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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

SEO Job Interview Questions & Answers

If you have plans to start a career as Internet marketer or jump on to the wagon of online marketing then you need someone to give a good push, better still someone with a solid understanding about search engine optimization. 

Start your career in SEO, but before you attend an interview at an SEO consultancy take a good preparation for the SEO Interview Questions that are presented here with the most appropriate answers.

1)     What is a Search Engine?
A search engine enables the user to search for specific answers, news, or details by way of the World Wide Web. Results are called SERPs – an acronym for search engine results pages. The info you obtain typically is made up of web pages or images. Updated information is mined by search engines as well from such sources as directories and databases. Real time computing is utilized, which provides reliable timely information via an algorithm running on a web crawl.

2)    What are Meta Tags?
HTML Meta tags are snippets of HTML code that are inserted in a web page’s header, and  come after the title tag. The title tag itself is one of the essential components used in obtaining a high ranking in the SERPs. That’s because the words of the title tag are shown on the clickable links of the SERPs. So, making an adjustment with the wording can cause you to obtain more click-throughs. For SEO purposes, meta tags are labeled as meta keyword tags and meta descriptions tags. These tags are invisible to the user and are used to supply data or directions to the search engines in order to access information.

3)    Why is a Robots.txt File Used?
A Robts.txt File is used to prevent the indexing of duplicate content on a website or for implementing a no follow rule in an area of a website. Therefore, if a webmaster or an owner of a website wants to direct the web robots, he must establish the Robots.txt file and provide exact directions for robots to read before accessing other files on the site. If the file is not used, the web robots will simply conclude that no explicit instructions are available for the site. Also, If the website has more than one subdomain, then a Robots.txt. file must be used for each of the subdomains.

4) Title Tag SEO Importance?
Title tags influence your SEO initiatives, so they are considered highly important in how well your web site does in the search engine rankings. Title tags show up in search engine result listings and play a key role in how your web site is received. In fact, title tags are as important to your site’s popularity as are the links directed to your web pages and the content on your site. While SEO professionals understand title tag seo importance, this key factor is often bypassed by owners of websites when they are trying to optimize their sites.

5) What is Cloaking SEO?
Cloaking is a method used by experts who practice black hat SEO to fool the search engines. In other words, the search engines are shown one kind of version of a website while the users visiting the site do not see the same page. This type of practice was more prevalent around ten years ago when Google’s filters were not as adept at catching the offenders. Typically, cloaking was used when a web page was not ranking all that high. Therefore, another page was developed for the bots to crawl.

6) Domain Extensions – Do They Matter in SEO Ranking?

Domain Extensions are used in domains or URLs to signify the type of website. The most common extension, .com, denotes the word commercial and is used the most worldwide. The .net extension is short for network while .org, means organization (used mainly by nonprofits). The .biz extension represents small business URLs while the .info extension is used for resource sites. The.mobi extension is used for sites on mobile devices, and .us, which is the country code for the U.S., has the most available domain names on inventory.

7) What is your favourite aspect of SEO?
If you answer the interviewer that Link building is your favorite part in SEO, the interviewer would have made up 75% of his mind to recruit you  . But the reality is for most people it isn’t, as Link Building is one of the most difficult aspect of SEO.

For most SEO’s who are also good Content Writers, Writing Unique Content would be their favourite part.

For others it could be one or more of the following;

On-Page Optimization
Off-Page Optimization
Keyword Research
Forums Posting
Article Writing
Blog Posting
Classified Posting
Link Exchange
Social Bookmarking
Blog Commenting
Press Release (PR) Submission.

8) What is the most difficult aspect of SEO for you?
If you ask me “What part of SEO process is most difficult?”, I would say – Off-Page Optimization. Now thats a very broad topic in itself in SEO. If you ask me “What Part of the Off-Page SEO Process is Hardest for You?”, It is Link Building for me.

Acquisition of Quality Inbound Links / Generating Quality Back Links is one of the toughest parts of SEO Process most SEO Experts face today. Here I am talking Quality and not Quantity. If its not done properly your site can even get penalized.

When I interviewed a couple of SEO Guys asking them this question, some told me “Keyword Research”!!! I wonder why because that’s one of the most interesting steps in your campaign when you are actually learning what your client’s site is all about.