If you are preparing for an SEO interview, you probably have tons of questions running through your mind: What kind of questions will interviewer ask you? How can I make sure I stand out? After all, SEO is a dynamic field where interviewers love to test both basic knowledge and your ability to apply it.
Do not worry! In this article, I provide you the top 50+ SEO interview questions and answers. These questions will not only prepare you for the interview but will also give you a good understanding of SEO basics.
Table Of Content:
- What is SEO?
- What are the types of SEO?
- What is a keyword, and why are they crucial in SEO?
- What are backlinks, and why do they matter?
- What is the difference between do follow and no follow links?
- Explain the difference between White Hat, Black Hat, and Gray Hat SEO
- What is keyword density?
- What is keyword frequency?
- What is keyword Proximity?
- What is Keyword Stemming?
- What is keyword stuffing, and why is it bad?
- What are the different types of keyword Intents?
- What is a title tag, and how does it impact SEO?
- What is a meta description, and why is it important?
- What are LSI keywords, and how do they help in SEO?
- What is canonicalization, and why is it important?
- What is a 301 redirect, and when should you use it?
- What is a 302 redirect, and when should you use it?
- Explain what is meant by MobileFirst Indexing?
- What is structured data, and why is it used?
- What are Rich Snippets?
- What Is E-E-A-T? Why Is E-E-A-T Important For SEO?
- What are Featured Snippets?
- What is HTML Sitemap?
- What is XML Sitemap?
- What is a robots.txt file, and why is it important?
- What is Schema markup?
- What are doorway pages?
- What is cloaking?
- What is Cluster?
- What is search intent, and why is it important?
- How do you optimize content for SEO?
- How do you measure SEO success?
- What is Google Analytics, and how does it help in SEO?
- How do you conduct a technical SEO audit?
- What is bounce rate, and does it affect SEO?
- How would you improve a Page Loading Speed?
- What is local SEO, and why is it important?
- What is the importance of local citations in Local SEO?
- What is Google Sandbox?
- What are the major Google ranking factors that Really Matter
- How you can improve a site’s Core Web Vitals?
- What is Google RankBrain Algorithm and why does it matter?
- What is Google Search Console?
- What is the difference between Google Search Console and Google Analytics?
- What are the different types of crawl errors that can occur in Search Console?
- What are the default enhanced measurement in GA4?
- What is Google Tag Manager and benefits of using it?
- How to add Google analytics tag to a website using Google Tag Manager?
- What are tags, triggers, and variable in GTM?
1. What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization), is the process of improving a website’s visibility in search engine results page (SERP). It is important for every business because it improves the visibility on search engines typically translates to more organic traffic, which can lead to more business leads, conversions, and improves brand awareness.
2. What are the types of SEO?
There are three main types of SEO we have. Those are On Page SEO, Off Page SEO, and Technical SEO
On Page SEO: It is the process of optimizing a web page content to rank higher in SERP.
Off Page SEO: Off page SEO involves actions outside of your website aimed at improving search engine rankings. Building website’ authority through backlinks and brand mentions.
Technical SEO: The process of improving your website’s technical aspects to help search engines like Google to find, crawl, and index your web pages.
3. What is a keyword, and why are they crucial in SEO?
Keywords are the words or phrases that people use them when searching for information online. Keywords are very important factor in SEO because they connect users’ queries with relevant content on your website. Choosing the right keywords can boost your content’s ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
4. What are backlinks, and why do they matter?
Backlinks are also known as inbound links or incoming links. Backlinks plays an important role in SEO. link building strategies will help you boost the visibility of your website in the SERPs.
5. What is the difference between do follow and no follow links?
Do follow links pass the link juice from one website to another website, this will be impacting search rankings.
No follow links do not pass the link juice but, they can still drive traffic to your website and improves brand visibility.
6. Explain the difference between White Hat, Black Hat, and Gray Hat SEO
White Hat SEO is the process of optimizing site to improve Search Engine ranking by following search engine rules and guidelines.
Black hat SEO is a practice against Search Engine guidelines and rules. Black Hat SEO involves set of tactics or methods to achieve quick rankings (like keyword stuffing, hidden text, low quality content and cloaking).
Gray Hat SEO is a combination of both Black and White Hat SEO techniques.
7. What is keyword density?
Keyword density is how often a keyword shows up in your content compared to the total number of words. It is about using keywords just enough to help your content rank better in search engines without overdoing it, making your content useful and relevant for readers.
8. What is keyword frequency?
Keyword frequency is the number of times a keyword or phrase appears on a single Web page.
9. What is Keyword Proximity?
Keyword Proximity, the distance between search terms/keywords on a web page is measured by keyword proximity.
10. What is Keyword Stemming?
Keyword Stemming is the process of finding the same keyword in different forms, which leads to the possibility of making more searches from the search engine. New keywords are formed by adding prefix or suffix into base keyword.
11. What is keyword stuffing, and why is it bad?
Keyword stuffing (Black Hat SEO technique) is nothing but overuse of keywords on a specific webpage to manipulate search engine rankings. It violates Google’s spam policies, and affects user experience.
