Interview questions for an SEO position
Knowing what questions to ask candidates for SEO jobs can be challenging, but we have an awesome list of questions to get you started. Before you decide what interview questions to ask, you will need to know what skills and qualities you are looking for in a potential employee. Read our blog to discover everything you need to know about hiring search engine optimisation staff.
It’s important to hire someone who knows how to set up an SEO campaign as well as how to use optimisation software. When it comes to picking the right SEO services for your business, you’ll need to look out for a candidate who is self-motivated and good at communicating. As it’s likely that the successful candidate will work as part of a team, interpersonal skills are crucial. You’ll also need to ask questions to evaluate the interviewee’s SEO knowledge and capabilities.
If you don’t have an adequate understanding of search engine optimisation, it’s difficult to select genuine candidates from interviewees who only have a limited understanding of SEO. Before the interview, you will need to prepare questions and make sure that you complete research so that you understand what SEO is all about. Here are some questions to get you started.
1. How do you define SEO and why is it essential to modern businesses?
You can start with a simple question to get an overview of the candidate’s understanding of search engine optimisation. This question also allows you to get insight into why the candidate values their work with search engine optimisation. Search engine optimisation refers to tasks that are carried out to improve search engine rankings. These strategies can be used to place a website, product or content higher up on the ranking list.
When a user types search keywords into Google, they typically only look at the first five listings. This means that your ranking plays a vital role in your website traffic.
2. What is your favourite optimisation software?
With a variety of optimisation software on the market, it’s good to get insight into what tools your candidate prefers to use. This is also an opportunity for you to evaluate their capabilities and check that they are able to use optimisation software effectively.
3. Can you describe a problem that you’ve had with an SEO campaign and how you resolved it?
Problem-solving capabilities are a vital skill to look out for in prospective SEO employees. You need to know that your employee can develop and implement a solution when a problem with an SEO campaign arises. Other traits to look out for when candidates answer this question include commitment and persistence.
4. What online resources do you use to keep up with industry trends?
Search engine optimisation is constantly evolving, which makes it vital for professionals in this field to keep up-to-date with the latest information that’s available. Candidates who are committed to continuous learning are more likely to offer you top quality SEO services. Some well-known blogs that focus on SEO include Search Engine Land and the Content Marketing Institute.
5. How do you handle canonicalization issues?
The candidate’s answer to this question shows you how much they know about canonicalization. Canonical URLs refer to the process of choosing the most appropriate URL for the web page that visitors are looking for. Canonical tags play a role in solving the problems that are associated with content duplication.
6. What strategies would you use to improve organic rankings?
An important part of SEO jobs is the ability to achieve organic rankings. A good organic ranking refers to the search results that are listed as being most relevant to the search the user carried out. No payment is made for this ranking and it is based on the relevance of the content to the user. Paid results refer to the advertisements that are listed above the organic results. In Google, content, backlinks, and RankBrain are used to achieve high organic rankings.
7. How do you assess the impact of your SEO campaign?
It is essential for SEO professionals to evaluate the success of their campaign. This ensures that they are able to make adjustments to the SEO campaign in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. The candidate’s response to this question is also an indication of whether or not the candidate is dedicated to achieving good results. Google Analytics is a useful tool that tracks and monitors website traffic. One of the many benefits of using Google Analytics is that it can be used with a range of other Google products to maximise efficiency.
Another option is to conduct an SEO Audit which assesses your website’s technical infrastructure. This allows you to identify and resolve any issues that are affecting your visibility and conversion rates.
Now that you know more about how to interview SEO candidates, you can create listings for SEO jobs online and start interviewing.
