Here in this section we have given 42 very important Interview Questions and Answers on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and something about SMO, PPC, CMS etc. On another post we will discuss more about SMO (Social Media Optimization and Marketing), Content Management System and PPC (Pay Per Click). These questions you can use to prepare for your interview for SEO. These are some of the most essential questions that are asked in an interview for the post of SEO specialist.
- What is SEO?
Search engine optimization is a technique or a bunch of techniques that are used to boost a website rank in all major search engines. (Enhance the visibility and ranking of the SERP, i.e. Search Engine Result Pages)
- What are the types of SEO?
There are two types of SEO techniques, or SEO can be categories into two – On-page SEO and Off-page SEO.
On page SEO generally done on the page of the website and off site or off page SEO generally done off the page of the website.
- What are SEO Tools that you think good to use?
Alaxa open site explorer, Google Webmaster tool, Google analytics, Google Adword keyword planners, Bing analytics and webmaster tools etc.
- What Do you mean by backlink?
Backlinks are the links that are link back to your website or blog, it can be a home page or a deep link or the subpage of your website.
- What is inbound and outbound link?
Inbound is nothing but a backlink that is linked on another site and there visitors are coming to your website. It means visitors are coming to your site from other sites through your links. It is inbound.
On the other hand, when visitors are going from your site to other site, it is called outbound link. It is also a kind of backlink, when you are linking another site’s URL in your website and your visitors found the link relevant and going outside of your website to another site. It is an outbound link.
- What do you mean by Google bot?
Google bot often called as Google bot is nothing but a web crawling bot, sometimes called spider. It is a robot that used in search engines to discover new/latest updated pages that are added to the Google’s index.
- What do you mean by search engine spider or crawler?
Search engine spider or crawler is nothing but a robot that discussed above in the Google bot section, used to discover the new pages that have been added to the Google’s index.
- What do you mean by cross-linking and what are its functions?
Cross linking generally refers to the procedure of linking between two sites. If it is owned by you or other person. This link generally provides similar content type.
- Why use keywords and what are the relevancy of using keyword?
Keywords are words that generally users search typing in search engine’s search box.
Keywords are some of the most important things in SEO. A content without keywords is useless. If you do not include relevant keyword in your content then your content has less chances coming up in the SERP.
- How much keywords or the percentage of keywords you use generally in a content?
It varies from person to person, sometimes in Google’s updates we found 2-4 percent keywords is good in a content and sometimes SEO experts believe 1-2 percent of keywords are good in a content. It varies from person to person, depending on their skills and knowledge.
- What is keyword stuffing?
Keywords stuffing means putting excessive or unnecessary keywords in a content, which is not at all good for Google’s guidelines.
- Is good content necessary for search engine optimization?
Content is the kind of a website. When you search a website, we type keyword short or long to find a specific website or content. If the content is good then only the website will be visible, because there would no person in the world who will find a website only to see the design without getting any information.
- Do you know anything about Google’s penalty? Why it gives?
Google’s penalty is nothing but a fine or a negative impact on a website or blog. It reduces the search ranking of a website. If you get a penalty, it means your website is not following Google’s guidelines that generally Google provides through Panda, Penguin and Humming Bird update.
- Do you give some good SEO blogs that you feel good and for learning SEO?
Yes, there are few SEO blogs I like to read to gain more knowledge in SEO, some of them are:
- Search Engine Land
- Brink Marketing
- MOZ
- What is title tag?
A title tag is nothing but a tag that is used to write a unique and search engine friendly title.
- What is meta title?
A meta title is a tile that is used to write a unique title that generally put in the HTML header that helps to give the information to the search engines about the site pages.
- What is meta description?
A meta description is nothing but a description paragraph that says something about the website page or post. It is about 156-160 characters including space.
- Do you know anything about CMS?
Yes, CMS is called Content Management System, some of the most popular CMS are WordPress, Joomla, Magento, Drupal etc. They are widely used to build websites and blogs for personal and business use.
- What do you know about White Hat, Black hat and Grey hat SEO techniques?
White Hat SEO – White hat SEO is a bunch of SEO techniques that are used following the search engines guidelines. No trick, no short cut, no harmful things or techniques are used in white hat SEO.
Black Hat SEO – Black hat SEO is a bunch of SEO techniques that are used without following the search engines guidelines, Tricks, short cuts, harmful things or techniques are used in black hat SEO to boost one’s website rank.
