Google has turned twenty years old this year but it feels like that it has been existing for ages. You can’t even imagine your life without this famous search engine. It helps us to find out data and information about anything and everything in the world. Whenever you need fast answers, you just need to have a look in your phone on Google to get the best information faster. No matter, which search engine we use, our expectations are same.

People are relied on search engines due to which it is sure that SEO is very crucial part of every digital marketing plan. If you want your company or business to be discovered at online platform, then you definitely need to have best SEO. The various agencies and brands in US spent around $72 billion on SEO in the year 2018. By 2020, the companies of US will spend more than $79 billion on SEO.

With increasing need of SEO strategy, professionals working in digital marketing can stay confident about their jobs. People with strong SEO skills can be sure of having security in their career. Whether you are a beginner in this field or you an experienced marketer, you are definitely going to gain profits. The sales professionals who aren’t interested in sales can choose SEO training as their career for some transition. Recent graduates who have done MBA, Bsc, B.E. can also choose this career. CEOs who want to enhance the skills of their marketing team definitely need to gain knowledge in this field.

If you want to seek career in this field, then you should pursue training for it. You should also stay prepared for your SEO Interview Questions and Answers so that you can shine as SEO specialist. Here are some of the best and common SEO questions which can be asked in interviews. Continue to learn more…

If you want to apply for the job of SEO expert, then you should stay prepared for interview with the help of these interview questions.  We have compiled common SEO interview questions for all graduates, beginners and experienced people.

Question 1: What can make a website search engine friendly?

A: There are number of factors which are involved in making a website SEO friendly and that are quality content, metadata, keywords and titles. Every website requires all of these factors to stay on the top of search engine and to be found by users easily.

Question 2: How can you measure that success of SEO?

A: Goals can be different and that’s why you might need to answer this question based on the company you are giving interview for. There are number of ways to measure performance of SEO. Your answers can include enhancing conversions like newsletter sales, signups, growth of inbound links, and increase in referral traffic along with driving traffic for some keyword phrase. It is important that SEO professional know the way to study results in order to make changes with the techniques and tools to enhance success of SEO.

Question 3: How did you become skilled at SEO?

A: This answer will definitely depend on your particular situation but it definitely matter a lot because every employer want to make sure that you are qualified in SEO practices. If you had to learn these skills in your last job forcefully, then employer can doubt on your skills. So, it is better that get certified whenever you are applying for any SEO specialist job to get a proof of your training in this field.

Question 4: Tell about the regular SEO tools used by you?

A: You must be known with various familiar tools you work with and you definitely want to talk about those tools only. If you are new in this field and don’t have much to talk about, then you can check out various webmaster tools offered by Google and other tools which Moz offers.

Question 5: How do you make your keyword research?

A: Just like the question given above, your answer can vary as you will want to describe the keyword tools you have been using for research. Like, you used Google Keyword planner to do research and then it can be your answer but that’s not it. You have to explain how you go for it and you need to show that you work more than just guessing a keyword and you type it in tool for checking results. You have to explain that you also consider long keyword phrases, competition of keyword along with search volume of it. Show that you know the way to make best keyword research so that it can be targeted and have nice search volume but not much competitive.

Question 6: What is link building and why does it matter?

A: Google always tries to find our which results are related to searcher in the given real time. Other than relevance, it also keeps a check on credibility. So, search engine always find out if any other website is also linked with yours or not. It is linked then your content must be worth linking and thus you can get better credibility. Overall, link building is done by SEO professionals to get link for their website to enhance the search results.

Question 7: What do you understand by back links?

A: The links into website from the external sources same as it is mentioned in the link building are known as back links.

Question 8: What is page speed and why does it matter?

A: The page speed means the speed of your website loading for the user. Google always keep a check of the ranking websites and their page speed. Better user experience is achieved by the faster loading website. If interviewer will ask about what you can do the enhance page speed, then you need to demonstrate how you have already achieved it with the help  of image size reduction, reducing redirects, enabling compression, browser caching, improving server response time, optimizing code etc.

Question 9: What method do you use to redirect a page?

A: You won’t lose SEO value if you will use 301 redirect as it is the best way to redirect any page.

Question 10: How can you do SEO for a video?

