Top 55 SEO Interview Questions with Answers.

Q1. What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to a process aimed at growing organic website traffic by increasing visibility on search engines. SEO does not involve paid search results and focuses on organic visibility as the only source of traffic.

Q2. What is On-page SEO?

On-page SEO involves making individual webpages optimal enough to be ranked high on search engine results. This process entails optimizing the content of any given webpage along with other factors such as title, meta description and HTML source code.

Also see: How to On SEO Your WordPress Blog?

Q3. What is Off-page SEO?

All activities undertaken to improve SEO of a website by working outside the website itself are categorized under off-page SEO. Off-page SEO refers to number of techniques, from link building, guest blogging, forum posting, and so on.

Do Check: Important While Off Page SEO

Q4. What are Meta tags?

Meta tags are small pieces of content which give insight about the type of content on a given webpage. Meta tags are exceptionally useful in SEO as they can be used to alert search engine crawlers about the type of content on a given page. Meta tags on a normal HTML page include meta keywords attribute, title, description, and meta robots attribute.

Q5. What do you understand by page title? How many characters limits should be there in page title?

Page titles, or title tags, are the headlines which are displayed on a search engine result. They are basically the title to any given content. A normal search engine displays 50-60 characters in a title. Thus, any given page title shouldn’t exceed 60 characters.

Q6. How to optimize head section?

The best way to optimize head section of a webpage is to insert relevant keywords. The key is to not stuff too many keywords into the head section.

Q7. What is keyword density?

Keyword density is a metric used to define the presence of a certain keyword in a given text. A higher keyword density means a certain keyword has been repeated many times. A lower keyword density refers to a keyword being repeated less often.

Q8. What is keyword stemming?

Keyword stemming is a technique used to derive multiple keywords from a given word by adding suffixes and prefixes to it. For instance, from the word ‘market’, one can extract derivate keywords like marketer and marketing. Keyword stemming is useful for websites looking to establish their niche around a particular high volume keyword.

Q9. What is keyword stuffing?

Keyword stuffing refers to the process of adding keywords to a particular piece of content ignoring the context of the write-up to attract search engine crawlers.     

Q10. What is the difference between Page Rank (PR) and Search engine result pages (SERP)?

Page rank is a measure of the quality of websites being linked to a certain page. Search engine page results refer to the rankings of a webpage for a particular keyword in the search results.

Q11. What do you understand by robots, crawlers and spiders in SEO?

Robots, crawlers, and spiders refer to the same program used by search engines to scan, collect, and index data from websites across the internet.

Q12. What do you understand by LSI?

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) refers to the tool search engines use to relate different keywords to each other. Since no keyword is really isolated, search engines seek related keywords from a given search term to further refine user experience. A well-planned on-page SEO strategy lays key emphasis to implementing LSI keywords along with the primary keyword in a given piece of content.

Q13. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

At its core, SEO is a part of SEM as both are aimed at improving visibility on search engines. SEO exclusively deals with organic traffic, while SEM also includes other techniques such as PPC advertising and AdSense.

Q14. What are outbound Links? Explain with the help of examples.

Outbound links simply refer to specific links which direct visitors away from your website. For example, if you post a link to a YouTube video on your blog, the link then becomes an outbound link.

Q15. What are inbound and internal link? State any 2 differences between them?

The opposite of outbound links, inbound links refer to links on other websites directed to yours. If you post the link to your blog on Facebook, that would be counted as an inbound link.

Internal link refers to links which refer to webpages registered under the same domain. When you go from one video on YouTube to another, you are using internal links.

Two main differences between inbound and internal links are:

  1. Inbound links originate from a different domain. Internal links originate from the same domain.
  2. Inbound links help improve the number of backlinks and page rank. Internal links are aimed towards simplifying navigation within a website and improve user experience.

Q16. What do you understand by XML sitemap? Is it beneficial for web optimization? If yes then explain.

An XML sitemap refers to the collection of URLs and their associated data of a given website. XML sitemaps are useful in web optimization as they indicate specific URLs for a search engine to crawl and index.

Q17. What are Redirection Tags?

Redirection tags are used to forward users and search engines to a different URL in case the destination of the host domain has been changed permanently or temporarily.

Q18. What are backlinks? How are they helpful for enhancing your website?

A link coming from another website to your website can be referred to as a backlink. Backlinks are a measure of a site’s quality, as a website with a number of quality backlinks is considered high quality and thus enhances site rankings on search engines.

