15 SEO Interview Questions Looking to hire an SEO agency to run your search marketing efforts? Before you blindly hire someone, make sure you ask the right questions. This will save you time, money, and a huge headache! #1. What is SEO? #2. How do you define success when it comes to SEO? #3. How do you stay updated on industry news and algorithm changes? #4. How do you approach SEO from day-to-day when working for your cleints. #5. How often do you communicate with clients? The goal of this question is to understand if they actually have a basic understanding of the industry. Their answer should be something along the lines of; "SEO is the process of marketing a website to the search engines and its users to increase visibility and click-through rate." This question is a little harder to answer since success will be determined by a number of outside factors like industry, competition, current site status and company goals. SEO is constantly changing. Google makes more than 500 updates to their algorithm each year. When hiring an SEO, make sure they are up-to-date on search engine algorithms. This question will give you insight into how they do what they do. Listen carefully and you can learn clues about their work ethic, follow-through and consistency. While SEO can be complicated, keeping clients aware of what's going on helps make them feel more secure. Since many have been burned in the past, open communication is essential. #6. How did you learn SEO? #7. What's your approach to keyword research? #8. What is the relationship between SEO, SEM and social media marketing? #9. What SEO tools do you regularly use? #10. How do you stay organized when working on an SEO project? Not all SEO is created equal. While most of us in the industry are self-taught, this question will help you determine whether they learned their skills from pros or hacks. While Google is moving more and more towards understanding topics, keywords are still extremely important. This question will help you get an idea of their processes. Successful online marketing is the result of using all of the tools available to help you get results. This question will allow you to understand the scope of their abilities as well as their knowledge of the industry. Today's SEO world is full of tools, tools and more tools. Some are better than others. If you aren't familiar with a tool they use, ask them to give you more detail. Keeping track of keywords, rankings, strategy, and links can get real messy, real fast. If an agency has an organized system that will tell you a lot about how they work and the results you can expect from them. #11. What is your strategy for link building? #12. How have you dealt with link penalties? #13. What’s the ideal speed for a site to load a web page? #14. What method do you use to redirect a page? #15. What metrics do you use to measure SEO success? When it comes to link building there is a right way and a wrong way. If they outsource overseas, pay-to-play or won't give you a clear answer, be very afraid. This is kind of a trick question. If they have been penalized in the past, that's a good indication they have used some black-hat tactics. Conversely, if they've helped a site that's been penalized recover, it shows their skills. Simple: "47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less." There are two major types of redirects 302 and 301. Knowing when and how to use them is crucial to passing page rank and indexing your site properly. Success is measured in a number of ways. See what they find important and compare that with your idea of success. If your vision and their vision don't match, you probably won't work well together. 15 SEO Interview Questions This is just a start, but using these questions will help ensure you hire the right agency for your site. Learn more about SEO https;//www.smamarketing.net