General SEO (Beginner Level) Interview Questions
1. What is SEO?
Answer: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing a website to increase its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), thereby attracting more organic (non-paid) traffic.
2. Why is SEO important?
Answer: SEO improves website visibility, drives targeted traffic, builds brand credibility, and provides long-term results compared to paid ads.
3. What are the main types of SEO?
Answer:
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On-Page SEO
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Off-Page SEO
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Technical SEO
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Local SEO
4. What is a search engine?
Answer: A search engine is a tool like Google or Bing that helps users find information on the internet using keywords or phrases.
5. What is a keyword?
Answer: A keyword is a word or phrase that users type into search engines. It represents the topic or intent of a search query.
6. What are long-tail keywords?
Answer: These are longer and more specific keyword phrases (e.g., “best digital marketing course in Noida”) that usually have lower competition and higher conversion rates.
7. What is the difference between organic and paid results?
Answer: Organic results appear naturally based on relevance, while paid results are ads shown above or below organic listings.
8. What is on-page SEO?
Answer: On-page SEO involves optimizing elements within your website—like content, title tags, and meta descriptions—for better rankings.
9. What is off-page SEO?
Answer: Off-page SEO focuses on external signals like backlinks, social media shares, and brand mentions that influence your rankings.
10. What is technical SEO?
Answer: Technical SEO involves optimizing website infrastructure, like crawlability, site speed, mobile-friendliness, and schema markup.
🔹 Keyword Research & Content
11. What tools are used for keyword research?
Answer:
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Google Keyword Planner
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Ubersuggest
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SEMrush
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Ahrefs
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Answer the Public
12. What is keyword stuffing?
Answer: Keyword stuffing is the overuse of keywords in content to manipulate rankings. It's considered a black-hat SEO practice.
13. What is keyword density?
Answer: It's the percentage of times a keyword appears on a page compared to the total word count.
14. What is content optimization?
Answer: It involves refining your content by using relevant keywords, headings, internal links, and meta tags to improve visibility.
15. What is E-E-A-T in SEO?
Answer: E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google uses these principles to evaluate content quality.
🔹 Technical SEO
16. What is a sitemap?
Answer: A sitemap is an XML file that lists all important pages of a website to help search engines crawl it more effectively.
17. What is robots.txt?
Answer: It’s a file that instructs search engine bots on which parts of your site should not be crawled.
18. What is canonicalization?
Answer: It’s the process of selecting a preferred URL when multiple URLs have the same or similar content.
19. What is a 301 redirect?
Answer: A 301 redirect is a permanent redirection from one URL to another, passing most SEO value to the new page.
20. What is site speed and why does it matter?
Answer: Site speed is how fast your site loads. Faster sites improve user experience and rank better on Google.
21. What is Core Web Vitals?
Answer: A set of metrics (LCP, FID, CLS) that Google uses to measure real-world user experience of a web page.
🔹 Link Building
22. What are backlinks?
Answer: Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your site. They are a key ranking factor in SEO.
23. What is anchor text?
Answer: The clickable text in a hyperlink. It should be relevant to the page being linked to.
24. What is the difference between dofollow and nofollow links?
Answer:
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Dofollow: Pass SEO value (link juice).
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Nofollow: Do not pass SEO value.
25. What are some effective link-building strategies?
Answer:
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Guest blogging
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Broken link building
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Skyscraper technique
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Resource page outreach
🔹 On-Page Optimization
26. What is a title tag?
Answer: A title tag is an HTML element that defines the title of a web page. It's important for both SEO and CTR.
27. What is a meta description?
Answer: A short summary of a page's content shown in search results. It influences CTR but not directly rankings.
28. What is a heading tag?
Answer: HTML tags like H1, H2, H3 used to structure content. H1 is for main title, others are subheadings.
29. What is image optimization?
Answer: Compressing images, using descriptive file names, and adding alt text to improve load speed and accessibility.
30. What is internal linking?
Answer: Linking to other pages within your website to improve navigation, SEO, and user experience.
🔹 Local SEO
31. What is Local SEO?
Answer: SEO focused on optimizing a business for location-based searches (e.g., “SEO company in Delhi”).
32. What is Google Business Profile (GBP)?
Answer: A free tool by Google that lets you manage your business's presence on Google Search and Maps.
33. What factors affect local SEO?
Answer:
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Google Business Profile optimization
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NAP consistency
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Local citations
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Reviews
34. What are citations in SEO?
Answer: Online mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP), typically on directories like Yelp, Justdial, etc.
35. How to improve Google Maps rankings?
Answer:
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Optimize your GBP
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Get local reviews
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Add location-based keywords
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Ensure NAP consistency
🔹 SEO Tools & Analytics
36. What is Google Search Console?
Answer: A free tool from Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google search results.
37. What is Google Analytics used for?
Answer: It tracks website traffic, user behavior, and conversions, helping you measure SEO performance.
38. What is a SERP?
Answer: Search Engine Results Page — the page displayed by search engines in response to a query.
39. What is CTR in SEO?
Answer: Click-through rate — the percentage of people who click your link after seeing it in search results.
40. What is bounce rate?
Answer: The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page.
🔹 Recent SEO Trends (2025)
41. How is AI impacting SEO in 2025?
Answer: AI helps with content creation, user intent understanding, and personalized search. Google uses AI like MUM and SGE to improve search quality.
42. What is Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE)?
Answer: SGE uses AI to generate summarized answers in SERPs, changing how users consume and click content.
43. Is voice search important in SEO?
Answer: Yes. With increasing use of voice assistants, optimizing for conversational, question-based queries is vital.
44. What is mobile-first indexing?
Answer: Google indexes and ranks websites based on the mobile version first, not desktop.
45. What is structured data or schema markup?
Answer: Code added to pages to help search engines understand content and enable rich snippets.
46. What are rich snippets?
Answer: Enhanced search results (with stars, FAQs, etc.) that provide extra information and improve CTR.
47. What is user intent?
Answer: The goal behind a user’s search—informational, navigational, or transactional.
48. What is the importance of SEO audit?
Answer: An SEO audit helps identify technical, content, or link issues that may affect rankings.
49. What is the difference between white hat and black hat SEO?
Answer:
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White hat: Ethical SEO techniques recommended by Google.
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Black hat: Unethical tactics like cloaking, keyword stuffing, and buying links.
50. How long does it take to see SEO results?
Answer: Typically 3 to 6 months, depending on competition, content quality, and domain authority.
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