A: These days, growth is seen in videos on the online platform and it can also make improvisation in SEO if these videos are produced to gain attention and then backlinked and shared by the users. To get your video seen, one need SEO to be found and search engine Google can’t watch video. So, it wants to get same type of information for the text-based pages for ranking that particular video uploaded by you. It can be an easy way to achieve SEO if you will include transcript as text for video because search engines has the capability to crawl through the texts available on website. Along with it, the similar attention should be paid on keywords, page titles and keywords of your business.

Question 11: Which Meta tags matter? 

A: Nowadays, SEO has become a common practice and Meta tags also have changed now but two things are still critical which Meta description is and page title.  Whenever you answer this question, stick with these two options because page title plays crucial role in rank of a website. It is the title which is show on the Search Results page. So, it must also use keyword to get better ranks with the search engine but it should be also attractive so that user wants to have a look on it. The Meta description can’t affect ranking but it has got a great role to play on SERP because it can make the user to click on search result. You should also add that Google has enhanced the length of character limit of the Meta descriptions for around 280 to 320 (no one is sure of the actual limit yet).

Question 12: What is the difference between a do follow and no follow and how are they used? 

A: We don’t want every single webpage to be crawled by search engine and that’s why no follow links exist. So, these links tell the particular search engine not to follow the link at all. The user can definitely click that link but it won’t be followed by bot ever. All other links can be called dofollow links whether they have or don’t have special attributes to ask search engines to follow them because the bot will follow them default.

Question 13: Which SEO factors are not in your control? 

A: Google can’t be in your control and no one knows how Google ranks the websites. The company hasn’t revealed about the search algorithm in details to others, it use to rank the different websites available on the platform. SEO specialists have become able to find out best ways to get the best results. Google never likes new websites which haven’t been tried by users and you have no control on it. So, you can’t force people for link building, sharing your content and spend time on your website. Google have a look on the various factors before ranking a website and marketing department work hard to create content which can provide best user experience along with SEO results.

Question 14: What is on page vs. off page SEO?

A: When it comes to SEO, there are two major factors to rank the keywords wich are on-page and off-page activities. On-page SEO contains page structure, content, keywords, internal linking, loading time and much more. Off-page SEO contains factors which contains the backlinks to your website from other 3^rd party website such as classifieds, blogs, business listing, social media sites and much more.

Question 15: What are some black hat SEO practices to avoid? 

A: You will not interview with the company which supports any black SEO practices but it can be a tricky question for you so that they can know that you won’t use them. Copying content from another site, cloaking, keyword stuffing, hiding text, buying links and using link farm are different techniques which are penalized by the search engine.

Question 16: What is the relationship between SEO and SEM?

A: The main difference between SEO and SEM is, SEO is organic and SEM is paid service. SEO means Search Engine Optimization while SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. The main difference between these two is display ads and click advertising that are being purchased. They work best together even with the existence of this difference between them.

Question 17: What qualities are required in order to be effective in an SEO role, in your opinion? 

A: You need to give subjective answer for this question but you also want to think through the various sets which are necessary to get this job. Every SEO professional should have research skills along analytical skills. Expert should have ability to check about the latest trends and get adapted with the changes. You can consider your own strengths as SEO expert in this answer.

These SEO interview questions are totally aimed towards professionals who have got experience of a year. You can establish your career in SEO digital marketing but you definitely need a certification but not necessarily reputed track record. Now, you can read advanced SEO interview questions.

If you are applying for the job of SEO specialist or analyst, then you should check these advanced interview questions given below because you might not be asked the beginner level questions covered in the above topic. here are the some  of the Advanced SEO Interview Questions and Answers …

Question 1: What training do you have as an SEO analyst or specialist? 

A: This question can be answered by only you but remember that you emphasize on your experience and you can tell about your advanced SEO training.

Question 2: What kind of analytics do you perform and what do you look for? 

A: Here you can talk about tools which you basically use for analytics, you can tell what you look for and how you can use these metrics to find out the best results and then make changes which can bring best SEO results.

Question 3: Which SEO analytics don’t get enough attention, in your opinion? 

A: You can answer this question according to your experience and there can be number of features of Google analytics which are not known by the people. The people might not be able use it or they can get into details without looking towards the bigger picture and they might neglect analytics towards SEO strategy. Always stay prepared to answer this question but answer as it can fit.

