To start with, what is SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization, a digital marketing strategy that optimizes your website to get organic traffic from the search engine results page.
Below are the top 25 SEO Interview Questions and Answers. Also, sample answers provided should guide you on how to answer the questions.
1. Why Are You Interested In This Role?
After I learned that there was an opening for SEO Specialist position in your company, I was motivated to apply for this job since it fits me best because it is my profession. I majored in advertising and search engines, which is what I have been doing at the time of my career. I want to use my skills and knowledge to better your business in terms of advertisement. In addition, I have always dreamt of getting a job like this after I have completed my university studies and internship program. Lastly, I would also like to grow more in my career by learning from you. I believe I have a long way to go, so I should grow my skills and knowledge by learning from your company.
2. What Are The Roles Of an SEO Specialist?
The topmost roles and responsibilities of SEO Specialists are;
- Develop optimization strategies that increase the company’s website search engine results rankings
- When conducting paid search campaigns, the SEO Specialist will execute tests, collect and analyze data and results, and identify trends and insights to achieve maximum ROI
- Manage the expenses of SEO campaigns, stay on budget, estimate monthly costs, and reconcile differences
- Closely collaborate with the web development team to ensure SEO best practices are properly followed throughout the website content
- Work with editorial and marketing teams to drive SEO in content creation and content marketing
- Take responsibility for page optimization for search engine marketing
- Perform ongoing keyword research, discovery, and optimization for new SEO keywords to use throughout the company website and marketing materials
- Research and implement search engine optimization recommendations
3. What Are The Top Google Ranking Factors That Matters A Lot To SEO?
- High-quality content.
- Mobile-first.
- Page Experience.
- Page speed
- On-page optimization.
- Internal links.
- External links.
4. Define The Following Keywords; Keyword Frequency, Keyword Density, Keyword Difficulty, And Keyword Proximity
- Keyword frequency – Keyword frequency is how often a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a webpage or in a piece of content. It is important to limit how many times a keyword or phrase appears on a webpage to avoid the potential of appearing as spam or getting flagged in Google for ‘keyword stuffing.
- Keyword difficulty – Keyword difficulty is an important element that marketers consider when they need to find the best keywords to rank for. It’s a metric that tells them how much SEO effort it might take to be at the top of the SERPs.
- Keyword density – Keyword density is a foundational concept of search engine optimization (SEO). It’s important to understand how keyword density works since it can directly impact your site content’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and the costs of your online marketing campaigns.
- Keyword proximity –The keyword proximity refers to the distance between the search term’s keywords.
5. What Is Page Speed, And Why Does It Matter?
Page speed is important to users because faster pages are more efficient and provide a much better on-page user experience. Per a recent Kissmetricsinfographic, if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, over a quarter of users will click away and choose a different search result. Pages with a longer load time tend to have higher bounce rates and lower page average times. Longer load times have also been shown to affect conversions negatively. Page speed is crucial for SEO since
Core Web Vitals assess a website’s loading, interactivity, and visual stability of content, with the overall score influencing your ranking. This is why page load speed is a confirmed ranking factor, both on desktop and mobile sites.
6. Give Five Factors That Affect The Speed Of A Website
- Heavy CSS and JavaScript Use. The common culprits with sluggish websites are CSS and JavaScript files that add functionality and styling to your site’s front end.
- Bad Server/Hosting
- Poor Coding Standards
- Too Many Widgets and Plugins
- Hotlinking.
7. What Are The Main Ways In Which You Can Improve Page Speed
- Optimize your site’s code: Code plays a large role in your site’s performance, especially when it comes to loading time. Be sure to remove irrelevant characters, commas, spaces, and other unnecessary items for quicker load times.
- Allow for compression: Sometimes, users don’t have the connection required to load your web page as-is optimally. With a compression-enabling application, your page can automatically reduce file sizes to load quicker in these instances.
- Use smaller images: We all want that crystal-clear quality, but using smaller images can work wonders for improving page speed. It’s important to find a balance between image quality and image size.
8. Which SEO Factors Are Completely Out Of Your Control?
- Google indexing and Crawling time.
- Competitors activities.
- keywords ranking time.
- spam links ( we can control them using google disavow, but it takes time)
- Page Authority and Domain Authority.
- Google Algorithm Update.
9. What Are The Types Of Search Engine SEO Factors
- On-page SEO: Content, Architecture, HTML – On-page search ranking factors are almost entirely within the publisher’s control. This is also where it’s critical to balance serving the needs of your audience with making your pages search engine friendly.
- Off-page SEO: Reputation, Links, User – Off-page ranking factors are typically out of the creator or publisher’s direct influence. Search engines evaluate reputation, the quality of a site’s backlinks, the user’s geographic location, and many other factors to deliver the most relevant results.
- Toxins – SEO helps search engines provide users with better search results. However, using SEO techniques that aim to manipulate ranking signals to gain an unfair advantage over the competition can backfire.
- Niche SEO
10. What Are The Common SEO Mistakes That One Should Avoid?
- Slow Site Speed
- Bad Reviews on Google
- Faulty Google My Business Verification Code
- Lack of Location-Specific Pages.
- Duplicate Content.
- Broken Images and Missing Alternative Texts.
