Advanced SEO Interview Questions and Answers 2015

Q1) What is Black Hat SEO?

Ans: In order to attain High Ranking in search engine result page, websites go for various methods and techniques which are characterized by two categories.

The methods which are implemented and acceptable according to search engine guidelines are White Hat SEO, on the other hand, the method which are less acceptable or instructed to avoid in search engine guidelines are “Black Hat SEO”.

Q2) Can you describe some Black Hat SEO techniques?

Ans: Some Black Hat SEO techniques are:

Keyword Stuffing

Cloaking

Doorway Pages or Gateway Pages

Link Farming

Hidden Text, etc.

Q3) What is considered as more significant, creating content or building backlinks?

Ans:Both are necessary, creating quality content is equally important to building backlinks. Although, building backlinks are useful in building authority to a site and for ranking as well, quality content is the first element that is considered to be more responsible for ranking.

Q4) Can you mention the difference between SEO and SEM?

Ans:SEM (Search Engine Marketing), it is used for the promotion of website through Search Engine Result Page (SERP) , while to optimize the search result of your webpage or website SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is used.

Q5) What do you know about LSI?

Ans:LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. This technique is established to obtain the data by relating the word to its closest counterparts or to its similar context. For example, if you are searching something with a keyword “CAR” it will show all the related things like classic cars, car auctions, Bentley car, car race etc.

Q6) How will you cross-check whether your SEO campaign is working or not?

Ans:To check whether your SEO campaign is working or not, the first approach is to check the websites statistics, which tells you about the origin of traffic.  The other way of checking is to make a search based on the relevant keywords and key phrases and look for the search result. The number of search result will tell you whether your SEO campaign is working or not.

Q7) What is the meaning of competitive analysis?

Ans:Competitive analysis does the comparison, between the website I am optimizing, and the website that is ranked highly in search results.

Q8) What is PPC?

Ans:PPC stands for Pay Per Click and is an advertisement campaign hosted by Google.  It is segmented into two modules CPC ( Cost per click) and CPM ( Cost per thousand impressions) through flat rate and bidding respectively. In CPC, if the user clicks on the advert, only then the advertiser will be charged.

Q9) What is 301 redirect?

Ans:It is a method by which the user is redirected to new page url to old page url . It is a permanent redirect and it is also useful in directing link juice to new url from old url .

Q10) What are Webmaster tools?

Ans:Webmaster tool is a service provided by Google from where you can get backlink information, crawl errors, search queries, Indexing data, CTR etc.

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PPC Interview Question & Answer Guide -2015

What is PPC?

What is PPC (pay-per-click) marketing? Pay-per-click marketing is a way of using search engine advertising to generate clicks to your website, rather than “earning” those clicks organically. You know those sponsored ads you often see at the top of Google’s search results page, marked with a yellow label?

As we’ve established, PPC advertising offers a unique opportunity to:

    Grow Your Customer Base – Connect with searchers actively looking for products and services like yours, and respond to that need by providing them with an offer relevant to their search query.
    Generate Leads at Low Costs –  Because pay-per-click marketing allows you to reach leads and prospects when they’re researching and looking to buy, it’s a highly effective way to bring interested visitors to your site. Plus, you can enjoy an algorithmically generated discount from the search engines in exchange for making their users happy.

Once you've created your new campaigns, you’ll need to manage them regularly to make sure they continue to be effective. In fact, regular account activity is one of the best predictors of account success. You should be continuously analyzing the performance of your account.

    Add PPC Keywords: Expand the reach of your pay-per-click campaigns by adding keywords that are relevant to your business.
    Add Negative Keywords: Add non-converting terms as negative keywords to improve campaign relevancy and reduce wasted spend.
    Split Ad Groups: Improve click-through rate (CTR) and Quality Score by splitting up your ad groups into smaller, more relevant ad groups, which help you create more targeted ad text and landing pages.
    Review Costly PPC Keywords: Review expensive, under-performing keywords and shut them off if necessary.
    Refine Landing Pages: Modify the content and calls-to-action (CTAs) of your landing pages to align with individual search queries in order to boost conversion rates. Don’t send all your traffic to the same page.

What do understand by Quality Score?

Quality Score is a metric which is calculated for each keyword between 1 to 10. The QS defines the quality of keyword compared with Ads and Landing Page. This metric is used to calculate the AdRank, which is used to calculate the ad position.

What is the impact of Quality score on CPC and Ad Position ?

Quality Score is inversely proportional to CPC and Directly proportional to Ad Position. That means higher QS means lower cost and higher position.

What is Actual CPC ?

The actual cost of a click for an advertiser in an auction. The actual CPC is calculated in realtime and we cannot know the Actual CPC, but we can see Avg. CPC.

Actual CPC = (AdRank to Beat/QS)+$0.01

What Kind of Quality Score you can achieve for keywords ?

In my past campaigns I achieved the QS of 7 – 10. I can improve the quality score by using optimization techniques in campaign.

