Advanced Seo Interview Questions and Answers

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Preparing for an SEO interview? Don’t forget to consider these SEO interview questions before jumping into your interview!

We are all aware that digital marketing is an industry with a plethora of career opportunities. Unlike regular 9-to-5 jobs, the advanced digital marketing course will let your creative side come out, allowing you to earn a good lifestyle along with a decent salary package. These highlights have made this field the first choice for every individual looking for a job change or wanting to start their career. Leading to this, the high competition has now made it difficult for people to build a career in this ever-evolving field.

To break the chain and be one step ahead of everyone, you must prepare these advanced SEO interview questions.

1. How does Google’s algorithm decide rankings?

Ans. Google’s algorithm decides the ranking factor by using more than 200 ranking factors, including content relevance, backlinks, page speed, user experience, mobile friendliness, keyword usage, and freshness of content. Besides this, it also uses AI-powered systems like RankBrain and BERT to understand the search intent and its context before showing the actual results. It is necessary to learn about how search engines crawl, index, and rank your website.

2. Explain E-E-A-T and its role in SEO.

Ans. Being a part of Google’s quality guidelines, EEAT, which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, it is essential to consider in each content piece. Websites that use this factor, especially in the YMYL (Your Money Your Life) niche content, are determined to rank higher compared to those that do not follow it.

3. How do Core Web Vitals impact SEO rankings?

Ans. Core Web Vitals are part of Google’s Page Experience update. By measuring three necessary signals, Google ranks the pages with good scores in its search engine, especially on mobile devices. So as an SEO expert, knowing this is how to improve Core Web Vitals for better SEO and user experience is very necessary.

4. What is structured data, and how does it help SEO?

Ans. Structured data or schema markup is code added to a website that helps search engines understand the content better. It increases the CTR and visibility of the website by triggering rich results like FAQs, stars, recipe cards, etc. Learn more to know how to use schema markup to dominate search results, which can add value while working as a professional.

5. How do you perform a full SEO audit?

Ans. There are certain steps that you have to perform a full SEO audit; they are:

Technical SEO evaluates crawlability, indexing, broken links, website speed, sitemap configuration, and the robots.txt file. These assessments ensure optimal search engine performance and website health.
On-Page SEO comprehensively analyzes the website’s meta tags, headers, content optimization strategies, and keyword placement to ensure they align with best practices for search engine optimization (SEO).
Off-page SEO performs a thorough assessment of backlinks, including an analysis of anchor text, Domain Authority (DA), and Page Authority (PA), and identifies any toxic or potentially harmful links.
Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Search Console, GA4, and PageSpeed Insights are some of the most reliable tools for performing a full SEO audit.

6. What’s the difference between a Canonical Tag and a 301 Redirect?

Ans. A canonical tag is an HTML element used in website development that informs search engines, notably Google, about which specific web page version should be considered the authoritative or primary. This helps prevent issues related to duplicate content and ensures that search engines index and rank the correct page.

A 301 redirect is a permanent method of redirecting one URL to another. This type of redirect typically informs search engines and users that a specific webpage or resource has been moved to a new URL permanently.

7. What is crawl budget, and how can you optimize it?

Ans. Crawl Budget refers to the total number of pages on a website that Googlebot is willing to crawl within a given timeframe. This concept is crucial for website optimization, as it influences how effectively search engines can index the site’s content and determine its visibility in search results. To optimize it, remove duplicate pages, fix broken links, use the updated sitemap, block low-value pages via robots.tx and improve internal linking.

8. How do you recover from a Google penalty?

Ans. To recover from a Google penalty, you should follow these steps:

Identify the type, whether a manual penalty or an algorithmic drop.
Check Google Search Console for alerts. Review all notifications thoroughly to maintain optimal website performance and security.
Remove low-quality/backlink spam. This measure helps maintain the integrity and credibility of the website by ensuring that only reputable links are associated with it.
Disavow harmful links using Google’s tool. This practice helps improve your website’s search engine ranking by maintaining a healthy backlink profile.
Fix content quality issues. Ensure that all information presented is accurate, relevant, and meets the required standards of clarity and professionalism.
Re-submit for reconsideration (manual penalty). Review the case thoroughly and update the status accordingly.

9. Explain the difference between GA4 and Universal Analytics in SEO tracking.

Ans. UA is a session-based tracking that enhances the accuracy of data collection by monitoring user interactions within a defined session, thereby enabling more precise analysis of user behaviour.

