywords are keyword.io, ubersuggest.io, and Google Keyword Planner to find related keywords as well as their search volume.

Q 12: Differentiate between Dofollow and Nofollow.

Ans: 

Dofollow link

It is a kind of hyperlink which enhances the ranking of your site as it acts as a backlink that is counted by search engines.

Nofollow link

An HTML attribute value used to instruct search engine bots that a hyperlink should not influence the ranking of the link target in search engine’s index.

Q 13: What do you understand by Keyword streaming?

Ans: Keyword Streaming means analyzing and selecting the best keyword for your website and targeting to your website. One reduces each word to its stem. For instance, “investigating”, “investigates”, “investigated” all become just the root word or stem “investigate” in a search index.

This is used for search functionality which means enabling any form of the search term to find all variations of the supplied keyword. It thus improves the search experience.

Q 14: What is Canonical issue? How will you resolve them?

Ans: The Canonical issue relates to duplicate pages. For instance, if a site has 2 pages of same content but different URLs and you can’t redirect it then you use a canonical tag. It is to be used in the head section on your site.

For fixing a canonical issue, you have to do a canonical redirect the visitors to a correct version when they try to go to the wrong URL.

Q 15: How will you check the number of backlinks to your competitor’s site?

Ans: Using link operator on Google and various external tools like Backlink finder, Open Site Explorer, Backlink Watch, Alexa etc, one can know the number of backlinks to their competitor’s site.

Commonly Expected SEO Interview Questions and Answers 2016

There are few questions interviewer will ask you irrespective of the fact which SEO-based profile you have applied for. Some of these are:

Q 1: What attracted you to SEO industry?

Ans: Honesty is the key here!

Think why did you apply for this job in the first place? Because of the industry’s reputation? Or maybe the fact it offers exceptional growth? Or the high-paying jobs in this industry?

The interviewer, here, wants to test your commitment to the industry and find out what makes you the best pick out of the pool available. Therefore, respond with full enthusiasm and commitment for the sector overall. You can say that you are attracted to the industry because of good reputation and lots of opportunities available to progress your career, expand your knowledge, and learn new skills.

This answer will reflect your commitment to the sector in long run and your wish to constantly improve and enhance your skills.

Q 2: What do you enjoy most about working in SEO?

Ans: It is good to be honest here. You have to consider which tasks you look forward to in your day and which areas you enjoy working in (particularly). However, be careful that you don’t go for the ‘easy’ tasks only. Talk about challenges you would like to take.

Q 3: How do you think your experience of digital marketing will benefit our business?

Ans: This question is all about your personal experience and what you have done in the past and how your skills could benefit the business overall. Also, talk about your particular SEO story that helped you learn a lot of things and how this particular knowledge could help the business.

You need to answer in what ways you are different from the rest of the applicants, therefore, think carefully about what makes you unique in terms of experience, knowledge, and skills. Also, how it will have a positive effect on the business.

Q 4: Where do you see yourself in five years’ time in the digital marketing sector?

Ans: When interviewers ask this question, they aren’t waiting for you to talk about your personal aspirations. When a company hires a new employee, they are making a huge investment!

Therefore, the hiring managers want to know if you are worth the investment or not. They want to know if you will stick to the company along with growing professionally. They want to test you on your problem-solving skills.

Talk about the following things:

• Interest in the profile you have applied for
• Core strengths and how they can benefit the company
• Professional goals

Personalized Interviews Questions

SEO Fresher Jobs

When preparing to apply for SEO Fresher job, you need to be thorough with the basics first. Have a glance at SEO interview questions and answers for freshers before appearing for the interview. 

Q 1: What are you looking forward to working in SEO field?

Ans: Since you are a fresher, you are always expected to be energetic and open to learning. Therefore, you should answer this question openness to learning more, talk about what interest you the most. Is it on-page SEO or off-page SEO?

Most of the SEO interview questions for freshers are theoretical as they have a minimum or no experience before. So you can read the above-suggested Search Engine Optimization questions!

SEO Executive Jobs

Q 1: What steps would you follow to optimize a website?

Ans: For optimizing a website, following steps, should be followed:

• Keyword Research

All the search optimization begins with keyword research. It is important to have an understanding of the current search landscape and your keywords. This will help at the beginning of any marketing strategy as well as occasional re-evaluate. Since these numbers change continuously, therefore, you have to keep yourself up-to-date.

It is crucial to use Google Keyword Planner, begin with your location and industry.

• Craft outstanding content with keywords

While creating content, you must keep the keywords in mind. The main motive of the content is to reach the audience who are looking for it. With proper keywords, you can help content reach effectively. Try to use keywords as often as possible but naturally.

