Preparing for an SEO Job Interview (With Examples of SEO Interview Questions)
Publié le 11 December 2024
Boost your chances of getting hired in an important role shaping the future of businesses by properly preparing for an SEO job interview.
Search engine optimization is not a field that requires you to follow a standard protocol at all times. Instead, the ideal candidate can analyze data, use multiple tools proficiently, stay on top of the latest Google updates and new tech, and understand the market.
That’s why preparing for an SEO job interview can be a hard task. This guide will cover the basics you need to understand before the interview and share SEO job interview questions you may face.
Understanding the SEO Role and Employer’s Expectations
SEO doesn’t have a clear hierarchy of roles like programming but yields many SEO-related tasks, from high-level analytics to optimizing content. These jobs are distributed among different people, and companies often decide what roles entail based on their needs.
Figure out what the SEO role requires for each company you apply to. Here are the most popular role names.
- SEO Specialist. This is the most frequent name for an SEO role. It might call for all SEO-related tasks in a small company where you’re the only SEO person. It might also mean you’ll be doing mid-level tasks in a larger organization. Here is an example of what a company might want to see in a candidate.
Source: LinkedIn
- SEO Strategist. This is a more high-level role that includes practical analytics and building a strategy for the company or its clients. In some cases, this role might also include mid-level tasks. In some companies, parts of this role are taken on Head of Marketing, Head of Growth, or Head of Content.
Here’s an example of requirements from a job ad for this role.
Source: LinkedIn
- SEO Manager. It can also be named SEO Content Manager or SEO Content Specialist. Typically, this role entails overseeing the creation and optimization of content and managing a team of writers and editors. Here is what you might see in a job ad.
Source: LinkedIn
- SEO Analyst. In this role, you’ll be mostly dealing with data, from performance analysis to keyword aggregation. Typically, this role exists within larger SEO teams. Sometimes, the role includes responsibilities like that of an SEO Specialist, as in this listing.
Source: LinkedIn
Once you figure out the exact responsibilities of the role, brush up on its core competencies. Typically, they will include the following:
- Website audit
- Technical SEO
- On-page optimization
- Off-page SEO
- Keyword research
- Knowledge of analytical and research tools
- Collaboration between departments
A quick look at the company website with a few SEO tools can become a major benefit during the interview. Check how many backlinks they’ve got, what keywords they focus on, and what competitors they have. This will give you a better understanding of the job, and you can mention that in the interview to show you’ve done your research on them.
Key Areas to Focus On During Preparation
Since search engine updates can change how you approach SEO in a week, the first thing to do is stay up to date with the latest news and trends. Keep yourself updated through resources like Google’s blog and SE Ranking’s SEO blog, or listen to industry podcasts.
Staying informed can help you show you’re interested in the industry during the interview—exactly what the potential employer wants from an SEO expert.
In many SEO positions, you’ll have to work on all five most important areas of optimization. Here’s what you have to focus on in each.
Technical SEO Knowledge:
- Key components of Core Web Vitals
- Common page speed issues and solutions
- Improving crawlability and indexability
- Structured data implementations
- Handling redirects and site migrations
- Knowledge of website audit tools and crawlers
- Website security basics
The interviewer might ask:
- What do you do if you notice a lot of important pages are not indexed?
- How do you fix a site that takes seven seconds to load on mobile?
- What areas of a website do you look at first during an audit?
On-Page SEO Fundamentals:
- How to optimize SEO tags.
- How to optimize URLs.
- How to optimize headers, images, and page content.
- Best practices of internal cross-linking.
You might hear these SEO job interview questions on your call:
- How do you optimize a page for a specific group of keywords?
- How do you boost a specific page with cross-linking?
- How do you handle images on a blog?
Off-Page SEO Strategies:
- Knowledge of backlink analysis tools
- Knowledge of email marketing tools
- Competitor backlink analysis
- Different link-building strategies
- Improving EEAT
Here are a couple of questions you might encounter:
- What would you call a good link?
- What link-building strategy would you prioritize for an eCommerce website?
Keyword Research & Content Strategy:
- Knowledge of keyword research tools
- Knowledge of content marketing trends
- Keyword intent research
- Keyword grouping
- Forming content ideas based on keywords
- Forming and managing a content calendar
- Executing the content strategy and managing the editorial process
The interviewer might ask:
- What makes a keyword relevant to a page?
- How would you attract quality guest bloggers to the site?
- Does content velocity matter in SEO?
SEO Analytics & Reporting:
Here, you’ll mostly have to showcase your knowledge of the specific tools your employer uses or suggest your own. You should have extensive knowledge of free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. You should also be able to use a few specialized SEO tools. SE Ranking’s Traffic Checker can be a great tool to learn as it’s accessible and shows all relevant website performance metrics.
Here’s what you have to focus on:
- Knowledge of SEO analytics tools
- Knowledge of data analytics and visualization tools
- Data analytics and data management skills
- Knowledge of attribution models
Here’s what an interviewer might ask you:
- What tools do you have experience using?