Q19. What is Cross linking and what are its function?

Cross linking is aimed at getting a higher page rank and SERP. It can be done when someone who owns multiple domains posts a link of one of them to the other domains. For example, if you own websites A, B, and C, you can post links of A on B and C. Similarly you can post links of B to A and C. 

The technique helps in link building and providing relevant information to a visitor. Domain owners practising cross linking should make sure all their domains are independent in the eyes of search engines. 

Q20. What is the difference between Do follow and No follow backlinks?

A do-follow backlink does passes on link juice to the website being linked and is counted as a valid backlink. A no-follow backlink is the exact opposite and does not attribute link juice to the website being linked.

Q21. How you can create backlinks? Name some renowned methods for building backlinks?

To create a backlink, a domain owner has to post a link of their website on a different domain. Popular methods to build backlinks include guest posting, forum posting, and comment writing.

Q22. What do you understand about guest posting?

Guest posting simply means writing content for another website or blog. A guest post typically involves leaving a link to the author’s website at the end of the post.

Q23. What is Search engine submission?

Search engine submission, as the name suggests, refers to direct submission of a website link to search engines. There are many search engines besides Google who may not have a website indexed in their database. Search engine submission helps solve this problem.

Q24. What is the main purpose of targeting keywords in SEO?

The main purpose of targeting keywords in SEO is to make sure the target audience is able to discover a given website. For example, if you run a travel website to help travellers in India, one way you could ensure quality traffic is by targeting keywords which are searched most often by people interested in traveling.

Q25. What do you understand about article posting?

Article posting refers to posting content on free submission websites. Article posting helps in link building which in turn improves the site’s ranking on search engines.

Q26. What is broken link? It is useful for your website while doing SEO? Explain.

A broken link is one which returns a 404 error on the screen. Broken links can be created for a number of reasons. One of them can be when a domain owner deletes a link from a website and someone ends up reaching that link from a search engine.

A broken link has a negative impact on SEO as they disrupt user experience. They should be avoided at all costs.

Q27. What is the difference between White, Black & Grey Hat SEO?

White hat SEO refers to good SEO practises recommended by search engines. Examples of white hat SEO include link building and quality content creation.

Black hat SEO refers to practises not recommended by search engines. While black hat SEO can momentarily rank websites higher, search engines eventually catch up and end up blacklisting the websites indulging in black hat SEO. Examples of black hat SEO include keyword spamming, cloaking, redirecting, and so on.

Grey Hat SEO is the middle ground between white and black hat SEO. Grey Hat SEO is riskier than white hat, but it is faster. It also entails less risk of getting caught than black hat SEO. Some common grey hat SEO techniques are using PBNs, adding words to old content, posting on website directories, and so on.

Q28. What is the significance of OG tag in SEO?

Open Graph (OG) tags are primarily meant for social media networks. OG tags allow social media channels to scan website content better. This further helps social media networks display website content in a more interactive way on their website.

OG tags have a low impact on SEO as their main purpose is to boost traffic and engagement from social media.

Q29. What do you understand by canonicalization in SEO?

Canonicalization in SEO refers to a practise through which webpages cite references from a main source. This helps make sure content is not deemed as plagiarized by search engines.

Q30. What is the role of permalink in SEO?

A permalink refers to the complete URL of a given content on a website. An unorganized permalink which doesn’t give an insight to the content of the webpage is a poor SEO metric. A website should typically follow an organized way of permalink formation so that search engine crawlers can easily access content across the website.

Q31. What do you mean by image optimization?

Image optimization essentially involves reducing the size of images on a website without disrupting the quality and reducing the load time.

Q32. How will you examine the number of backlinks from your rival’s website?

There are many free tools online which allow users to examine the backlinks of a given website. Some of these tools are Ahrefs, Linkody, and cognitive SEO.

Q33. What is anchor text?

Anchor text refers to the content which users see along with the hyperlink. Anchor text can usually be seen on social media when someone posts a blog. Anchor text is clickable and redirects users to the source of the content. 

Q34. What are the essential steps you should take while working on SEO?

The two main components of SEO are content and link building. As long as one keeps creating SEO friendly content and adding quality backlinks to a given website, the visibility of their website on search engines will keep improving.

Q35. What is robot.txt?

Robots.txt is a protocol used by websites to signal certain links to web crawlers which are not to be indexed on search engines.

Search Engine Algorithms

Q36. What do you mean by Google algorithm? What is the purpose of algorithm?

