A mix of important SEO tips you must follow to achieve #1 SERP

 

Groundwork

·         List out keywords both long tail and short tail using different keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Uber Suggest, Ahrefs, Soovle

·         Keyword Theming – Segregate keywords and group them with regards to the category, demand, relevancy, and location centric (sofas on rent in las vegas, wardrobe rental in dallas)

·         Create specific and generic images and videos as necessary for every pages. And use alt tags for images and file naming for videos with high relevancy to those images.

·         Finalize CTAs for every page (Get a Quote, Rent Now, Learn More) as per the page need.

On Site SEO

·         Mobile Friendly – All pages to be created mobile friendly. If not, then an AMP must be created for every single page that is being created since mobile is on the way to dominate the desktop searches.

·         Eliminate the 404 pages – Any pages with 404 errors must be either removed or redirected to a live page within the website.

·         Page speed should not be more than 2 seconds – There are high elements that increases the page speed. All those elements need to be minimized. If not, another alternative should be used. For example, inline CSS increases the page speed, rather an external CSS should be used.

On Page SEO

·         URL Structure – Must be within 60 characters with usage of targeted keywords within it.

·         Content – Unique content to be created for every page targeting 3 keywords, not more than that. The keyword density should not be higher than 5% of the body text. Make sure to add LSI keywords within the body content that would be helpful in traffic generation and better visibility.

·         File Size – Any file to be embedded within the page must be maximum 70 KB size to meet the best SEO standards.

·         CTA – Unique CTAs to be included in every page wherever required to convert the visitor.

·         Chunk the text in readable form – Rather than long paragraphs, it is a better practice to break down the paragraphs into segments that raise the visitor’s interest to engagement in the page.

·         Internal Linking – Link to pages internally to have the link juice flow strategically within the webpages and help achieve ranking in the SERP.

·         Implement schema markups in all pages wherever possible.

Off Page SEO

·         Target link building from high authority domains rather than building from low authority domains. I specifically target any domains with DA 30 or more.

·         Mix of both do follow and no follow links – Linking profile must include both do follow and no follow links to look natural. At least 20% of links must be no follow.

·         Profile links in various platforms. Some of the examples are quora, medium, reddit etc.

·         Wiki Links – Even if Wikipedia links are no follow, creating links there increases the visitors count which eventually contributes to the ranking of pages. Mostly the blogs are the best resources for Wikipedia pages.

·         If any links is no follow and is having a high number of visitors, it is better to get links from those pages as the visitors count to any pages would help increase in ranking.

·         Generate lists to create link from Google using search operators – Using various search operators (keyword+inurl:guest post, keyword+intitle:resource, etc), opportunities could be found out to get a link from.

·         Create a diversified set of links in terms of keywords – Any page to be targeted must include link building with keyword variations and URLs as the link at certain places. This practice will make the link profile look natural and not shady.

·         Create different forms of links – If any blog post is published, make sure to have an infographic with the same content. Information would reach people with all categories (text readers, infographic readers) leaving no stones unturned.

·         Widget Linking – Create any tool or calculator and make it available free of cost to be embedded in any website with a do follow link within that widget. Anything in free is sold everywhere in this earth.

·         Badge Linking – Just like the widget, badge linking is also of the same approach defining certain standards for any products or services.

·         Competitors Backlinks – Jot down competitors backlinks using different tools like (ahrefs, google search operators, ubersuggest etc). Look out for potential opportunities and reach out to them for creating a backlink. One another way to look out for competitor’s backlinks is check the backlinks of the pages ranking above our page and extract their backlinks and look out for opportunities in those pages. Email is the best way to reach out to potential webmasters for placing a link in their web pages.

·          Broken Link Building – Look out for all the opportunities for 404 errors in any niche specific pages and if there is an opportunity to replace the link with any of our link, then request could be sent to those webmasters to replace the links. It is better for those webmasters and for us. Since they will have a good user experience and we will get a link back to our page.

·         Unlinked Brand Mentions – Look out for any brand mentions and reach out to them for placing the normal text with a link to our home page. Here also the benefits would be same for both the webmasters and us just like it is there in the broken link building.

53 SEO Interview Questions with Answers - Extracted from a test by MOZ

 

1.     What is the optimal HTTP status code to permanently remove a URL from Google's index?

A: 301

B: 302

C: 404

D: 410

E: 500

 

2.     In the following HTML snippet: <a href="http://moz.com" title="SEO"><img src="img/software.jpg" alt="Marketing" title="Tools" width="100" weight="100"></a> What is considered the anchor text of the link?"

