Preparing for an SEO interview can be daunting given the broad range of potential questions.
By focusing on 5 common SEO interview questions related to technical knowledge, strategy, execution, and analysis, you can demonstrate your expertise across key areas.
In this post, we’ll overview what to expect in an SEO interview and provide examples and talking points for questions on:Core ranking factors, Developing SEO strategies, Managing SEO projects, Conducting keyword research, and Tracking SEO success. With preparation around these 5 critical topics, you’ll highlight both your technical capabilities and strategic perspective.
An overview of common SEO interview questions
SEO has become a critical skillset for marketing roles. As more consumers discover and research products through search engines like Google, having an SEO strategy drives more qualified traffic, leads, and sales. Companies want to ensure marketing candidates have the necessary SEO knowledge.
Why SEO skills are valued in marketing
With over 90% of online experiences starting with a search engine, SEO allows brands to appear prominently in results for relevant queries. This organic visibility is invaluable for lead generation and brand awareness. SEO skills like keyword research, technical optimization, and performance analysis are key for marketers looking to demonstrate ROI and business impact. As companies aim to improve conversions across owned, earned, and paid channels, there is growing demand for marketing talent with SEO expertise.
What to expect in an SEO interview
Common SEO interview questions aim to assess both hard and soft skills. On the technical side, candidates may be asked about best practices for optimizing title tags, URL structures, site speed, etc. Expect questions probing your analytical abilities as well, like interpreting site traffic reports or prioritizing optimization opportunities. The interview may also cover strategy questions around developing cohesive SEO roadmaps based on business goals, target personas, and competitive landscapes.
Beyond testing knowledge, many questions evaluate soft skills like project management, communication, and creativity in problem-solving. Interviewers want to understand your thought process and approach just as much as your answers. Highlighting both strategic perspective and tactical optimization skills can demonstrate you have the well-rounded abilities to drive SEO impact.
Technical SEO knowledge questions
Technical SEO covers the technical details and best practices for optimizing websites to rank higher in search engines. As an SEO professional, you need to have expertise across core areas like indexing, crawling, rankings signals, and site architecture.
Here are some of the key technical SEO topics and questions interviewers may ask to assess your hands-on skills:
Core ranking factors
What are the top 3-5 ranking factors today?
- Content relevance and quality
- Backlinks from authoritative, relevant sites
- Site speed and performance
- Mobile friendliness
- Domain authority and trust
What are some best practices for improving site crawlability and indexation?
- XML sitemaps
- Robot.txt optimizations
- Canonical tags
- Noindex tags on non-critical pages
- Fast site speed
How can you diagnose and fix site indexing issues?
- Check Search Console coverage report
- Review robot.txt, meta robots tags
- Check for technical SEO errors
- Submit updated sitemap
- Fetch and render in Search Console
Common site architecture issues
What are some common site architecture issues you see?
- Duplicate content problems
- Blocked resources
- Broken backlinks after site migrations
- Incorrect use of rel=canonical
- Paginated content done incorrectly
How do you prevent duplicate content situations?
- Careful use of canonical tags
- 301 redirects to consolidate content
- Noindex pagination pages
- Differentiate print vs web pages
What are some ways to fix broken backlinks after migrations?
- Set up proper 301 redirects
- Create a site move document
- Ask sites to update links
- Disavow tool if many low-quality links
Latest SEO best practices
What are some latest trends you’re following in SEO?
- Optimizing for voice search queries
- Structured data for rich results
- Featured snippets optimization
- Page experience metrics
- Importance of mobile optimization
What are some voice search optimization tips?
- Optimize questions for featured snippets
- Focus on conversational long-tail queries
- Improve site speed for fast answers
What are some new page experience factors from Google?
- Core Web Vitals metrics
- Mobile friendliness
- Safe browsing
- HTTPS security
- Intrusive interstitial guidelines
SEO analysis and strategy questions
Interviewers will evaluate analytical thinking with strategic questions about researching keywords, developing SEO plans, and tracking success.
Conducting keyword research
Keyword research is crucial for developing an effective SEO strategy. Here are some best practices for researching and selecting strategic target keywords:
- Use Google Keyword Planner and other tools to find relevant keyword ideas related to your content topics. Look at monthly search volume, competition, and suggested bid prices.
- Group keywords by theme to target specific topics, products or services. For example, “SEO tips”, “on page SEO” and “link building” are all related to SEO.
- Choose primary keywords with decent search volume and lower competition. Target long-tail variations like “beginner guide to SEO link building” as well.
- Research user search intent – are they looking for definitions, how-tos, comparisons or other information? Optimize content accordingly.
- Run keyword analysis regularly to adjust targets over time as search behavior evolves.
