Everything Covered For SEO Interview Questions And Answers 2021

If you are about to walk on the progressive path of your career by appearing for an SEO executive interview, then we have something useful for you. While going for the interview, the first thing that bothers you is that what will be the SEO interview questions and discussions that you need to prepare yourself with. SEO questions and answers that you face are the deciding factors to get the desired job or not; thus, it’s better to prepare beforehand.

To aid you in your interview process, we have created a wholesome set of 50 SEO interview questions and answers that helps you get through the interview with starring results. So let’s proceed with the questions.

What do you understand by SEO?

SEO is the technique of boosting the traffic’s quantity and excellence under the organic search results. SEO is found to improve the website’s visibility and increase the business’s online visibility up to more than 90%.

Organic search results are more reliable than paid results. Thus SEO brings more prosperity to the business if your website is incorporated with the right keywords and diverts potential traffic to your website.

How will you state the meaning of search engines in more straightforward terms?

The world wide web is filled with enormous databases and sites linked to particular keywords or characters that the user specifies. A search engine is a module that identifies the items in the database according to the keywords and characters mentioned by the users and displays the most relevant databases in front of the user based on diverse factors.

What are the search engines you would prefer to use other than Google?

Google is one of the most common and reliable search engines globally, although other search engines can give you good results. This search engine list includes Bing, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo, OneSearch, Startpage.com, Qwant, and many more.

One more popular search engine displays view searches only and are the second among the top search engines, i.e., YouTube.

Web Crawling: What does it mean?

The search engine bots or spider bots that crawl over the websites for indexing are known as web crawling. Crawlers are the hyperlinks directly linked to visit other pages, documents, and contents and bring back the necessary information to the web servers for indexing.

As soon as the crawler visits the page, it makes an identical copy of the page and adds it to the URL for indexing. Thus, the more fresh content you will deliver, the more times your site will be crawled.

State the importance of SEO in large and small businesses.

While using a search engine, people barely refer to the second search engine page displayed on Google. People generally prefer the first page to refer to the contents they wish to seek information for. If not considered by your website, the first page of SERP will be ruled by your competitors, making you suffer in the business and divert all organic traffic to your competitors. 

SEO will curtail the possibility of the traffic diverting to your competitors by helping you to display your website on the first search engine page of Google. If you want your business to attain successful results in the online world, it is essential to have a well-optimized website.

Who are the founders of Google, in which year was Google founded?

The names of the founders of Google are Page and Sergey Brin, who were Ph.D. students registered at Stanford University in California. It was in the year 1998 that they introduced the concept of search engine and founded Google together.

Describe the ranking factors of Google used for search engine optimization.

The most fundamental ranking characteristics of Google are:

• The integrity of the content
• Quality and relevant backlinks
• Mobile flexibility
• Speed of the page
• Strength of brand and domain
• Optimum user experience
• Technical SEO
• The uniqueness of the content
• Schema Code
• HTTPS
• Authority of the Domain
• Type and Depth of the content 

What does Google Sandbox mean?

It is an estimated theory that the new websites are halting when stored inside a box and cannot rank well for the most important keywords. The idea is further processed as Google needs time to let this website out of this imaginary area. This entire concept is known as Google Sandbox Effect.

This effect is expected to cause the building of numerous links in a short time.

What do you understand by Google Autocomplete?

Using a search engine like Google, as you start typing in the search boxes, Google tries to complete the topic you are about to insert, giving you a wide range of search engine results. This Google feature is Google Autocomplete.

The results of the Autocomplete are based on the popular searches and search history of the user. The feature is of great use for mobile users as it saves time and makes the user’s job relatively more manageable.

What do you mean by Domain Authority?

It is a Metric formulated by MOZ. This metric gel the user to comprehend the possibility of the ranking. The range of the order of Domain Authority or DA is from 1 to 100 and ranked as a more excellent score implies better results.

The metric plays a vital role in SEO as it helps to understand the website’s integrity and compare the same with other sites.

Differentiate between organic results and paid results.

Organic and paid results are both the types of search results in SERP, i.e., Search Engine Result Page based on the relevance, quality, and keywords. 

 The organic result is the unpaid results that appear in search results based on various ranking factors. These results are also known as “natural results” or “free results.” Organic results appear below the paid results. Therefore, these results can’t be manipulated by payment options but can be improved only by improving the ranking factors.

Paid results are the advertisers’ results to get their ads displayed above the organic search results. Paid results don’t demand website optimization to raise the content rank; instead, this position is decided as per the Max CPC and quality score. A more excellent quality score implies less money to be paid.

How will you define a domain?

The domain name is the word or phrase given to the search results. The user can’t remember a string of numbers and characters; instead, it’s straightforward to remember the words or phrases. It is a part of the address and works as a descriptor to reach your desired search results.