Question 4: What is keyword stemming and why does it matter? 

A: Keyword stemming refers to addition on stem of word. If word interview is your stem, then other variations can be interviewer, interviewing, interviews and many more. With keyword stemming, you can use relevant keywords without stuffing keywords and creating poor content in the end.

Question 5: What is the most important thing to look for when doing keyword research? 

A: People who are beginners to SEO might focus on popular keywords while considering competitiveness of the keywords. Relevancy and search volume are other factors which you can mention in this answer.

Question 6: What is a canonical issue? 

A: The canonical issue happens when you have duplicate content on your website and Google charges penalty for it. If you have different URL versions which point to same webpage like http://exampleURL.com and http://www.exampleURL.com.

Question 7: How have you dealt with link penalties? 

A: It is better that you don’t get penalties by Google due to SEO efforts and you have to make it clear with the interviewer. So, you can tell about the steps which you took to find out the bad links and fix them or disavow them completely.

Question 8: Which webmaster tools do you use and why?

A: These days, Google provide various tools and here you can demonstrate your knowledge to use and work with the tools.

Question 9: What is Google’s preferred method of configuring a mobile site?

A: Google uses responsive web design to configure mobile site.

Question 10: What are rich snippets? 

A: The featured texts which appear on top of organic search results are known as rich snippets which come with image also. Webmasters can use this structured data to make content so that search engine can identify type of content and then deliver it as rich snippet. These snippets can’t be considered as a part of SEO but they can definitely deliver best results on SERPs if used in best manner.

Question 11: Why do you need to know about backlinks to competitors’ websites? 

A: By making analyzation of competitors’ website, one can execute the best competitive analysis to check if they are doing something new and different.

Question 12: What is a link audit and why should you do one?

A: It is an audit of links that are pointing to your website and backlinks. SEO experts have to ensure that external links are of high quality to ensure better SEO results.

Question 13: What are the latest Google updates that have impacted SEO?

A: Penguin and Panda are the two significant updates of Google but the search giant keep making changes through the search algorithm. Panda targets poor quality of content and Penguin update targets spam link building techniques. Both are being updated by Google from time to time.

 Question 14: How has Hummingbird changed the landscape of search?

A: It was released in the year 2013 and helped to search in contextual manner as it has helped to move away from strict rules to keywords to understand the intent of searcher.

Question 15: What are accelerated mobile pages (AMP)?

A: AMP is mainly Google-back project for pushing pages which might load on mobile devices in faster speed.

Question 16: How do you stay up-to-date on the near-constant search algorithm changes?

A: You can answer this question based on sources for which you depend on for the Google news and up-to-date SEO.

Question 17: How will you measure success as an SEO analyst or specialist at our organization?

A: This should be subjective answer and you should stay prepared by answering it along with showing the way you understand role of SEO in bigger picture. You can tell about your business goals and way to achieve these goals for driving best results by winning more searches.

These are some of the main SEO interview questions suggested for the professionals who have got three years of experience as SEO expert and analyst. If you want to head towards the direction of management, then you can continue to read these SEO interview questions given below basically for executives and managers.

If you are giving interview for SEO executive or manager post, then you can definitely expect various field related questions. You should be known with the basics of SEO along with other aspects like digital marketing, content marketing, strategy, analytics, website optimization and much more. It would be very nice if you will be able to establish and achieve goals for the company by leading team of web developers and copywriters. Here you will fine SEO interview Questions & Answers Guide for Students and SEO Professionals

Question 1: What are some common SEO mistakes you’ve seen in other organizations? 

A: This can be easy question for you to answer if you are an experienced SEO manager or executive. You can tell about errors of using wrong keywords and not able to maintain with the Google changes, ignoring analytics, forget to optimize for mobile and you can also mention your own ideas to it.

Question 2: What is RankBrain and why does it matter? 

A: It is a part of Google’s search algorithm and it is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system which is used to work on various web pages to determine which has got best relevant results related to the new keywords. You can’t find a way to optimize your website for RankBrain but you can focus on the quality of your content. RankBrain is about lesser keywords and high content quality/

Question 3: What is PageRank and why does it matter? 