A: http://moz.com

B: SEO

C: Marketing

D: Tools

E: software 

 

3.     When is using rel="nofollow" NOT appropriate?

A: Paid links

B: Untrusted content

C: Press releases with optimized anchor text

D: Widely distributed footer links

E: None; all of these are appropriate

 

4.     Which of the following types of sitemaps is NOT supported by Google?

A: News

B: Product

C: Image

D: Mobile

E: Video 

 

5.     What is the maximum number of URLs typically allowed in an XML sitemap file?

A: 500

B: 5,000

C: 50,000

D: 500,000

E: 5,000,000 

 

6.     What is the maximum number of URLs typically allowed in an XML sitemap file?

A: 200

B: 302

C: 404

D: 503

E: 90210 

 

7.     True or false: A 301 redirect passes roughly the same link equity as using the rel="canonical" tag.

A: TRUE

B: FALSE 

 

8.     Which of the following would be the best choice of URL structure (for both search engines and humans)?

A: www.wildlifeonline.com/animals/crocodile

B: www.wildlifeonline.com/category/277/article/563

C: www.wildlifeonline.com/O0665?id=563&cat=277

D: text.wildlifeonline.com/category/crocodile

E: www.wildlifeonline.com/563 

 

9.     How can meta description tags help with the practice of search engine optimization?

A: They're an important ranking factor in the search algorithms.

B: They help to tell the search engines which keywords are most important on your page.

C: They serve as the copy that will entice searchers to click on your listing.

D: Trick question; meta descriptions are NOT important. 

 

10. The de-facto version of a page located on the primary URL you want associated with the content is known as:

A: Canonical Version

B: Empirical Version

C: Heretical Version

D: Preferential Version

E: Home Page 

 

11. Which HTTP server response code indicates a file that no longer exists? (File Not Found)

A: 500

B: 301

C: 401

D: 404

E: 300 

 

12. Which HTTP server response code indicates a page that has been permanently relocated and all links to the old page will pass their influence to the new page location?

A: 302

B: 301

C: 311

D: 500

E: 300 

 

13. If you want a page to pass value through its links, but stay out of the search engines' indices, which of the following tags should you place in the header?

A: NOINDEX, FOLLOW

B: NOODP

C: INDEX, NOFOLLOW

D: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW

E: INDEX, FOLLOW 

 

14. If these URLs have the same content, example.com/avocado and example.com/avocado/ are technically considered duplicate content and should be fixed.

A: TRUE

B: FALSE 

 

15. Which of the following methods is best used to handle duplicate-content URLs that include parameters or tracking code?

A: The rel="canonical" tag

B: Use numbers for your parameters, because Google won't crawl numbered URLs

C: Use the robots.txt file to block spiders from crawling the URLs with extra parameters

D: Answers A and B

E: None of the above 

 

16. If you have a page at www.example.com/page1, which of the following robots.txt directives prevents search spiders from crawling the URL?

A: Allow: /

B: Disallow:

C: Disallow: /page1

D: Both A & C 

 

17. You decide to add a blog to your ecommerce site. What is the preferred url structure?

A: www.example.com/blog

B: www.blog.example.com/

C: Create new site at www.blog.com and link it to www.example.com 

 

18. High-quality links to a site's homepage may help to increase the ranking ability of deeper pages on the same domain.

A: TRUE

B: FALSE 

 

19. Pages generated by search results (Search within Search) are a good way to add content to your site.

A: TRUE

B: FALSE 

 

20. Google's Panda update was also known as the ______ update.

A: Quality

B: May Day

C: Farmer

D: Vince

E: Caffeine

 

21. In general, internal links pass about the same value as external links.

A: TRUE

B: FALSE

 

22. Which of the following links is likely to pass the most value from a single page?

A: A universal footer link

B: A navigational link contained in the header

C: A left-hand navigation link

D: A right sidebar navigation link

E: A link contained in the main body text

 

23. What link format is used to fight blog comment spam?

A: rel="canonical"

B: rel="follow"

C: rel="author"

D: rel="nofollow"

E: rel="attribute" 

 

24. To give credit for duplicate content that appears on another site, use...

A: A cross-domain canonical tag

B: A prominent link within the content at the top of the page

C: File a DMCA copyright notice

D: Give the author thanks in the body of the text

E: Send them ice cream

 

25. What are valid reasons why your webpage's title may not appear in Google's search results exactly as it does in the page title element in your HTML?

A: Google has overwritten your title element with a title taken from the Yahoo! Directory.

B: Your title does not contain your brand name or other key terms in the users' search query (or doesn't include them at the start of the title element), so Google is using text from elsewhere on the page.

C: Google is pulling a title for your webpage from one you entered into an AdWords ad for that URL (that produces a higher clickthrough rate).

D: Your page contains the meta "title-h1" tag specifying that Google should use the text within the H1 in place of the title element for the search results listing

E: Both options B & D

 

26. Which of these concepts has Google filed a (now public) patent about?

A: The likelihood that content shared by a user of social networks will spread

B: The impact of lunar cycles on content creation and search queries

C: Labeling Facebook, Twitter, and other social network shares in search results

D: Modifying the flow of PageRank through links based on the HTML code-to-content ratio

 

 27. What is an example of a "soft" 404 error?

A: A page that returns a 404 HTTP response code, but quickly changes to a 200 a short time later.

B: A page that returns a 200 HTTP response code, and displays a blank page.

C: A page that displays a 404 HTTP response code, and displays a 404 error page.

D: A page that returns a 404 code with pillows.

 

28. If a page includes more than one rel="canonical" Google will...

A: Ignore them all

B: Count the first one

C: Count the last one

D: Guess which one makes more sense, and use that one 

 

29. Best practices for rel="canonical" link elements include:

A: Relative URLs

B: Absolute URLs

C: Nofollow the link element 

 

30. True or false: rel="canonical" can be used to point to content on a different domain.

A: TRUE

B: FALSE 

 

31. The X-Robots-Tag should be located:

A: In your robots.txt file

B: In the <head>

C: In the HTTP headers

D: Anywhere inside the <body> element

E: In Robert Downey Jr.'s basement 

 

32. Of the following, the best way to keep a URL from appearing in search results is:

A: Block robots from crawling the page in the robots.txt file

B: Nofollow all links to the page

C: Use the META robots NOODP tag

D: Use the META robots NOINDEX tag 

 

33. If the robots <META> tag is missing, the default is:

A: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW

B: INDEX, FOLLOW

C: NOINDEX, FOLLOW

D: INDEX, NOFOLLOW

E: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW, NOARCHIVE 

 

34. The default file type for your sitemap is:

A: .pdf

B: .php

C: .png

D: .doc

E: .xml

 

35. The minimum REQUIRED tags in an XML sitemap include:

A: <urlset>

B: <url>

C: <loc>

D: None of these

E: A, B, and C

 

36. When including Open Graph (OG) tags on a webpage, which of the following is NOT a required property?

A: og:title

B: og:description

C: og:image

D: og:url

E: og:type 

 

37. To control how your site passes referral data, use the:

A: Meta Robots Tag

B: Meta Referrer Tag

 

38. All other factors being equal, which would be the most desirable link profile?

A: One link from each of 100 different domains

B: 1,000 links all from one domain

C: 10,000 internal links 

 

39. Which group of ranking factors do SEOs generally consider to have the largest influence on rankings?

A: Engagement Metrics

B: Social shares

C: Link-based metrics

D: Site speed

E: Exact match domains 

 

40. Generally, Google refreshes its Panda data:

A: Daily

B: Weekly

C: Monthly

D: Yearly

E: Never 

 

41. Mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor in Google's algorithm:

A: True, it is a ranking signal for both mobile and destop results

B: True, it is a ranking signal for mobile results only

C: False, it is not a ranking signal at all 

 

42. Implementing structured data may help:

A: Lead to rich snippets in search results

B: Enchance CTR from search engine results

C: Search engines understand your content

D: Your content to appear in specialized search results like "in-depth Articles"

E: All of these 

 

43. Which of the following did Google confirm as a minor ranking signal?

A: Authorship Markup

B: Using Google Analytics

C: Sending Chocolate Chip Cookies to the Editors at Moz

D: Keyword Stuffing

E: HTTPS 

 

44. Google's recommended actions for paginated content include:

A: Specify a "view all" page

B: rel="prev" and rel="next"

C: Do nothing

D: A and B only

E: A, B, or C

 

45. In the following attribute: hreflang="en-US" "en" is the _____ and "US" is the _____.

A: alternate, language

B: language, region

C: United States, English

D: region, language

E: entire, universal symbol 

 

46. Which of the following URL structures is NOT recommended to signal language targeting?

A: ccTLDs (example.de)

B: Subdomains with gTLDS (de.example.com)

C: URL parameters (example.com?loc=de)

D: Subdirectories with gTLDs (example.com/de) 

 

47. Which element of a link does Google NOT consider?

A: The relationship/ownership/influence of the linking domain and linked-to domain

B: The rel="nofollow" attribute"

C: The domain on which the linking page is hosted

D: The HTML <id> attribute

 

48. Which of the following statements about anchor text is true?

A: For non-commercial queries, anchor text is less influential on a result's rankings.