Grey Hat SEO – Grey hat SEO is a bunch of techniques that are used to improve the site rank, but somehow they are ethically dubious and someday would be considered as black hat.
- Is SEO differs from SMO and SEM?
SEO differs from SMO and SEM for sure. SEO is called Search Engine Optimization, whereas SMO is called Social Media Optimization and SEM is called Search Engine Marketing. All are different from each other.
- Do you think organic SEO is better than PPC?
Organic SEO is not expensive, if you learn SEO without investing a single penny, you can do SEO, but if you hire a SEO professional, he or she or the company will charge you a fee for sure. On the other hand PPC is expensive; it is called paid advertising that some search engines provide, Google is one of them. Which is better that is a matter of contradiction. If you apply organic SEO and your website rank in SERP then that will last long, but if you apply PPC and till you apply your ad will appear on the SERP, when you stop they will be vanished.
- What do you mean by PPC?
PPC is called Pay Per Click, which is called paid advertising, a service provided by Google.
- How many characters do Google support for title?
Google generally support 60 characters for a title of a website or blog post including space.
- What is LSI?
LSI is called Latent Semantic Indexing, is nothing but a system used by Google as well as other major search engines. Search engine crawlers or spiders collect some words or phrases from the website and treat as keywords for the post or page.
- What do you mean by 301 or 404 redirect?
301 redirect is a permanent redirect that passes between 90 to 99 percent of the link juice (link juice is called the power of ranking) to the redirected page.
On the other hand, 404 redirect is one of the most easiest as well as effective ways to fix the 404 errors from the perspective of SEO, which is used a 301 redirect. They are interconnected with each other.
- Do you know something about Google’s humming bird, Penguin and Panda? What are they?
Humming Bird, Penguin and Panda are Google’s search algorithm that provide updates and news on the search engines behavior and the websites to follow them.
- What is Webmaster tool?
Google webmaster tool also known as search console helps to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.
- What is Analytics?
Google or other search engines analytics are the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics or the information resulting from the systematic analysis of data or statistics.
- What is breadcrumb?
Breadcrumbs trail or bread crumb is a graphical control element that are used as a navigational aid in the user interfaces. It helps users to keep the track of their locations within the programs, documents and or websites.
- What is robot.txt?
Robot.txt is a code or program that are used to hide a specific web page(s).
- Tell me something about On-page SEO techniques?
There are many on-page SEO techniques a specialist can apply, some of them are:
Local listing, meta title, meta tag, meta description optimization, HTML or CSS validation, W3C validation, image optimization, anchor text optimization, link or broken link checking, URL optimization, content optimization etc.
- Tell me something about off-page SEO techniques?
Off page optimization is all about submission of the content in different websites, some of them are:
Article submission, blog submission, PR submission, PPT submission, directory submission, social bookmarking, back linking, link baiting, blog commenting, web 2.0 submission etc.
- Tell me something about Social Media?
Social media are some social platforms that are used to connect and interact with people all over the world. Social media also used to share pictures, comments and information easily. Some of the well-known social media are: facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ etc.
- What is do follow and no follow site?
Do follow sites are those websites that allow links to submit and no follow websites are those sites that do not allow any link to their website.
- How many characters support Google as meta description?
Google supports characters for meta descriptions up to 160 including space.
- What is canonical Tag?
A canonical URL or canonical tag allows a user to tell search engines, which is certainly similar URLs are generally one and the same.
- What do you mean by keyword streaming?
Keyword streaming is nothing but analyzing the relevant keywords and choose the best of best keyword for your website in order to get organic traffic and leads by way of keywords.
- What is the difference between internet marketing, digital marketing and SEO?
Digital marketing and internet marketing discusses the same thing, though they are same but the name is different. Whereas SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a bunch of techniques that are used to boost one’s website rank in SERP, which comes under digital marketing.
- Are SEO and SMO come under digital marketing?
Yes, SEO and SMO come under digital marketing. They are the part of digital marketing as well.
- What do you know about affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.
- What is speed test?
Speed test allows to know the website loading speed, the less the loading speed the website is the more chance to get the higher rank, more impression and visitors.
- What is disavow links?
Disavow Links tool or Google’s link disavowal tool that allows publishers to say the search engine like Google that they do not want certain links from other websites and do not count them as link to rank web sites.