What do you understand by web hosting?

To display your website on the search engine results page, you need to have access to space on which your website will be visible. Web hosting is the access to such space provided by the web hosting companies where you can build your website. When visitors type the domain name, their devices will connect to the servers, and pages will be displayed.

How many components are there is a URL? What are those?

URL is the abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator. It mainly has five components which can be stated as under:

• Protocol: It is the method used to process the URL in HTTP, HTTPS, etc.
• Domain: It is the domain name to which you wish to reach out.
• Path: The folder and the path of the website’s page to which you need to reach.
• Query Strings: These are the parameters for the dynamic data.
• Hash: It finds the specific section of the webpage to which you need to go.

How will you describe White Hat in SEO?

The process that helps you improve your search engine rank following the guidelines of search engine rank by following the guidelines of search engines without compromising on the methods.

This process doesn’t involve manipulating search engines with shady methods; instead, of building a search engine-friendly website and delivering a better user experience.

What is Black Hat SEO?

The process that manipulates the techniques and search engine algorithms to improve search engine rankings is Black hat SEO. It doesn’t follow the search engine guidelines. Instead, it is found to deliver immediate results without any delay.

How will you explain domain extension?

You might have seen a notation found at the end of the web addresses. This notation is referred to as the domain extension. The extension is used to specify the country code or any web category.

What do you mean by indexing?

The crawling process follows the process of indexing during the search. Google uses this crawling process to collect relevant pages to the search queries and generates the index that comprises specific words or search terminologies and their respective location.

What do you understand by On-Page SEO?

All activities performed within the websites to get better and higher rankings along with more relevant traffic from the search engine is called on-page SEO.

It is directly related to the optimization of contents and the HTML source code of any web page. Some essential aspects include meta tags, title tags, meta description, etc.

How will you state Off-Page SEO?

Off-Page SEO is the additional aspect of the search engine ranking of websites that influence the search engine result page. It refers to all the promotional activities such as content marketing, social media, and other external links that help in boosting the search engine ranking.

Explain the process of internal linking

The process of delivering hyperlinks on the web pages that connect to the same domain or, in other words, can redirect you from one page to another is called the process of internal linking.

State the importance of SEO quality backlinks.

In SEO, Google doesn’t give much importance to the random backlinks, but the quality backlinks have a special place in Google SEO. Google assesses the quality of backlinks and their relative relevance found in the content of both pages.

The greater the relevance between both the pages, the greater becomes the quality of the backlinks. This brings more referral traffic to the website resulting in improved ranking on the webpage.

What are the most important ranking factors of Google?

According to the Google search engine Strategists, the top Google search engine ranking factors are

• Content
• Backlinks
• RankBrain

Describe 404 errors.

404 errors are among the most potential impediments that halt the way of successful SEO. For example, when a specific URL is renamed or becomes non-existent, any links connected to the URL will result in 404 errors.

Although Google doesn’t identify the reason behind 404 errors, and if this continues, the SEO ranking of the links is more likely to drop considerably.

How will you define social networking?

The practice of expanding the number of business or social contacts by making connections through individuals related to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ is called Social Networking. 

Define Google Algorithm.

The set of commands or orders written to feedback with search results relevant to the queries or specific assertions is called the Google algorithm.

It does the entire work for you by searching out the web pages that contain the keywords you have asked to search, then assign a rank to each page based on diverse factors. Which include how many times the keywords appear on the page, the quality of the page, and other such relevant factors.

How will you explain competitive analysis?

Competitive analysis is the most significant part of your company’s marketing plan. It is a detailed study analysis in the marketing strategy; Strategic management scrutinizes the strengths and weaknesses of the current potential competitors. This analysis works in both offensive and defensive strategic planning and determines the opportunities and threats.

How do you identify whether the number of keywords on the content page is right or wrong?

No specific way to know whether the number of keywords on the page is correct or not. All you can do is check the words that your competitors have used and their respective densities. And if Google has ranked them on a higher number, they must have the right amount of keyword density. Then, you can take these assets as references and work on your page accordingly. Fail to use these keywords does not get you the desired rank, and increasing the keyword density might result in the unnecessary stuffing of the keywords.

What facet gets ranked in Google?

Many might misunderstand the question and answer as the websites, but it’s not the websites that get ranked; it’s the web pages that get indexed by Google. Although, the domain plays a significant role in the ranking of the pages that get ranked.

How will you state the importance of the keyword?

The set of words are phrases that are used by the searches in the search related to the website contents are known as keywords. These are also stated as search queries.

Google quickly analyzes the entire content, images, meta description, etc., of the content on your web page and determines the topics of the page and specific keywords used regularly on the page which relate to the keyword posed in the search bar.

How will you define XML Sitemap?