12. What are the different types of keyword Intents?
Keyword intent is also known as search intent or user intent. It is used to describe the purpose of an online search. There are four main categories of keyword intents we have navigational, informational, commercial, and transactional.
13. What is a title tag, and how does it impact SEO?
A title tag is the HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. It appears in SERPs as the clickable headline just above the URL. A good title tag with keywords, can improve clickthrough rates and search rankings.
14. What is a meta description, and why is it important?
A meta description is a summary of your webpage’s content that appears under the title/headline in search result. It is important because it provides context to users and can influence click-through rates if it is engaging.
15. What are LSI keywords, and how do they help in SEO?
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are the search terms related to the root keyword you are targeting. It helps to improve content relevance and SEO performance by showing Google that the page is informative.
16. What is canonicalization, and why is it important?
Canonicalization is a way of preventing duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred URL for similar or duplicate pages. This is important because it helps avoid confusion for search engines, ensuring the right page ranks.
17. What is a 301 redirect, and when should you use it?
A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one webpage to another webpage. It is used when a page has been moved permanently. 301 redirect passes its SEO value to the new URL.
18. What is a 302 redirect, and when should you use it?
A 302 redirect temporarily moves a webpage to another URL. It is used when updating or redesigning pages on your website or broken pages on a website.
19. Explain what is meant by MobileFirst Indexing
Mobile-First Indexing means Google mainly uses the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking. This is crucial since most of the users now browse the web on mobile devices.
20. What is structured data, and why is it used?
Structured data is a standardized format for presenting information about a webpage and organize its content. It helps search engines understand the webpage content better and can enable rich snippets, like review stars or recipe steps to appear in search results.
21. What are Rich Snippets?
Rich Snippets or rich results are the short snippet of text that appeared on the top of organic search results. It adds extra details about your webpage like ratings, reviews. Rich Snippets increases click-through rates.
22. What Is E-E-A-T? Why Is E-E-A-T Important For SEO?
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google uses these quality factors to evaluate the credibility and relevance of web pages or websites.
23. What are Featured Snippets?
Featured Snippets are short snippets of text that appear at the top of Google’s search engine result pages to give quick answer a user’s query. Featured snippets are highlighted results that shows above the organic results, known as position zero.
24. What is HTML Sitemap?
An HTML sitemap contains lists all the important links on your website. It helps the users to quickly and easier navigating and to understand the website.
25. What is XML Sitemap?
XML or Extensible Markup Language is a list of webpages, videos, and other files on your site. It helps search engines to assess your website’s content, making sure Google can find and crawl them easily. A single XML sitemap is limited to 50,000 URLs and can have a file size of up to 50 MB only.
26. What is a robots.txt file, and why is it important?
The robots.txt file tells search engines which pages or sections of a website they should crawl. It is important because you can control which parts of your website appear in search results.
IF you want to block all search engine bots from crawling your website, use the below code:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
IF you want to allow search engine bots to crawl your website, use the below code:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
27. What is Schema markup?
Schema markup is a type of special code that helps search engines to understand your website content. Different types of Schema markups we have, those are
- Organization schema
- Article
- Website
- FAQ
- How to
- Event
- Product
- Local Business
28. What are doorway pages?
Doorway pages, also called entry or gateway pages, sites or pages designed to rank well for specific search queries.
29. What is cloaking?
Cloaking is a Black Hat SEO technique in which the content presented to the search engine bots/crawlers is different from that presented to the website users.
30. What is Cluster?
clusters are groups of similar keywords or content that are organized to improve SEO strategies. This method is based on creating a pillar page or main page that covers a specific topic and linking it to multiple subpages. It improves SEO performance, and enhance reader experience.
31. What is search intent, and why is it important?
Search intent is the reason behind a user’s query. Understanding it helps create content that directly answers users’ questions, improving the chance of ranking higher and satisfying the user’s needs.
32. How do you optimize content for SEO?
Optimizing content involves:
1. Using target keywords in headings and throughout the content naturally.
2. Including LSI keywords.
3. Using internal and external links.
4. Adding engaging meta descriptions and title tags.
5. Ensuring readability.
33. How do you measure SEO success?
SEO success can be measured using key metrics like:
Organic traffic growth: More visitors from search engines.
Keyword rankings: Improvement in the positions of targeted keywords.
Clickthrough rate (CTR): Indicates how engaging your title and meta description are.
Bounce rate and dwell time: Shows if visitors find your content valuable.
34. What is Google Analytics, and how does it help in SEO?
Google Analytics is a Powerful tool that provides insights into website traffic and user behaviour. It helps in SEO by tracking metrics like organic traffic, bounce rates, and session duration, allowing you to see what’s working and what needs improvement.
35. How do you conduct a technical SEO audit?
A technical SEO audit includes:
Checking for crawl errors with tools like Google Search Console.
- Make sure your site is indexable
- Ensuring proper use of sitemaps and robots.txt.
- Fixing broken links.
- Check page speed
- Page Speed Analysis
- Internal linking structure
- By checking Structured data and schema markup
36. What is bounce rate, and does it affect SEO?
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who exit a website after viewing just one page. While it does not directly impact SEO rankings, a high bounce rate may indicate low engagement, which could affect site’s overall performance.