- Outdated Content and Information on Site.
- Not Optimizing Your Website for Mobile.
11. What Is Rankbrain, And What Is It Used For?
RankBrain is an artificial intelligence system applied to and used with Google’s current search engine algorithms to provide better results to user queries. Your search engine results page (SERP) or the order Google displays results on its search page is depended on several factors. Google uses a trademarked algorithm called PageRank, which assigns each Web page a relevancy score.
12. How Do You Measure SEO Performance And Results?
- Organic Traffic.
- Keyword Ranking.
- SERP Visibility.
- Click-Through Rate.
- Bounce Rate.
- Website Authority Over Time.
- Backlinks.
- Page Speed.
13. What Are The Essential Media Planning Tools?
Several tools are essential for better performance in this field. The few among the many are;
a) Hubspot Media Planning Template
b) Bionic Media Planning Template
c) Kantar SRDS Media Planning Template
d) Media Plan HQ
e) BluHorn
14. Tell Us About Five Main Types Of Media Advertisement That You Know Of
One can use several types of media advertisement for advertising their businesses. These are
a) Television advertising which involves advertising through television and reaching many audiences in one exposure
b) Radio advertising involves advertising through radio stations that reach many listeners locally.
c) Print publication advertising which involves printing adverts on newspapers, magazines, and books that can be read
d) Internet advertising which is nowadays very common where SEO specialists can make adverts through the internet
e) Out-of-home advertising involves placing advertisements on billboards and banners that mostly attract passing-by commuters.
15. Give Us The Considerations That You Would Take When Media Planning.
The main factors I would consider when media planning would be;
a) The target audience
b) What is the market budget
c) Conversion goals
d) Frequency of the message
e) Reach of the message
Those would be the main factors I would consider.
16. Take Us Through The Media Planning Process
This would be the media planning procedure.
a) Determine media goals and objectives
b) Determine the target audience
c) Consider frequency and reach
d) Analyze and optimize campaign performance
These are the main steps that are involved in media planning.
17. Give Examples Of SEO Analytics Tools
- Google Analytics
- Data studio
- Keyword Hero
- Mozcast
- Penguin tool
- Beam Us Up
- Link Redirect Trace
- Quick Click Website Audit
- Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer
- SEOlyzer
18. Give Us The Tips You Would Use When Building A Media Planning Strategy
When creating a media planning strategy, I would ensure that I have a plan to reach as many audiences as possible. Secondly, I would establish clear goals and objectives to guide the process. I would also ensure that there is engagement with customers at all times. Lastly, I would ensure that my team uses the right market attribution models to effectively track offline and online media. Those would form a clear and good media planning strategy.
19. What Are The Benefits Of SEO
- SEO targets quality traffic
- You don’t need to pay for ads in SEO
- SEO helps PR
- SEO gets more clicks than PPC
- You can move ahead of the competition
20. Where Do You See Yourself In The Next 5 Years
First of all, in five years, I want to look at the work that I have done in this industry and feel that I have brought a change. My main focus is increasing sales for our clients by offering the best in the media planning field. Advertisements increase sales hugely, and so we should invest in them. I believe I will have reached as many clients as possible in five years.
21. What Kind Of Working Environment Would Be Best For You?
I always prefer working in a busy environment. Being in a busy environment makes me observe many things that may help me in my career. A busy environment will make me concentrate more on what I am doing and help others do the same.
22. How Would People Around You Describe You?
I believe that most people would refer to me as a creative team player and a person who likes getting knowledge from the internet. I believe that most of the people who know me personally would describe me in that manner.
23. What Are The Main Components Of Technical SEO?
- XML Sitemaps
- Canonical URLs
- Pagespeed
- Mobile-friendliness
- Site structure
- Website security
24. In This Career, What Do You Think Should Help You Determine How Successful Your PPC Advertising Campaign Will Be.
- Keyword Relevance – Crafting relevant PPC keyword lists, tight keyword groups, and proper ad text.
- Landing Page Quality – Creating optimized landing pages with persuasive, relevant content and a clear call-to-action tailored to specific search queries.
- Quality Score – Quality Score is Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of your keywords, landing pages, and PPC campaigns. Advertisers with better Quality Scores get more ad clicks at lower costs.
- Creative – Enticing ad copy is vital, and if you’re advertising on the display network, you can use a tool like our free Smart Ads Creator to create designer-quality ads that will demand clicks.
25. What Should You Do To Optimize Your Campaigns?
- Add PPC Keywords: Expand the reach of your PPC campaigns by adding relevant keywords to your business.
- Add Negative Keywords: Add non-converting terms as negative keywords to improve campaign relevancy and reduce wasted spending.
- Split Ad Groups: Improve click-through rate (CTR) and Quality Score by splitting up your ad groups into smaller, more relevant ad groups, which help you create more targeted ad text and landing pages.
- Review Costly PPC Keywords: Review expensive, under-performing keywords and shut them off if necessary.
- Refine Landing Pages: Modify the content and calls-to-action (CTAs) of your landing pages to align with individual search queries in order to boost conversion rates. Don’t send all your traffic to the same page.
Conclusion
This role involves a lot of knowledge gathering and may educate you so much. You must show creativity in your answers, and you will pass the interview. All the best!
