More SEO Interview Questions

Preparation is key to success at any interview and those looking to move up the SEO career ladder are no different. In our experience it is always the BEST PREPARED candidate that gets the job, not always the best candidate for the job – there is a subtle but important difference……

Our earlier post enclosing sample interview questions seems to have been very popular and as such we thought we would post another. We cannot take any credit for this and would point you in the direction of http://www.allthingssem.com/seo-interview-questions/ where you will find the original post and some other excellent articles – we would certainly recommend a visit.

Technical / Tactics

Every SEO prefers certain tactics over others, but familiarity with many could indicate a deeper understanding of the industry. And while every SEO doesn’t need to have a web developer background, having such skills can help set someone apart from the crowd.

1. Give me a description of your general SEO experience.
2. Can you write HTML code by hand?
3. Could you briefly explain the PageRank algorithm?
4. How you created any SEO tools either from scratch or pieced together from others?
5. What do you think of PageRank?
6. What do you think of using XML sitemaps?
7. What are your thoughts on the direction of Web 2.0 technologies with regards to SEO?
8. What SEO tools do you regularly use?
9. Under what circumstances would you look to exclude pages from search engines using robots.txt vs meta robots tag?
10. What areas do you think are currently the most important in organically ranking a site?
11. Do you have experience in copywriting and can you provide some writing samples?
12. Have you ever had something you’ve written reach the front-page of Digg? Sphinn? Or be Stumbled?
13. Explain to me what META tags matter in today’s world.
14. Explain various steps that you would take to optimize a website?
15. If the company whose site you’ve been workind for has decided to move all of its content to a new domain, what steps would you take?
16. Rate from 1 to 10, tell me the most important “on page” elements
17. Review the code of past clients/company websites where SEO was performed.
18. What do you think about link buying?
19. What is Latent Semantic Analysis (LSI Indexing)?
20. What is Phrase Based Indexing and Retrieval and what roles does it play?
21. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
22. What kind of strategies do you normally implement for backlinks?
23. What role does social media play in an SEO strategy?
24. What things wouldn’t you to do increase rankings because the risk of penalty is too high?
25. What’s the difference bewtween PageRank and ToolBar PageRank?
26. Why might you want to use nofollow on an internal link?

Analysis

A big part of SEO involves assessing the effectiveness of a campaign both relative to past performance as well as to competiting sites.

1. Are you familiar with web analytics and what packages are your familiar with?
2. From an analytics perspective, what is different between a user from organic search results vs. a type-in user?
3. How do you distinguish the results of your search optimization work from a seasonal change in traffic patterns?
4. How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working?
5. What does competitive analysis mean to you and what techniques do you use?
6. If you’ve done 6 months of SEO for a site and yet there haven’t been any improvements, how would you go about diagnosing the problem?
7. How many target keywords should a site have?
8. How do *you* help a customer decide how to their budget between organic SEO and pay-per-click SEM?
9. You hear a rumor that Google is weighting the HTML LAYER tag very heavily in ranking the relevance of its results – how does this affect your work?
10. Why does Google rank Wikipedia for so many topics?

Industry Involvement

Is SEO just a job to pay the bills? Nothing wrong with that, but some senior positions can benefit from more enthusiasm and interest that can be measured by work done outside of the office.

1. If salary and location were not an issue, who would you work for?
2. In Google Lore – what are ‘Hilltop’, ‘Florida’ and ‘Big Daddy’?
3. Have you attended any search related conferences?
4. Google search on this candidates name, (if you cannot find them, that’s a red flag).
5. Do you currently do SEO on your own sites? Do you operate any blogs? Do you currently do any freelance work and do you plan on continuing it?
6. Of the well-known SEOs, who are you not likely to pay attention to?
7. What are some challenges facing the SEO industry?
8. What industry sites, blogs, and forums do you regularly read?
9. Who are the two key people – who started Google?
10. Who is Matt Cutts?
11. If you were bidding on a contract, what competitor would you most worry about?

Open-Ended

These questions are more about how an answer is given rather than the actual answer. They often scare interviewees, but with no wrong answer they’re actually a good opportunity to shine.

1. Tell me your biggest failure in an SEO project
2. What areas of SEO do you most enjoy?
3. In what areas of SEO are you strongest?
4. In what areas of SEO are you weakest?
5. How do you handle a client who does not implement your SEO recommendations?
6. Can you get XYZ company listed for the keyword “Google” in the first page?
7. What do you think is different about working for an SEO agency vs. doing SEO in-house?
8. Why are you moving from your current position and/or leaving any current projects?