XML is the abbreviation of Extensible Markup Language, which is primarily created to facilitate the functionality of the search engines. An effective search engine sitemap instructs the search engines regarding the number of pages on the particular website, its frequency updates, and the last modifications performed on them, which helps them precise indexing of the website by search engines.

What do you understand by doorway pages?

The web pages or websites that are developed to raise the ranking when specific search queries are entered are called doorway pages. These are also known as portal pages, Gateway pages, or entry pages.

What do you know about Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is among those empowering SEO Analytics tool that helps the webmasters to track and monitor the traffic on their website. It was launched in 2005, has been a robust tool to track the potential traffic to the website.

State the benefits of using Google Analytics in brief?

Google Analytics is a web service available for free, and it provides certain basic service features without any premium service demand investment. However, the most significant advantage of using Google Analytics is that it can be integrated with other Google products such as public data Explorer and Google AdWords.

Is Directory Submission a suitable option?

When any web address or site is listed with the relevant details over various web directories under a specific category is termed as directory submission in SEO.

For the past few years, the directories and their functions are no longer seen as they used to be. They are no longer a reliable option to get thousands of links on your side so you can game Google. These are only valuable and reliable options if used carefully.

How will you explain Press Release submission?

When you draft a press release and submit it to the practical and popular PR or Press Release sites to build incoming links to a specific website, it is termed as Press Release submission.

Online databases of the press release remained there forever, which means they could be used anytime by anyone irrespective of time.

Explain the working of Classified Ads?

A particular type of advertisement that is particularly common for newspaper online and other periodicals sold or distributed for free of charge is termed as a Classified Ad.

These are pretty affordable and accessible to businesses to bring in more prosperity.

State the meaning of Forum Posting.

When the user tries to interact, connect, write, or engage the audience with the post on the forum thread, leaving a casual response to the specific thread or post to a user on the same line is called Forum Posting.

State the purpose of Social Networking.

In simple terms, Social Networking is the act of boosting the number of business and social contacts by making connections with the individuals involved in various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and a lot more.

State the importance of page speed along with its comprehensive meaning.

As the name suggests, page speed is when the site page is loaded for the user. It is one of the factors that Google takes into account while ranking the page. Google ranking enhances the user experience, and better page speed will boost the user experience and potential traffic on the page.

Are SEO and SEM related?

SEO deals with optimization of the websites and web pages, while SEM is related to the marketing of the web pages and websites. The most significant difference that distinguishes both is that SEO is free, while you have to pay-per-click for SEM. However, despite the difference, they can result in brilliant outcomes if worked together.

What are the skills necessary for an executive SEO?

An SEO executive must have good research and strong analytics skills to manage the task effectively. In addition, the expertise to spot the trends and adapt to the changes instantly is essential for an SEO executive.

State the essential factors to look for when doing keyword

research.

People who are unaware of the facets of SEO tend to focus only on the keywords without considering the competitive environment of the keyword. However, other factors also play a vital role in keyword research: search volume and relevancy.

How can you explain Blog Commenting? State its types as well.

The connection developed between the blogs, bloggers, and blog readers are called blog commenting. Adding comments to the blog post with relevant backlinks to the website to exchange ideas and thoughts and attract traffic to the website is the Blog Commenting process.

Two well-known types of Blog Commenting are

1. Automated Blog Commenting 
2. Manual Blog Commenting

What do the HTML frames do?

The work of HTML frames is to divide the content of the page into multiple parts. It allocates your browser window into assorted segments where each segment can load a diverse HTML document. The aggregation of the HTML pages creates a significant impact on the SEO of your website.

Can you state some of the reports in Google Analytics?

The reports of Google Analytics can be stated in the points under,

• Mobile Performance Report
• Report of Content Efficiency 
• Traffic accession Report
• New vs. Returning website visitors
• Landing pages Report
• Bounce vs. Exit rate Report
• Keyword Analysis Report

What do you mean by AMP?

An open-source project that looks after the readability and speed of the pages on mobile devices is called AMP. It delivers easy readability to mobile carriers and also allows them to load faster.

How will you explain SEO hygiene?

For allowing the company to grow, SEO hygiene plays a significant role. Once you have implemented this, the site will experience better rankings, enhanced credibility, and improved brand awareness.

What is Google Search Console?

It is free services that enable you to maintain and evaluate your website’s performance in the search results. In addition, it allows you to identify and rectify the issues of your webpage.

What do you understand by Mobile-First Indexing?

When Google uses the mobile version of the content for indexing, it is called Mobile-First. This means that if there are two URLs for a single page, one from mobile and the other Desktop, then mobile URLs will be displayed to mobile users and vice versa.

Final Words

So what are you waiting for? Start with your executive SEO interview questions and give your best shot in the interview. Grab the opportunity and take your career to a higher place with these SEO interview questions and answers.