Thorough keyword research provides the foundation for an effective SEO campaign. Matching content to user intent for strategic keywords drives organic traffic and conversions.
Developing SEO strategies
The key steps for developing SEO strategies are:
- Conduct analysis – Study existing site content, structure, technical factors, backlinks and competitors. Identify strengths, weaknesses and optimization opportunities.
- Set targets – Define numeric SEO goals like target keywords, ranking improvements, traffic increases and conversion rates.
- Create optimization plan – Outline specific actions to enhance on-page and off-page SEO factors based on the analysis and goals. Prioritize quick wins.
- Implement tactics – Add content, improve site architecture, earn backlinks, fix technical issues. Coordinate across teams like content, IT and marketing.
- Track progress – Use analytics to measure ongoing performance for keywords, rankings, traffic and conversions. Refine strategies based on the data.
Creating data-driven SEO plans tailored to business goals leads to impactful results. Continual testing, iteration and monitoring helps sustain momentum.
Tracking SEO success with KPIs
Key metrics to measure SEO success over time include:
- Rankings – Track ranking positions for target keywords monthly. Movements indicate changing authority and competitiveness.
- Organic traffic – Measure direct visits from search engines. Should increase with better rankings.
- Click-through rate – Percentage of searchers clicking from SERPs. Indicates relevancy.
- Bounce rate – Percentage leaving quickly from landing pages. Highlights content quality issues.
- Conversions – Sign ups, purchases and other goals. The bottom line for SEO ROI.
- Links – Tally new backlinks by type monthly. Correlates with rankings and referral traffic.
Setting benchmarks and monitoring key performance indicators demonstrate how SEO strategies are progressing month to month. Consistent tracking provides data to iterate and improve over time.
Executing and managing SEO projects
Evaluating project management skills is an important part of the SEO interview process. Hiring managers often ask questions about executing initiatives, managing teams, and reporting on outcomes to assess candidates’ abilities to successfully lead optimization efforts.
Scoping and planning SEO projects
When starting an SEO initiative, clearly defining goals and milestones is essential. Questions may cover how you would scope a site audit or keyword research project, identify resources needed, and create a monitoring plan to track progress. Being able to break down large initiatives into manageable pieces with actionable tasks demonstrates strategic planning capabilities.
For example, to optimize a site for voice search, you may set quarterly goals for implementing schema markup, creating featured snippets content, and monitoring improvements in rankings and traffic from voice queries. Defining an editorial calendar, optimizing pages in priority order, and using rank tracking and Google Search Console data to regularly evaluate progress are key.
Managing SEO teams and vendors
Effectively managing in-house and external resources is crucial for executing technical and content SEO strategies. Interview questions may assess your approach to leading remote teams, coordinating with other departments, or overseeing agency relationships.
Best practices include maintaining clear communication through status reports, optimizing content production workflows, and keeping initiatives on schedule. Providing transparency into prioritization decisions and being able to quickly adapt plans due to algorithm updates or new opportunities also demonstrate strong leadership abilities.
Reporting on SEO achievements
Quantifying the impact of optimization efforts is vital for continuing to receive stakeholder support. Expect questions about how you would report on SEO outcomes and future recommendations in order to demonstrate value.
Being able to analyze site traffic, rankings, and conversion data to pull strategic insights is key. Reports may also cover technical audits, user experience issues affecting conversions, and content gap analyses. Conveying results through visualizations and actionable suggestions for driving further growth and revenue is essential.
Conclusion and key takeaways
SEO interviews often focus on assessing a candidate’s technical knowledge and hands-on experience with search engine optimization. Based on the key types of questions highlighted in this article, candidates should prepare by reviewing core SEO concepts like:
- On-page optimization best practices (meta tags, URL structure, site architecture, internal linking, etc.)
- Off-page optimization techniques (backlinks, social shares, brand mentions, etc.)
- Keyword research and analysis methods
- Content optimization principles
- Technical website audits and performance benchmarks
- Search engine algorithms and ranking factors
- SEO campaign tracking and reporting
Having expertise across these areas shows the interviewer that a candidate has the necessary skills to execute effective SEO strategies. It also demonstrates their ability to analyze sites from an SEO perspective and provide data-driven recommendations for improvement.
Additionally, sharing specific examples of previous SEO projects and their measurable impacts makes candidates stand out. Quantifying increases in organic traffic, conversions, and revenue helps showcase their hands-on experience driving results.
In summary, advanced SEO skills lead to better marketing performance by increasing site visibility and converting more high-intent visitors into customers. Preparing for the technical and analytical aspects of SEO interviews allows candidates to highlight these capabilities.
