These days, whenever a question pops up in our minds, the first thing that most of us will do is an online search and by that, we open one of the search engines, for example, Google, Bing, etc. It is already such a strong habit that most of us cannot even imagine life without a search engine. We are used to the fact, that the information we are looking for is only one click away.
At the same time, somewhere in the “background”, a real fight is going on. It is a digital marketing fight. These days, every website wants to be on one first page and one of the fastest and the most efficient ways to achieve that is through Search Engine Optimization (so-called “SEO”).
If you want to become an SEO Expert or if you have already an SEO interview scheduled and now you are wondering what questions to expect, don’t worry. We have prepared a list of SEO interview questions and answers which will help you to be better prepared.
Table of Contents
SEO Interview Questions and Answers
What is SEO and what does it stand for?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it a process to improve a website’s rank in search engine results and the visibility of your content. SEO is one of the best ways to get quantity and quality of web traffic through organic search or unpaid direct traffic.
Why do businesses need SEO?
Nowadays, every business is either already online or in the process to move online. Everyone wants their products to be visible in top search results. If your website/product, will show up on the first page of any search engine results, then most likely the customer will come to your website. The interesting fact is that, according to the research, only around 30% of people click on the first search result. Most of the people, put more trust in results popping up on the next positions (but still on the first page).
Why is SEO so important?
As per Google, there are 70,000 searches every second and 53% of all traffic comes from organic search. Another interesting fact is that 1/3 of the customers search for a local business every single day! This is why online marketing is so important. This is why every business should be available also online and, finally, this is why it is very important to provide users the information which they are looking for exactly when they need it.
SEO is a combination of different elements that make your website visible to users (who are basically your potential customers). In other words, we can say that SEO gives an opportunity to make a “normal” user – your customer. SEO helps to establish a relationship with your customers, strengthen their loyalty, build your brand image and finally, become a leader in your field/industry. As you can see, the list of SEO benefits is long.
What a search engine is?
A search engine is software that uses the World Wide Web to search the user’s query and provide the information back. There are many popular search engines but the most popular ones are Google, Yahoo, Bing. So basically their bots go through all the website pages, collect the information on these pages, and put them in the search results.
Why are search engines so important?
Search engine helps a user to filter the whole content which is available on the Internet and, in a blink of an eye, find the information which they are looking for. Without a search engine, it is not possible to find the right information (unless you know what you are looking for and you know the exact website address). Going even further, we can assume that without search engines, the Internet wouldn’t be usable. And as per statics, people run around 3.5 billion searches every day! All of them thanks to the search engines.
You can also find what is trending today on Google Trends about how many searches in a geo region for one topic. It is worth checking. Sometimes the results can really surprise!
Can you name some of the search engines?
The top 10 search engines are:
- Google (www.google.com)
- Microsoft Bing (www.bing.com)
- Yahoo (www.yahoo.com)
- Baidu (www.baidu.com)
- Yandex (yandex.com)
- DuckDuckGo (duckduckgo.com)
- com (www.ask.com)
- Ecosia (www.ecosia.org)
- com (www.aol.com)
- Internet Archive (archive.org)
Must Read Search Engine Marketing Interview Questions
What does www stand for?
Www stands for the World Wide Web (or simply the Web).
Where did you learn to do SEO?
In the beginning, it is always hard to find resources. In my case, it was not different. I researched the resources which are highly recommended and leaders in the market, for example, Google forums, moz.com, ahref.com, and searchengineland.com. Some of the resources we are sharing in the links below:
- SEO Starter Guide was written by Google
- Google Webmaster Guidelines
- Google Webmaster Blog
- Microsoft Toolkit
What is a domain?
The domain is a string address that is mapped to an IP address and used to access the website from the user’s software. For example, nowadays almost everyone knows google.com, and yes it is easy to remember but it will be much harder to remember Google IP address (which is 216.58.209.14).
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is a service thanks to which a hosting company can provide you with a web server so that you can store there your files, website data, etc.
In simple words, hosting companies buy big and expensive computers which are set up to work for an application or a website on the Internet. When a user buys web hosting, he is provided with a shared (or standalone) computer. It is also worth mentioning that all the tools to manage your application (or website) are provided by a hosting company.
What is a keyword?
In digital marketing, a keyword is a word or a group of words that a user uses to search in the search engines. For example, if you go to Google and type “red shoes”, the “red shoes” will be considered as a keyword to provide the relevant search results.
What is a long-tail keyword?
Long-tail keywords are keywords that have multiple-word phrases. They are usually longer than the normal keywords. Long-tail keywords have less traffic and less competition but have a very high conversion value.
For more information, we encourage you to check Ahref website.
What techniques do you use to do the keyword research?
The following steps are involved in the keyword research:
- Make a list of all the important topics which are relevant to your business/website.
- Research the related terms (they can be easily found at the end of the first search result page of Google).
- Use the keyword tools like Ahref, Google AdWords, SEMrush, Ubersugest or other.
- Check the keyword difficulty.
- Check the long-tail keywords.
- Analyze what your main competitors are ranking on.
- Use Google keyword planner.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks are ahref links that are given from one website to a page on another website. In general, pages with high-quality backlinks tend to have more traffic.