A: PageRank is mainly about credibility and it is used to rank pages of your website. It is determined by the age of your age and the quality of content. Number of inbound links and amount of content also determines Page Rank.

Question 4: How do you use content marketing for SEO?

A: Content marketing is very important in order to have effective SEO as search engine looks for high quality content. It can help you to create content to which other websites can also link to. Content marketing can be done through blog but you can create content in different forms like video, info graphics, eBooks, podcasts etc.

Question 5: How do you use social media marketing for SEO?

A: It is not known that up to which level social media marketing can affect SEO but it still matter a lot. It can help you to get back links whenever you share the content of website through social media platforms and it can help you to build your brand. This can help you to get more clicks on search results page.

Question 6: How do you see SEO and PPC working together to improve results?

A: You can answer this interview question based on your experience in this field. You can mention some things like use of PCC to drive traffic on website while waiting for the WebPages to get optimized for SEO to begin ranking. We have to use PPC tools if you don’t have keyword research tools. PPC is a great way to try out keyword before using it for SEO.

Question 7: What is your approach to developing an SEO strategy?

A: Now again, you can answer this question based on your experience in this field. You can mention the factors like short, long term goals, understanding the target audience and knowledge about the competitive landscape. You should also tell about how will you go and develop the strategy which can be unique for you as an SEO expert.

Question 8: How do you evaluate web analytics to measure SEO performance?

A: To answer this question, you can talk about you can will use Google web analytics in order to do direct navigations, conversions, number of visits, time on page and referral traffic etc. You can tell how you will interpret all the data and information to measure the SEO planning effectiveness.

Question 9: What’s your greatest digital marketing success story?

A: This is an advanced level of SEO questions with which we can help you. You have to ready to answer this question with using hard data by adding credibility in your own success story.

Question 10: What is your experience with managing a marketing or SEO team?  

A: We can’t help you with this question but you will need to talk about your experience as a manager as you are giving interview for SEO manager or executive job.

Question 11: Explain Google’s projected plan for indexes in 2018.  

A: Google will have two indexes among which one is for desktop searches while other one is for mobile searches and both would be beneficial for the website developers.

Question 12: What is Hummingbird? 

A: Hummingbird was released in the year 2013 and it was an overhaul of Google’s search algorithm. It aims to understand the intent of searcher along with moving beyond keywords.

Question 13: Why do internal links matter? 

A: Internal links are the links in your website which are linked to another page of your own website. So, these internal links can be helpful for all of your website content to get ranked and crawled by search engine crawler.

Question 14: What is Domain Authority? 

A: Domain Authority is a kind of search engine rank score which is developed by Moz. It can make the prediction about how well a website can rank in search results.

Question 15: How do you stay current with Google’s changes as well as industry changes? 

A: In order to answer this question, you have to talk about the blogs, newsletters followed by you and you should talk about the well-known and famous SEO websites like SearchEngineLand, Moz but you can also include other ones which you have found beneficial with your work.

Question 16: How do you see SEO changing in the near future?

A: The answer to this question is quite subjective and you won’t be on fault if your predictions will be wrong in future because this is just an interview. It is necessary that you give answer after thinking properly about it. You can discuss about the indexes which will be used by Google in future and how it will affect SEO of mobile. You can tell about the importance of it in order to impart best user experience. Local search is also a great topic to talk about and you can check what pundits are saying about it before answering SEO questions.

First of all, you have to prove if you are using SEO in your work also, otherwise no one would believe your answers. In your LinkedIn profile or your professional blog, you should write your resume along with website for personal branding in a professional manner.

Whether you are trying to answer basic or advanced level of SEO questions, you definitely need to upgrade your skills. If you are interested in enhancing your SEO skill, then you can go for Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Certification training which is provided by 360EduKraft. We have designed our advanced SEO training in order to provide full knowledge about the concepts, techniques and tools of Search engine optimization. You can master the procedure of driving traffic on your website. By mastering keyword research, link building, on and off-page optimization, SEO analytics and URL management, you can work as one of the best professionals.

Whether you want to work on beginner level or manager level, you need in-depth knowledge of SEO to work in this field.  So, you can ready to show your knowledge by answering interview questions related to SEO by staying prepared for future. Just make sure that you get full training to become skilled professional in this field.

Find our Advanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Certification Program Online Classroom training classes in top cities: