SEO Interview Questions:
Introduction
to SEO:
Search Engine
Optimization in short form SEO is the process of optimizing web pages or
websites in search engines in order to increase visibility of the website in
the search engine result pages (SERP). For optimizing we need to make our
website search engine friendly, and then we can get higher positions in search
results.
This tutorial explains
some SEO methods to improve the visibility of your web pages for different
search engines, especially for Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
What is SEO – Search Engine Optimization?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is process of
optimizing a website in search engines. SEO is a technique for:
- Making a website search engine
friedly to rank well in search engine results.
- Improving the organic traffic
to a website from search engines.
- Understanding how search engine
works to search a keyword and predicting what web users might search.
- SEO is a part of search
engine marketing (SEM). SEO is also referred as SEO copyrighting, because most
of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines, deal with
text.
If you plan to do some
basic SEO, it is essential that you understand how search engines work.
HOW Search Engine Works?
Search Engines performs
several activities to show the exact results as per the user requirement.
Functions are like crawling, Indexing, Processing and Retrieving results.
What is Crawling?
It is
the process of fetching all the web pages linked to a website. This task is
performed by a automated program, called a crawler or a spider or a robot
or Googlebot, in case of Google.
What is Indexing?
It is
the process of creating index for all the crawled web pages and keeping them
into database from where it can retrieve later. Essentially, the process of
indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page
and assigning the page to particular keywords.
What is SEO Copywriting?
It is
the technique of writing text to the web pages that is provides the information
to the readers and also target specific keywords. Its purpose is to rank highly
in the search engines for the targeted keywords.
Along
with text, SEO copywriting usually optimizes other On Page elements for the
targeted keywords. This includes Title, Description, Tags, Header Tags and Alt
Text.Search
engines need genuine and unique content for achieving high rankings for the
website.
What
is Search Engine Rank?
When you search any keyword in search
engine search box, it displays a huge number of results found in the data base.
A page rank is measured by the position of web page displayed in the search
engine results. If a search engine is putting your web page on the first
position, then your web page rank will be #1 and it will be assumed as the page
with the highest rank.
SEO is the process of developing and
improving a website to attain a high rank in search engine results.
What
is On Page and Off Page in SEO?
These are the two ways of optimizing the
website. Both are necessary to attain high rankings in search engines.
What is On-Page
SEO?
It includes providing good title, description and
putting keywords of the web page. It is also adding unique content in the web
page with keywords giving appropriate page title, headings and etc.
What is Off-Page
SEO?
It includes process of Link Building.It is for increasing link popularity by submitting to
different popular sites to get a quality backlinks, search engines and etc.
What
is a Keyword in SEO?
Keywords are the phrases of words used by
users in the search engine search box to find the results via search engines. SEO
keywords are the key words and phrases in your web content that make it
possible for people to find your site via search engines.
The following concepts related to keywords,
help in optimizing the keywords on a web page.
Keyword
Frequency:
This is calculated as how often does a
keyword appear in a website title or description. You do not want to go
overboard with frequency, however, since on some engines if you repeat a word
too many times, you are be penalized for "spamming" or keyword
stuffing.
In general though, repeat your keyword in
the document as many times as you can get away with, and up to 3-7 times in
your list of meta tags.
Keyword
Weight:
It refers to the number of keywords
appearing on your web page compared to the total number of words appearing on
that same page. Some search engines consider this while determining the rank of
your website for a particular keyword search.
One technique that often works well is to
create some smaller pages, generally just a paragraph long that emphasizes a
particular keyword. By keeping the overall number of words to a minimum, you
can increase the "weight" of the keyword you are emphasizing.
Keyword
Proximity:
It refers to the placement of keywords on a
web page in relation to each other or, in some cases, in relation to other
words with a similar meaning as the queried keyword.
For search engines, that grade a keyword
match by keyword proximity, the connected phrase home loans will outrank a
citation that mentions home mortgage loans assuming that you are searching only
for the phrase "home loans".
Keyword
Prominence:
It is a measure of how early or high up on
a page, the keywords are found. Having keywords in the first heading and in the
first paragraph (first 20 words or so) on a page are best.
Keyword
Placement:
Where your keywords are placed on a page is
very important. For example, in most engines, placing the keywords in the Title
of the page, or in the Heading tags will give it more relevancy. On some
engines, placing keywords in the link text, the part that is underlined on the
screen in a browser, can add more relevancy to those words.
Best
Places to Put Keywords:
Here is a list of places where you should
try to use your main keywords.
- Keywords or other headline tags.
-
Keywords in the keywords
link tags.
-
Keywords in the body copy.
- Keywords in alt tags.
- Keywords in Alt Text·
- Keywords in the URL or website address.
How to Find Keywords?
There are many different ways to find
keywords for your website. Some good keyword ideas are:
·
The potential words, people would use to find your product or
service.
·
The problems that your prospective customers may try to solve with
your product or service.
·
Keyword tags on competitor's websites.
·
Visible page copy on competitor's websites.
·
Related search suggestions on top search engines.
·
/span>Using an online tool such as Google Keyword Tool
·
By analyzing your website carefully and finding out proper
keywords. This task can be done by expert SEO copywriters.
·
Pay attention to stemming for your keywords - particularly to what the root word is and what Google considers to be a match for that word, when optimizing pages over time.
·
You can do brainstorming to identify correct keywords for your
site.
What
is Word Stemming?
Google uses a feature called word stemming that allows all forms of the word - singular, plural, verb form as well as similar words to be returned for a given search query.
So if someone types in "house
plans", not only the pages that are optimized for that phrase but the pages that contain all variations of that phrase are returned. For example,
"house plan", "house planning", "house planner".
Hope you have some understanding on
keywords and you also know how to identify them and where to use them. The next
chapter explains how to optimize meta tags for better results.
What is Meta
Tags?
There are two important meta tags:
·
Meta description tags
·
Meta keyword tags
Some search engines may display the meta description as a part of
the search results, but the meta keyword tags should not appear in search
results.
The general consensus among SEO experts is that metatags are dead.
Even so, many of these same experts continue to use metatags in their own
sites.
For Google, adding the description meta tag does not result in a
boost in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), but the description might be
used for the description for your SERP listings in Google.
Yahoo! says, they use the Keyword Meta Tag when it ranks a page.
Hence it makes sense to add one for Yahoo! and any other minor search engines
that still use.
What
Do the Metatags Look Like?
You can add the following in the head section of the web page:
content="KEYWORD1 KEYWORD2 KEYPHRASE1 etc.
about 30 to 40 unique words">
content="An accurate, keyword-rich description
about 150 characters">
Meta
Description Tag Tips:
Important tips for good Meta description tags:
- Use keywords in your meta description tag.
- Try not to repeat the words overly often, but try to use multiple
syntaxes of your key words.
- There should not be more than 150 characters in a description metatag of a single web page.
- Use a different meta description tag for each page, as each page is different and stands a better chance of being found if you place a good
title and description on it.
Meta
Keywords Tag Tips:
Please refer to the previous chapter for identifying good keywords. Use the following tips for preparing good meta keywords tags.
- Use synonyms.
- Use unique keywords.
- No need to repeat any given phrase.
- You can repeat a word any number of time, as long as each time it is part of a different phrase.
Why Content is King in SEO?
Content basically includes what you see on the site: the text,graphics, and even links to other websites. You should not use excessive graphics because they are not Search Engine Friendly plus heavy graphics normally put the users out when they get downloaded, especially over a slow network.
Thousands of articles, books, and forum entries are available on how to make your website search engine friendly, but ultimately, one rule stands above the rest: Unique, high-quality, unduplicated content is the king.
Superior the quality of your content, the higher the ranking you achieve, larger the traffic you gain and greater the popularity of your website. Search engines prefer good quality sites in their index and search results.
Relevant, fresh, and timely content is crucial in attracting visitors to your website. It helps you both draw traffic from search engines and create audience loyalty.
Unique,
High-Quality Content:
When people visit a website for information, they want your unique spin on a topic. How is your material or content unique? Is that uniqueness obvious, and easy to find and to understand? Visitors want unique, high-quality site content. It is not only your home page content, but also all the linked pages should have useful and easy-to-understand content.
Now-a-days, search engines have become very smart and they are able to understand complete grammar and complete phrase. Hence while ranking a page against other, the content available on a page matters.
Sites with duplicated, syndicated, or free content are get given red flags by the search engines.
SEO Content
Writing (Copy Writing):
SEO Content Writing (also referred as SEO Copy writing), involves the process of integrating keywords and informative phrases which make up the actual content of your website.
- While writing your webpage content, the following tips may help
you in keeping it better than others.
- The content should be directed for the specified target audience.
- Keyword density is strictly adhered as per search engine
guidelines.
- Titles should always be eye-catching, compelling your visitors to
read on and want to know what you offer in your website.
- Do not use confusing, ambiguous, and complex language. Use small
statements to make your content more understandable.
- Keep your web pages short.
- Organize and distribute the content on the webpages.
- Divide your web page content also into short paragraphs.
Other
Advantages of Having Great Content:
It is not only SEO you need to think about. Many factors
contribute to make your site popular.
- If your site is having something really unique, then people like
to suggest it to their friends.
- Other webmasters like to create a link of your site on their
sites.
- Your site visitors start trusting on your site and they look
forward for the next content update and keep coming again and again.
- Although you are listed out by search engine, a but net surfer
will click only that page whose content snippet looks more unique and
interesting.
Conclusion:
Creating, editing, and promoting unique high-quality content is difficult and time consuming. But in the end, the golden rule of SEO is that Content is the King. It is not because of a search engine, but
it is for your site visitors. A page that is read by people is better than a page that is read by bots.
So, write your content after a serious thought. Keep your title,keywords, link text, metatags up-to-date, unique, and interesting.