• Speed up your website

Slow running websites are a curse. It is important to make sure your page is always up to speed. You can do this by a tool called Google Speed Insights. This tool will help tell if your page is running slow and give suggestions on how to speed it up.

• Update page titles

Most of the businesses have page titles as simply their business’s name. The best search names usually follow the city + service format. For instance, Delhi – Digital Vidya is a page title which could be the best search name.

Q 2: What are the common SEO mistakes while producing digital content?

Ans: People usually make the following common SEO mistakes while writing content on digital platforms:

• Using wrong words
• Problems with redirection
• Falling prey of SEO myths

SEO Specialist Jobs

Q 1: Have you ever dealt with link penalties? How?

Ans: After identifying the link, try to remove them and disavow the one that can’t be deleted.

Dealing with link penalties includes the following steps:

• Find all the backlinks: This can be done with the help of Google Webmaster Tools.
• Identify the bad backlinks: One of the best tools to identify bad backlinks is Monitor backlinks.
• Request removal of the bad links: All the requests must be sent from the email address of the website. After that, you have to keep track of your requests and see who has opened your emails.
• Disavow the ones that can’t be removed: Before you create a disavow report, it is important to remove all the backlinks. Add tags to all of the links you could not delete by using “disavow” tag.

Q 2: After implementing distinct SEO methods for a site, if you haven’t got any improvements. What would be your next step?

Ans: The first step would be troubleshooting for the issues. Firstly, it is essential to note if it is a new project or not. The next step would include analyzing relevant keywords and phrases for the site that needs to be optimized along with studying competitive analysis.

There could be two cases:

The website and pages have been indexed and appear in the first 10 pages of SERPs but not in the top three pages, so there it needs some transformation on page descriptions, page titles, page text etc. However, if the website is still not indexed or dropped from the index, it might comprise of some big issues and a total re-work might be required.

SEO Manager Jobs

If you are applying for the profile of an SEO Manager, there are certain SEO interview questions and answers for experienced that you should be well-versed with before appearing for the interview. 

Q 1: To increase rankings, what things should not be performed to avoid a penalty?

Ans: A person can use Google Disavow tool to remove low quality and spammy links. After getting rid of all the bad quality links, you will create authentic and good quality links from white hat SEO techniques which are approved by Google Penguin and Panda like the link from social media, forum posting, article submission, guest posting, and blog commenting.

Q 2: Suppose a user gave us a negative feedback on our Facebook page, how would you handle that?

Ans: Positive feedbacks increase the motivation of the company and reflect the strengths of the company but tackling with negative feedbacks showcase the problem solving and online reputation management skills of the company. Acknowledging the negative feedback and going in details of the problem to find the root cause is the main motive. This will increase the retention of the existing customers and thereby, will help in customer satisfaction.

Q 3: Have you made any mistakes in your SEO based profiles and how did you rectify them?

Ans: “To err is human”

Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. The interviewer here expects you to be honest and is testing your problem-solving skills. Like for example, people usually make these very basic mistakes in their SEO profile:

Make it difficult for search engine crawlers to index and thereby, rank your site. Most of the people are unaware of the fact that they have to add their sites to Google Webmaster tool (which is now called Search Console). You can rectify this mistake by clicking on ‘add a website’ option to the Google Webmaster tool.

These are some of the SEO interview questions and answers for experienced candidates or  Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) experts.

Pro Tips for SEO Interview

Here are some of the tips you should work on:

1. Updated LinkedIn profile

Don’t have a LinkedIn profile? Do you think you are fit for digital marketing industry? Create your LinkedIn profile, work upon your online presence.

2. Implement your learnings

Execution is everything in SEO based profiles. Talk about how you have attempted to implement your learnings from industry experts in your work. You can also talk about it worked for you and what did you benefit from it along with your own improvisations. This will not only help you with bonus points but interviewer will understand your attitude and mindset.

3. Honesty works everywhere

If you know something, talk about it and explain it. But if you don’t know something, admit it and let them know that you will add that to your learning list.

4. Research about the company

Know the inside out of the company you are applying for. What all services do they provide? Do they have a blog? What is the most famous blog post they did?

5. Know your strengths

Know about your strengths in SEO field. Talk about them with confidence.

6. Share your knowledge

Insecurity has never done good to anyone. Therefore, share your knowledge and experience openly and at the same time be open to new discussions and ideas.

7. Don’t sound money minded

Money is a motivational factor. Accepted. But being money minded has never shown great results. Therefore, try to refrain yourself about money right at the beginning of the interview.

8. Smile your way

A pleasing personality will always add on to your credentials. It reflects your self-confidence and will bring positive vibes!

Source:-  digital vidya