B: If a URL itself is the linking anchor text, Google will treat the page's title element as anchor text, while Bing will use the URL.

C: When an embedded image is linking, the alt attribute of the image may be treated as anchor text.

D: Anchor text is mostly ignored by Google in 2014, but was powerful in years past. 

 

49. In Local Search, which of the following are considered important ranking factors?

A: City and state appear in landing page title

B: Domain Authority of website

C: Proper category associations

D: Consistency of structured citations

E: All of these

 

50. What does the phrase "social shares and higher search rankings in Google are well-correlated" mean?

A: It means there's a chance (as expressed by the correlation coefficient number) that this input is used in Google's ranking algorithm.

B: It means that the more social shares a webpage has, the higher it appears in Google's search results for a given query.

C: It means that, on average, pages with more social shares appear higher in Google rankings than those with fewer shares. The correlation coefficient expresses the degree with which this occurs.

D: It means that social shares may or may not be used by Google's algorithm to rank webpages. 

 

51. Which Google update was closely associated with speed, faster indexing and fresher web results.

A: Penguin

B: Panda

C: Venice

D: Vince

E: Caffeine 

 

52. Which of the following are true about the growth of mobile vs. desktop search in Google?

A: Mobile search queries overtook desktop in 2013 and are expected to continue growing faster.

B: Desktop search queries are now shrinking, and mobile is growing, but will not overtake desktop in the next 2-3 years.

C: Both desktop and mobile are growing, but mobile is growing faster and is expected to overtake desktop soon.

D: Desktop is not growing (but not shrinking much). Mobile is expected to overake desktop in number of queries by 2016. 

 

53. Which type of link has NOT been mentioned by Google as being risky for SEO?

A: Embedded links from infographics

B: Guest blog posts

C: Text link advertisements with rel="nofollow"

D: Article submission and directory sites

E: Private link networks 

 

ANSWERS:

1 - D: 410
2 - C: Marketing
3 - E: None; all of these are appropriate
4 - B: Product
5 - C: 50,000
6 - D: 503
7 - A: TRUE
8 - A: www.wildlifeonline.com/animals/crocodile
9 - C: They serve as the copy that will entice searchers to click on your listing.
10 - A: Canonical Version
11 - D: 404
12 - B: 301
13 - A: NOINDEX, FOLLOW
14 - A: TRUE
15 - A: The rel="canonical" tag
16 - C: Disallow: /page1
17 - A: www.example.com/blog
18 - A: TRUE
19 - B: FALSE
20 - C: Farmer
21 - B: FALSE
22 - E: A link contained in the main body text
23 - D: rel="nofollow"
24 - A: A cross-domain canonical tag
25 - B: Your title does not contain your brand name or other key terms in the users' search query (or doesn't include them at the start of the title element), so Google is using text from elsewhere on the page.
26 - A: The likelihood that content shared by a user of social networks will spread
27 - B: A page that returns a 200 HTTP response code, and displays a blank page.
28 - A: Ignore them all
29 - B: Absolute URLs
30 - A: TRUE
31 - C: In the HTTP headers
32 - D: Use the META robots NOINDEX tag
33 - B: INDEX, FOLLOW
34 - E: .xml
35 - E: A, B, and C
36 - B: og:description
37 - B: Meta Referrer Tag
38 - A: One link from each of 100 different domains
39 - C: Link-based metrics
40 - C: Monthly
41 - B: True, it is a ranking signal for mobile results only
42 - E: All of these
43 - E: HTTPS
44 - E: A, B, or C
45 - B: language, region
46 - C: URL parameters (example.com?loc=de)
47 - D: The HTML <id> attribute
48 - C: When an embedded image is linking, the alt attribute of the image may be treated as anchor text.
49 - E: All of these
50 - C: It means that, on average, pages with more social shares appear higher in Google rankings than those with fewer shares. The correlation coefficient expresses the degree with which this occurs.
51 - E: Caffeine
52 - C: Both desktop and mobile are growing, but mobile is growing faster and is expected to overtake desktop soon.
53 - C: Text link advertisements with rel="nofollow"