Please check the referring site for the credit for this post.

SEO Executive for leading Agency in Cheshire….

SEO Executive required by this established agency based in Cheshire.

 

You will be responsible for devising and implementing ethical on-page and off-page SEO strategies for key client campaigns, in depth statistical analysis and reports of key accounts to account managers, account directors and clients. Support the SEO sales process as required, Attend key client meetings with account management team, Prepare and provide on-site SEO consultancy to clients as required, Share SEO knowledge internally via training as and inductions and keep abreast of developments within the search market, the search engine algorithms and guidelines and competitor campaigns to uncover opportunities and threats in the industry.

 

Successful candidates will have extensive knowledge and experience of on-page SEO techniques across a wide range of sectors, the ability to edit websites (directly or via CMS) to implement required on-page changes.  Experience of implementing SEO campaigns across a range of web development platforms (ASP, PHP, .NET etc.) and Content management Systems and increase your own and the company’s knowledge in the field of SEO

 

Keywords: SEO Agency, Search Engine Marketing, Cheshire, Manchester

 

You can find out more and apply here:

 

http://www.seovacancies.co.uk/info_jobid_316.html

 

Good luck!

 

SEO/PPC and the economic downturn

With the launch of the new WordPress Polling facility we thought we would canvass your views on the current climate. Whilst there are many predictions on what the next 12months will bring – they are just that – predictions. Arguably, in the absence of a crystal ball – one person’s opinion is as valid as another.

 

To simplify though; let’s assume that, generally speaking, one of two things will happen:

Companies will see a downturn in turnover/profit and cut their advertising budgets to protect cashflow etc. This could result in a reduction in SEO campaigns and paid search advertising.

or

Companies will see a downturn and decide that they need to increase their web based spending to improve the turnover/profit. Certainly if their competitors are cutting back then this is an ideal time to try and increase market share.

Whatever the true outcome, it will have an effect on the staffing industry and the number of vacancies open to people will go up or down. What do you think will happen? Will there be increased job prospects for SEO and PPC professionals or will they become another victim of this horrible downturn?

Comments are invited…….

Exciting new SEO, PPC and Online Marketing Jobs

Have you checked out our main site recently? There are plenty of new jobs being advertised – one of them could be just what you have been waiting for…….

 

With everybody paying careful attention to the economy it is reassuring to know that there are plenty of Companies still recruiting and looking for talented professionals to join their teams. Remember though, that you’ll need a great CV to accompany your application!

 

Click on the titles below to be taken to the relevant adverts on www.seovacancies.co.uk

 

Head of Online Marketing – London UK – £55k

PPC Online Marketing Analyst – London UK £30k

Senior Search Planner – London UK £32k

Senior Online Account Manager / Business Development – (not sales)  £43k

Online Marketing SEO Specialist, Barcelona Spain to €38k

Online Marketing Executive – London UK to £25k

Senior SEO Internet Marketer  - Philippines

SEO Webmaster – Philippines

Web Manager/SEO – London UK – £35k

 

There are many more new vacancies on our site – why not stop by and check them out.

Good luck!

Online Marketing Manager (SEO/PPC) for London Client

Fancy working client side, one of our advertisers is currently looking for a Head of Online Marketing (SEO / PPC) to join a London based company.

 

As Head of Online Marketing, the successful candidate’s responsibilities will be: Growing, shaping and leading the Online Marketing Department.

To develop business and marketing plans to include PPC, SEO and affiliate marketing work.

Driving and winning new business.

Planning new business strategy.

Budget management and responsibility.

Building and leading teams to deliver breathtaking creative campaigns.

Ensuring the online offer is different from the competition.

 

The successful candidate will be:

Innovative, creative, a born leader and full of ideas.

Experienced with excellent paid search (PPC), natural search (SEO) and affiliate marketing expertise.

Confident with a proven record of developing online business.

Capable with hands-on knowledge of Web marketing techniques such as PPC, affiliate marketing, SEO.

Able to optimise websites, as part of the role will be to help drive traffic to the site.

 

Applications are invited from candidates with solid online marketing management experience and a proven track record of success.

 

Keywords: SEO Manager, Online Marketing Manager, SEO, PPC, London

 

You can see more and apply here: http://www.seovacancies.co.uk/info_jobid_314.html