Common SEO Interview Questions Flashcards
Tell me about your life story (How you got to where you are, communicate this effectively)
Yeah so I started at Tombras as an SEO analyst intern and was hired on full time as an seo strategist. I worked on 4 client account, one in banking, two ecommerce and and one in healthcare. I would say my day to day tasks pretty much varied but I mainly worked on content briefs for upcoming articles for writers, content refresh for existing existing articles, seo research and recommendation deliverables, location audits for our healthcare clients Google Business Profile listings, technical audits as well as collection page footer copy for our ecommerce clients and of course monthly reporting. Before I got to Tombras I was freelance and doing on page, local and technical seo for a salon client as well as google ads and before that I was doing ecommerce, so retail arbitrage and reselling through platforms like eBay and Mercari. Currently I am looking for a new position where I can niche down a little more industry wise, preferably in the ecommerce or healthcare space.
Tell me about yourself
Yeah so I started at Tombras as an SEO analyst intern and was hired on full time as an seo strategist. I worked on 4 client account, one in banking, two ecommerce and and one in healthcare. I would say my day to day tasks pretty much varied but I mainly worked on content briefs for upcoming articles for writers, content refresh for existing existing articles, seo research and recommendation deliverables, location audits for our healthcare clients Google Business Profile listings, technical audits as well as collection page footer copy for our ecommerce clients and of course monthly reporting. Currently I am looking for a new position where I can niche down a little more industry wise, preferably in the ecommerce or healthcare space.
Why did you apply to this position?
I applied because I felt like the role responsiblities matched closely with what I’m familiar with and would want to be doing, also it’s in the ecommerce space which is an industry that I would like to continue working in but obviously the focus is a little different with Shopify being the platform. Also the role seems to be very content focused which I like as well. I enjoy working on content strategies, content briefs and things like that.
Why did you apply to this position?
I applied because I felt like the role responsibilities matched closely with what I’m familiar with and would want to be doing, also it’s in the ecommerce space which is an industry that I would like to continue working in but obviously the focus is a little different with Shopify being the platform. Also the role seems to be very content focused which I like as well. I enjoy working on content strategies, content briefs and things like that.
What are the next steps you’re looking to take in your career?
Currently I’m really looking to niche down to a specific industry where I can become an expert there within SEO. While I enjoyed working at Tombras, you don’t get to choose which client accounts you work on and I want to be more intentional there because there are some aspects that I like more than others in the industries that i’ve worked in. So I want to find a company that I feel like I can grow long term and where I can really dedicate enough time to creating and implementing good SEO strategies.
Can you share what your scope in your role and the projects were?
Sure, so at Tombras I worked on doing a lot of content strategy for our banking client, Truist bank so that includes creating content briefs for new pages which go over keyword research, sematic terms, meta data optimizaztions, competitor research, internal linking opportunities, I also worked on optimizing and refreshing existing content for them, landing page optimizations and analyzing site sections. For my healthcare client Atrium health I did a lot of location audits, research and recommendation deliverables for them so looking at current performance metrics for existing pages, keyword research, competitive analysis, meta optizations, faq schema, For ecommerce I did a lot of footer copy for their collection pages and technical recommendations preparing for a site migration and also monthly reporting as well.
Why did you leave Tombras?
Yeah so Tombras is a great agency, I really just wanted be more intentional with the type of SEO work that I do because I want to focus on becoming in an expert in an industry I enjoy for SEO and I couldn’t really do that at the agency because you have other clients that need your time and attention with bigger budgets. So that’s my main reason for leaving and I really value work life and that’s a little difficult at an agency level as well.
Have you worked remotely before?
Yes, so my most recent position at Tombras was completely remote. They sent me a laptop and monitor to use and we communicated primarily through Slack, Zoom, Webex with some clients and Google Meets.
Can you elaborate on your ecommerce experience?
Yeah so PGA Tour and Paul Fredrick
How is your client communication?
So we would meet with our clients either once or a couple times a week depending on the client account. We go over our seo status which covers existing projects, tasks any ad-hoc requests coming in for both content and technical seo. We would also meet with some of the other marketing departments such as paid search and social media but those meeting were just a recap of what is doing well.
What do you enjoy working on?
I really enjoy working on a lot of our research and strategy based projects so that includes our SEO research and recommendations deliverable that I did Atrium health, that covers performance metrics for existing pages, why want to optimize that page, keyword research, competitor analysis, metadata recommendations, content layout, faqs, internal linking opportunites. I also like doing technical audits as well because it’s good to see what the health of the site is looking like.
Can you tell us how you approached the site migration?
Yeah so for our Paul Fredrick site migration myself and my manager created a post migration Shopify plan for our client. So this included checks for Launch Day, the week post launch and the months that would come after launch.
Launch Day - so we checked for a couple different things, so making sure that the new sitemap was uploaded into GSC, we checked for any broken links, that pages were being crawled correctly, making sure that redirects were correct and checking the connection between the site and Google Analytics and BrightEdge. On the client side we wanted them to make sure that the site wasn’t being blocked by anything, so removing the password to the site, and making sure that the no-index tags were not visible.
Post Launch - We monitored obviously the organic traffic as a whole, crawling our old URLs making sure those are 301 redirecting correctly, Review index reports to make sure that google is crawling the site properly, checking metadata, checking 404 errors and any duplicate content
what are the biggest challenges with platform migrations?
Well thankfully the migration went pretty well. I don’t remember there being any major issues. One thing I do remember the bulk upload of metadata did not go as planned. I had to go through all the metadata for every item for every collection page write and copy and paste that information into a spreadsheet. So that was tedious but a pretty small issue. Traffic was a lot lower than normal but that was to be expected after a site migration and gradually increase over time.
Have you worked cross functionally with different teams?
Yes but only with the client’s developers and their external content writing team. At the agency we don’t really work closely paid search or UX/UI. I think it would be beneficail to work cross functionally with two teams because we could benefit from each other.
What type of work environment do you like?
I would say that I am pretty flexible when it comes to work environments. I do like working with a collaborative team but also I like enough time to do deep focused work and not be stuck in meetings all day.
What type of management style do you like?
So when it comes to management styles I prefer a manager who is pretty accessable but we don’t have to meet everyday, I did do a daily standup with my manager at my agency but that’s pretty standard when managing multiple client accounts. So I don’t think that will be the case working for one company. I like to have enough autonomy to just be able to get my work done throughout the day without a ton of check ins and meetings.
How do you handle stress?
I think I handle stressful situations pretty well. If it pertains to work, I find that I feel stressed when i’m overwhelmed so I just figure out what’s causing me to feel that way and go from there. If it’s work load then I like to prioritze and break down my list of tasks from most to least important for the day and take it from there.
What are your hobbies?
So outside of work I am working on my own blog I started late last year, it’s all about apartment living, renting, moving things like that, so that’s mostly what I am focused on this year as well as becoming fluent in spanish of my goals this year, I also am looking to read more this year as well I am trying to one fiction and non fiction book every month.
How would you measure success for your seo projects/campaigns?
So I measure the success of an seo project based on the performance metrics that we’re tracking so once a month for client accounts I do monthly reporting and i’ll use Atrium Health as an example. For them I look at 3 different sections, overall organic traffic performance MoM and YoY so this includes looking at organic sessions, branded and non-branded keywords, top pages by clicks. i also report on their local listing performance so this includes urgent cares and emergency rooms that have a Google business profile, with that i’m looking at facility listing views and actions, which include website clicks, directions and calls. I look at keyword performance as well so this can include our ranking tracking for individual keyowrds or keyword groups we create.