37. How would you improve a Page Loading Speed?
To improve loading speed:
1. Optimize images and use nextgen formats like WebP.
2. Minimize CSS and JavaScript.
3. Use a content delivery network (CDN).
4. Enable browser caching.
5. Reduce Redirects
6. Reduce third-party scripts
38. What is local SEO, and why is it important?
Local SEO is Search Engine optimization strategy that optimizing your online presence to attract business from local searches. Simply it is the process of improving traffic, search visibility and brand awareness of your business.
39. What is the importance of local citations in Local SEO?
Local citations refer to mentions of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites. They play a key role in local SEO, helping businesses improve their visibility and rank higher in local search results.
40. What is Google Sandbox?
Google sandbox is a concept that supposedly keeps newly registered sites in a probationary period to prevent ranking higher on search results.
41. What are the major Google ranking factors that Really Matter
Many new Google ranking factors and algorithms were introduced by Google. The search algorithm of Google examines over 200 factors when determining page rankings.
Let us know the top Google ranking factors.
- High-Quality and Original Content
- Quality Backlinks Over Quantity
- Fresh Content
- Relevant links
- Image alt-text
- Technical SEO
- Mobile Friendliness
- User experience
- Secure Browsing
- Page Speed
42. How you can improve a site’s Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are a set of 3 web performance metrics that measure the speed, interactivity, and visual stability of a webpage.
The 3 metrics are LCP, FID, CLS
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): This metric measures how long it takes time for the largest piece of content to appear on the screen whether it can be block of text or an image. Simply LCP measures how fast a site loads.
A Good LCP metric score is 2.5 seconds
FID (First Input Delay): It is another user-centric metric to determine how long it takes for the website to react to the first interaction. This could be a click on forms, anchor text or tap on a button…
For this metric anything under 100 ms falls under the good range.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): This metric measures the visual stability of your website. Simply it measures how fast a content loads when you move around on the screen.
Google considers score anything below 0.1 good and needs an improvement anything between 0.1 to 0.25
43. What is Google RankBrain Algorithm and why does it matter?
RankBrain is an Artificial Intelligence tool (AI) used by Google to better understand search queries and provide more accurate results. Instead of simply matching exact keywords, RankBrain can discover what a person really means, even if their search is unusual or conversational. It analyzes things like how long people stay on a page and whether they click on other results, which helps Google know what’s useful to users. For businesses or website owners, RankBrain means that focusing on clear, valuable content is more important than simply using specific keywords. By understanding what people really want to know, RankBrain helps Google deliver results that match users’ needs, making searches more relevant and useful.
44. What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google that allows you to monitor, manage, and evaluate your website’s visibility in search results. It helps business owners, webmasters, marketers, and SEO professionals to identify issues with webpage’s that need to be fixed.
45. What is the difference between Google Search Console and Google Analytics?
Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics (GA) are both Google tools helps to analyse websites performance, but they focus on different things.
Google Search Console helps you see how well your website is doing in search results. It shows data like which keywords people use to find your website, how often your site shows up in search results, and if there are any issues with pages being indexed.
Google Analytics, on the other hand, tracks what people do on your website after they arrive, like how long they stay, which pages they visit, and where they leave. While GSC helps you improve your site’s visibility in search engines, Google is great for understanding visitor behaviour and improving the experience on your site. Together, these tools give you a fuller picture of how people find and use your website, helping you make better choices to grow your online presence.
46. What are the different types of crawl errors that can occur in Search Console?
Crawl errors happen when a search engine bot attempts to access a page on your website but is unable to do. Google divides crawl errors into two main groups those are site errors and URL errors.
Site Errors: Site errors encompass all crawling errors that can affect your entire website. Some of the common types include server, DNS, and robots.txt errors.
URL errors: There is an issue of crawling the webpage. Some of them are Soft 404, 404, Access denied, and Redirect Errors.
47. What are the default enhanced measurement in GA4?
Enhanced measurement is a feature of GA4 that allows you to collect additional information from your website or app without requiring any additional configuration or coding. This feature provides automatic event tracking for certain user interactions on your website or app, such as Pageviews, outbound clicks, file downloads, video engagement, form interactions, scroll tracking, site search, and more.
48. What is Google Tag Manager and benefits of using it?
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool offered by Google that helps businesses manage tags on their websites and apps without changing your website’s code. GTM allows businesses to add marketing Tags, triggers, variables.
- Simple to use
- Saves time
- Handle multiple codes from only a single window
- Preview debugging features
49. How to add Google analytics tag to a website using Google Tag Manager?
Follow these simple steps to add your Google Analytics (GA4) tag to a website using Google Tag Manager (GTM).
Step1: Open the Google Tag Manager Account, In Workspaces tab, go to Tags and then click New
Step2: In the Tag Configuration section, click on Google Analytics ans then select Google Tag as the tag type
Step3: Enter your Tag ID
Step4: Choose a trigger (such as All Pages) to make this tag should be activated
Step5: Add a Name to your tag
Step6: Click on Submit and add the information about the version of the tag you are publishing
Step7: Click Publish