- What metrics do you focus on when analyzing SEO campaigns?
- How do you analyze a traffic drop?
Preparing for Practical and Scenario-Based Questions
SEO job interviews are centered around finding out your approach to problems and processes of solving them. Focus on two main areas in this regard.
Problem-Solving Skills
A typical question to test your problem-solving skills would be something like “Our website’s organic traffic dropped 30% in the past month. What do you do?”
The key is not to jump straight to the most obvious solution, like building more links or publishing more pages. The interviewer wants to know how you diagnose the issue.
Start with explaining your process—perhaps you’d look at search engine result pages (SERPs) to find what competitors have gone ahead or check for recent Google updates. Then, explain what metrics you’d look for to understand what happened to fix it.
Also, think of how you’d go about solving other typical SEO issues.
Hands-On Tests and Case Studies
During the later stages of an SEO job interview process, you’re likely to encounter a hands-on test. Depending on the role, you might perform a mock audit with an SEO tool, work with dummy data in the sheets to diagnose something or find optimization opportunities in a content piece.
If you know your way around tools, you should pass this easily. Prepare for the specific tools and responsibilities of the SEO role, and be ready to comment on your actions if the interviewer has questions.
Soft Skills and Team Collaboration
Since an SEO specialist is a role where you should adapt to the changes, often and on the spot, and explain this difficult marketing technique to the other company experts, a lot of emphasis relies on soft skills during interviews. In fact, 84% of employers believe candidates should show soft skills in the hiring process.
Communication Skills
Communication is the first thing to focus on. You’ll be giving tasks to writers and tech people who might not have the full knowledge of what search engine optimization is and how to do it. Come up with ways to communicate typical SEO tasks to other people and which parts of the task you would highlight.
You’ll also have to work alongside social media, paid advertising, and salespeople. They might know a bit about SEO, but you’ll still have to communicate a lot to let them understand what you need to succeed.
Typical SEO-related interview questions might include one about the synergy between departments, so brush up on the most common ways your data can help them and their data can help you.
Adaptability & Continuous Learning
SEO can and has changed during the course of a couple of years. Just in 2024, we’ve seen five major Google updates so far. A part of your job description is keeping up with the changes. The first way to do that is to follow the Google blog and keep an eye out for updates and changes in the algorithm.
You might regularly check Google’s documentation because sometimes they change it, which can point to a change in the way the search works.
Another way to stay up to date when preparing for an SEO job interview is following skilled practitioners on social media, blogs, and podcasts. Learning new SEO techniques ahead of the crowd helps you leave a good impression during an interview.
If you can share a story of how you went through a major update and changed practices in the previous company, it could win the interviewer over.
Researching Common SEO Job Interview Questions
Even if you know a lot about the search engine optimization process and related tools, it’s easy to freeze during an interview because you’re nervous.
How do you prepare for an interview and know what they might ask? Think like an interviewer. More often than not, they’ll look for prompts online. Google “what to ask for during an SEO interview.” Read through the top ten of SERP, and you’ll likely hear those questions. Or look for something like “advanced SEO job interview questions and answers” to know what the interviewer expects to hear.
Here are a couple of questions you might not find there.
General SEO Job interview questions:
- How do domain authority metrics differ between popular tools?
- What’s your tool of choice for backlink analysis, and why?
- Does the image file name matter for SEO?
- What pieces of content earned you the most links?
- What’s your process for building an SEO article brief?
- What’s your process for updating content?
Technical SEO job interview questions:
- How do you handle pagination on large sites?
- When does Google automatically discard duplicate content?
- What are typical issues with submitting structured data?
Analytics-focused questions:
- What attribution model do you typically use for ROI calculation?
- How did you handle SEO reporting at your last job?
- How do you determine what to copy during competitor analysis?
Final Tips for the SEO Job Interview
A lot of the SEO job interviews will revolve around discussing your prior experience. Be prepared to share the details. Since you’re likely to be doing a remote interview, bring work samples like screenshots of analytical tools or SEO reports. Furthermore, be ready to explain how you achieved results.
Keep in mind that it is important to balance being confident with having an open mind. SEO is all about experimentation and learning, so showing you’re able and willing to come up with new perspectives and testing them is an advantage.
Don’t keep the interview one-sided. Ask questions during practical tests or questions that require you to diagnose a hypothetical issue. This will show the interviewer your approach is curious and methodical, not defaulting to a one-fits-all solution.
Ask about the company, both the culture and their SEO challenges.
Summary
Preparing for an SEO job interview can be hard, knowing that hundreds of candidates are competing for a place. But showing your good sides during it can be easier—if you know what you’re doing, that is.
Brush up on key SEO components and processes, soft skills, and problem solving. Be ready to showcase your experience with proof and explain how your approach to SEO works. Ask questions and show your expertise—this will win you the SEO job of your dreams.