GA4 is an event-based tracking system that offers flexible tracking like scrolls, video views, and downloads without extra code. It provides a more complete cross-device user journey analysis to help measure SEO performance. If you want to learn about GA4 for a beginner guide, then enrol now in the Digital Marketing Course of Skillwaala.

10. What are your top 5 SEO KPIs and why?

Ans. The top 5 SEO KPI’s that I will list are:

Organic Traffic – This metric shows how many users land without ads and helps understand user engagement and the effectiveness of ad placements.
Keyword Rankings – Track the position of target keywords within the content to monitor their effectiveness and improve SEO strategies.
CTR (Click-Through Rate) – It indicates how appealing your title/meta are, which can influence click-through rates and overall engagement.
Bounce Rate / Time on Page – Signals user satisfaction by indicating how engaged visitors are with your content.
Conversion Rate – Measures how well SEO traffic converts into leads, customers, or desired actions, providing insight into the effectiveness of SEO strategies.

Watch this YouTube video to explore the most commonly asked Advanced SEO interview questions and boost your preparation!

11. What is the impact of HTTPS on SEO?

Ans. Google treats HTTPS as a ranking factor, emphasising its importance for website credibility and security. Implementing HTTPS helps to secure data, enhance user trust, and avoid the “Not Secure” warnings displayed in browsers. Therefore, switching to HTTPS is essential for optimal SEO performance and maintaining professional credibility.

12. What is keyword cannibalization and how do you fix it?

Ans. Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on your site compete for the same keyword, confusing Google. You can merge similar content, add canonical tags, re-optimize keywords, or redirect lower-performing pages to fix this.

13. How do you optimize a website for voice search?

Ans. To enhance your content’s effectiveness, incorporate conversational keywords and questions to engage readers. Optimize your website for featured snippets to increase visibility and ensure your site loads quickly on mobile devices for a better user experience. Additionally, add FAQs using schema markup to improve search engine understanding and ranking.

14. How does user intent impact keyword research?

Ans. User intent helps determine whether a search is informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional. Using matching keywords to intent results in higher conversions; for example, “Buy running shoes online” indicates purchase intent, whereas “best running shoes” suggests research intent.

15. What are orphan pages and how do you fix them?

Ans. Orphan pages are those that are not linked from any content on the site, and because of this, it becomes difficult for Google bots to find them. One can fix them by adding internal links, updating the sitemap, or linking the content from relevant pages or similar write-ups.

16. What is BERT and how does it affect SEO?

Ans. BERT is Google’s NLP model, which helps Google understand content and natural language better. This delivers the message that keyword stuffing won’t help anymore and could degrade the content quality; therefore, it’s better to focus on providing clear, helpful content that answers the user’s query.

17. What are toxic backlinks and how do you deal with them?

Ans. Toxic backlinks are generated from spammy and low-quality websites, harming your SEO. To identify them, you can use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush. Moreover, one can also disavow them by using the Google Disavow Tool to avoid link schemes.

18. How do you approach SEO for an e-commerce website?

Ans. For an e-commerce website SEO, you should:

Optimize product titles, descriptions, and images
Implement schema for products (price, ratings)
Avoid duplicate content (via canonicals)
Create SEO-friendly URLs
Internal linking from category pages
Focus on mobile UX and speed

19. How do you approach international SEO?

Ans. To effectively target different languages and regions, implement hreflang tags and select the appropriate URL structure, such as ccTLDs, subfolders, or subdomains. Make sure to set proper language and region targeting in Google Search Console. Additionally, translate content natively rather than relying on auto-translation to ensure accuracy and quality.

20. What is Content Pruning and when should you do it?

Ans. Content pruning means removing or merging low-performing, outdated pages. It boosts crawl efficiency, improves site efficiency, and increases the ranking potential of high-value pages.

Final Words

If you are inquisitive about digital marketing, these advanced SEO interview questions will do wonders for you. But preparing only for them will not be enough, as the increasing competition will demand an extra edge from you to enter this highly rewarding field. For this, you can enroll in SkillWaala’s free online SEO course and learn the skills from experts working in this field. But that’s not all, as you get to experience some free benefits, including free career counseling, mock interview sessions, resume building assistance, job assistance, and much more, along with a certificate from a reputed IT Company, BR Softech.

About The Author

Ajay Singh Shekhawat

Ajay Singh Shekhawat is the Director of Skillwaala and has extensive experience in the education and edtech sector. Known for building industry-relevant curriculums and scalable learning models, Ajay Singh is a trusted voice in practical education and youth empowerment. Over the years, he has made monumental strides in the education sector and empowered thousands of students.

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