The Google algorithm is a process used to evaluate the quality of content on websites across the internet. The main goal of the algorithm is to make sure low quality content is not visible on search results so that users can have a hassle free experience online.

Q37. Why do Search Engines Create Algorithms?

Search engines create algorithms to ensure all factors which point to the quality of content on a website are considered. Without search engines algorithms, deciding the quality of content subjectively would be a perilous task, almost impossible considering the sheer volume of content online.

Q38. What is Google Panda Algorithm?

Released in 2011, Google Panda Algorithm was introduced to ensure smooth user experience by reducing the presence of low-quality content websites on search results and promoting good content.

Q39. What is Google Penguin Algorithm?

To solve prevalent problems of keyword stuffing and poor quality backlinks, Google Penguin followed the release of Google Panda in 2012 to again make sure the websites with high quality content end up ranking higher organically.

Q40. What is Google EMD Algorithm?

The Google EMD algorithm came about in September 2012 to remove the problems of exact-match. At the time, websites were ranking high on search results by simply buying domains with the same name as high volume keywords.

Q41. What is Google Humming Bird Algorithm?

Google launched the Humming Bird Algorithm in 2013 in a bid to revamp their search algorithm following the release of Panda and Penguin. The move was geared towards understanding the behaviour of searchers to make the search engine more intuitive. This made Google Search more aware about the intent a searcher might have while searching a term.

Q42. What is Google Caffeine Algorithm?

Back in 2009, Google launched the caffeine algorithm designed for the simple purpose of crawling and indexing data more effectively and efficiently. With the Caffeine algorithm, Google could collect recently updated content more quickly and index it in its database.

SEO Tools

Q43. What is the name of most popular website analysis tool?

There are a number of website analysis tools used by prominent digital marketers. Some of the most popular tools used right now are Google Webmaster and Ahrefs.,

Q44. Name any 2 renowned tools to check backlinks?

Two renowned tools for checking backlinks are Ahrefs and SEMrush.

Q45. Name some of the tools to check plagiarism?

Some tools to check plagiarism are Copyleaks, Dupli checker, and PaperRater. 

Q46. What is Google Analytics? How does it assist webmaster?

Google Analytics is a free website analysis tool which monitors traffic, average time spent on website, and bounce rate. Other data regarding demographics of website visitors are also provided.

Google Webmaster is designed to give insights about a website’s relationship with search engine crawlers. Webmaster can point out which parts of website a search engine crawler is not being able to reach. Analytics can help Webmaster by indicating certain insights on the performance of a website and find ways to make improvements.

Q47. How Moz Page Authority tool is useful for Webmaster?

Moz Page Authority refers to a scoring system for webpages from 0-100 which ranks the ability of webpages to rank higher on search results. This can be an effective tool for Webmaster as it can give pointers to websites on how to improve page authority and further gain visibility on search engines.

Q48. What is Moz Domain Authority?

Moz Domain authority refers to a website scoring system from 0-100 which predicts a website’s rank on search results.

Q49. What is Google search console?

Google Search Console is a tool for website owners to check indexing status of webpages which helps them further improve visibility on search engines.

Q50. What do you mean by Google trends?

As the name suggests, Google Trends refers to the popularity of a given search term over a varied period of time. Using Google Trends, one can see which topics are trending amongst users in a given region at a certain point of time.

Q51. What do you know about Content Marketing?

Content marketing refers to the practise of using quality content to drive traffic to a given website. Departing from following advertorial format of marketing, content marketing focuses on gaining the attention of people by creating useful content.

Q52. What are key aspects of writing appropriate content?

Some of the key aspects of writing appropriate content include:

  • Research
  • Outlining the areas to be covered
  • Defining the structure of the content
  • Writing an engaging exposition to attract readers
  • Writing content based on research and following the defined structure and content outline.

Q53. What are the ways of writing unique and fresh content?

To create fresh and unique content, writers should always be in touch with the prevailing trends in the market. This helps them remain in touch with their respective niche. Another way of creating fresh content is looking at previously written content from a fresh perspective.

Q54. State any 2 tools to check grammar of your content?

Two tools to check grammar are Grammarly and ProWritingAid.

Q55. Name some tools to check duplicate content?

Tools to check duplicate content include Plagiarism Checker, Copyleaks, and Paper Rater.

With the presence of several SEO resources online in the form of videos, blogs, and websites, anyone can get in-depth knowledge on the subject. To take part in a more intensive SEO Course program, consider taking up a course conducted by trainers with experience in the field.