What is Dofollow?
Dofollow links are HTLM attributes that allow the search bots to follow the links. Dofollow is the default state for a link. What it means in practice and why are they so important? In fact, Google, which is the biggest search engine, evaluates the quality of your website (among others) based on the number of Dofollow links that you have. In general, the more Dofollow links you have, the better.
Not all the Dofollow links have the same value though. What you really need are the Dofollow links from high-traffic websites. One Dofollow link from a really good and recognized website can make your website a success in just a couple of hours.
What is the Nofollow link?
A Nofollow link can be defined by the opposition to a Dofollow link. As we already mentioned in the question above, a Dofollow link is a default state for a link. A Nofollow link will include a special attribute (rel=“nofollow”) which tells the search bots not to follow the link. Nofollow links will not increase your website rankings. Links from blog discussions, forums, social media, etc. are usually No-follow links.
It is also worth realizing that an average user will not be able to distinguish a Dofollow from a Nofollow link. At the first sight, they look exactly the same.
What is guest posting?
A guest posting, also called “guest blogging”, is a service of writing content on request, for another website (or a business). Basically, we talk here about the situation, when an author writes a post for someone else’s website. Most often, “guest bloggers,” write content for several websites at the same time but usually they stick to one field or industry only which becomes their “specialty”.
What are the advantages of using guest posting services?
- Regular, unique, and quality content
- Web traffic increase
- SERP ranking increase
- Domain authority increase
- Brand recognition increase
- Building relationships with customers
What is SERP?
SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. In practice, this is a page in which a search engine in reply to a user’s search query. However, if we take a closer look such a page contains much more than organic (user’s) search results: paid ads, direct answer box, featured snippets, “People also ask” box (so-called “PAA” box), etc.
What is Indexing?
Have you ever wondered how it is possible that any search engine can return the search results to your query in just a couple of seconds? How it is possible that such a tremendous amount of websites gets checked in search for your information in, literally, a blink of an eye? Well, it happens thanks to Indexing. Indexing is a process through which the search engines organize the information to make the search queries as fast as possible. In consequence, if your website is not indexed (not in the search engine database), it will not be displayed in users’ search results.
In order to get indexed on Google, place an indexing request through Google Search Console. Usually, Google takes a couple of days (but in some cases a couple of weeks) to index a website, so be patient.
What are heading tags?
In HTML, there are 6 levels of headings (starting from the highest): H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. H1 (Heading 1) is the highest and it usually represents the title. The heading tags indicate the heading on a webpage. Why it is worth using them? Firstly, they help to logically structure and organize your content. Secondly, the heading tags tell a browser how to display your webpage content, so that it is easier for a user to read it and navigate. And finally, the usage of headings can boost your SEO.
Search engines scan the headings in search of the keywords. The more specific your headings are, the more chances you have to increase the traffic and visibility of your website.
What is “Google Suggest” or “Autocomplete”?
“Google suggests” and “Autocomplete” refer to the same. This is Google functionality that provides suggestions for the users in the moment of typing a search query in a search box – see the screenshot below:
What are Social Signals?
In order to return to the users the most relevant search results, search engines use different ranking signals and with their help evaluate the website’s relevance. Social signals are one of these signals. These are metrics measuring the interactions between the people: shares, votes, comments, etc. Just not to cause any confusion, social signals are not counted in backlinks and will not directly impact your page rank but still, they can help to build and, later, reinforce the authority, popularity, and user’s engagement.
Must read Social Media Interview Questions
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social Bookmarking is a service allowing users to save a webpage, article, blog post, videos, etc., so that it is easier to find them and visit them again in the future. It is an online alternative for traditional browser bookmarks. The most popular Social Bookmarking tools are:
- Twitter (www.twitter.com)
- Pinterest (www.pinterest.com)
- Reddit (www.reddit.com)
- Digg (www.digg.com)
- Pocket (www.getpocket.com)
What is domain authority?
The Domain Authority (DA) is used to describe the website’s relevance or, in other words, how it is ranked in the search engines. There are many domain authority checking tools available (online and free) – you can use them to check the DA score of your website – but know that different tools may use slightly different algorithms. Without any doubt, the most popular is Moz (by the way, this is Moz who invented the term “Domain Authority” itself!).
Other SEO Interview Questions
What is link equity?
What is link building process?
What is page speed and does it matter for SEO?
How to make your website search engine friendly?
Do categories help SEO?
Will blogging help SEO?
Will HTTPS affect SEO?
What are breadcrumbs?
Which is better, SEO or PPC?
Which is better, SEO or SEM?
Where do I put my SEO keywords?
Are SEO meta tags important?
What is robots.txt?
Which SEO techniques are popular?
What is on-page SEO?
Is SEO dead?
Where will SEO go this year?
How is SEO changing?
Where do I start my SEO strategy?
What are SEO backlinks?
What is link equity?
What is link building?
Internal vs. external links: What’s the difference?
How do I build links?
What is anchor text?
What is broken link building?
Will redirects affect SEO?
Please let us know if you have some SEO interview questions and answers which can help other candidates to clear the interview.
very nice for interview preparation
Nice i really enjoyed reading your blogs. Keep on posting. Thanks
Very informative SEO interview questions.