What are the Factors which affect Quality Score ?

Quality Score depends on the following metrics

    CTR of the Keyword
    Relevance of Keywords and Ads
    Landing Page Quality
    Historic Account Data

How can you Improve Conversion Rates ?

By creating ads which match perfectly with keywords and creating tightly themed ad groups so we can get targeted users to best landing page. Also by improving the Landing Page quality we can improve the conversions.

 Is PPC Advertisement effect ranking of websites on search engines ?

Never, Search Engine don’t mix them. Google and other search engines rank both organic and ppc results separately

Can you tell me limit of character used for PPC Ads ?

Different Search Engines have different Limit on ads character as for Google you can put maximum 25 for headline and 70 for description 1 and 2 combined.

What is the difference between search engine marketing and Internet marketing?

Search Engine Marketing is specific to marketing your brand/service/products through search engines. It can be in the form of organic search results where landing pages are aimed for higher ranking, or in paid search results, where ads are aimed to display at maximum exposure for targeted keywords at minimal cost possible.

What is Quality Score and how does it affect your work as paid search specialist?

Quality Score’s a part of Google’s way of determining ranking of AdWords ads. This can be achieved by, among others, improving relevance between ad copies and keywords, improving quality of landing pages. By obtaining high quality score for my keywords, I can reduce expenses for my PPC campaigns.

Explain what is Adwords?

Adwords is the system that Google has designed to assist in marketing product or services in Google search engine and its affiliated sites.  It will place a text ad that appears when people search for phrases associated to your offering.

Explain how Adwords work?

Adwords work on bidding system if the bidding price is higher your ad will appear on top of the Google page.  Adwords works on “pay per click” that means you only pay the amount you have bid if someone taps on your ad as a result of a web search.

Explain why to use Google Adwords?

Google Adwords behave differently to traffic that comes from Google Adwords or “Pay Per Click”. The traffic that comes through surfing often visits the website for information, whereas the traffic via pay per click knows what they are clicking on and what they want to buy.  So few visitors through Adwords might be more valuable than million visitors.

Explain what is Ad rank?

Ad rank determines your ad position on Google page, and it is determined by your bid for that keyword and quality score.

Explain how does Ad rank impact Cost-Per-Click?

Ad rank plays a huge role in defining the actual cost-per-click that your opponents pay, when someone clicks on their ads.  Your CPC can be calculated by following way

Your Price = The ad rank of the person below you/ your quality score + $0.01

Explain how does a Google auction work?

Each month auction gets run billion of times, and the result are such that users find ads that are relevant to what they are looking for.  The search engine processes the request and runs the auction that determines the ad positions and each advertisers CPC.

Explain what gets entered into a Google Account?

Once the advertisers determine the keywords that they want to bid on, Google will enter a keyword from your account which is most related into the auction with the maximum bid specified as well as the associated ad.

 Explain what is Google Quality Score?

Google’s quality score determines how beneficial and relevant your ad is to the user, based primarily on your ad’s CTR, quality of your landing page and keyword relevance.  Higher quality score keywords will save your money and earn better ad ranking.

Explain what is an ad group in Google Adwords?

Ad group is a container of your keywords, advertisements, and landing pages.  Google rewards advertisers who prepare Adword campaigns with tightly structured ad groups. Its not advisable to include all your keywords into the single ad group, but to organize keywords into themes.

10) Explain what is conversion optimizer in Adwords?

Conversion Optimizer is a tool used by Google Adwords for bid manipulation and decides which clicks on the ad will be valuable.  It can help you to return maximum on your investment.


Mention some of the Google Adword Ad Extensions?

Different ad extension can enhance the increase in traffic.  Some of the common Ad extensions used in adwords are

    Sitelinks
    Call Extensions
    Location Extensions
    Social Annotations
    Seller ratings
    Mobile app extensions
    Offer ads
    Communication Ad
    Review extension
    Image and drop down navigation Ad extension

Mention in google Adwords that options can’t be changed after creating an account?

After creating account Currency and Time Zone, cannot be changed.

Explain how you can improve conversion rates?

By creating ads that match properly with keywords and create tightly themed ad groups, you can target users to the campaign that helps in conversions.

Mention what is the limit set for the number or characters for Adwords ad?

Limit for Adword is

    Description line 1st : 25 characters
    Description line 2nd: 35 characters
    Destination URL: 1024 characters

No images are allowed in URL.

Explain what is the meaning of CTR and how you can calculate?

CTR stands for Click through rate that tells the number of visitors visited on your ad on the web page. The formula for calculating CTR is

Number of click / Number of impressions X 100

These will give you an answer in percentage like what percentage of customers have viewed your ad.

Mention what are the type of Keywords?

There are no specific types for Keywords however they are classified on the basis of how likely is going to be clicked by visitors

    Research Keywords: It tends to contain one or two words – Tea
    Consideration: It tends to contain two or three words – Green Tea
    Purchase: It must have more than three words – buy loose green tea
    Loyalty: This must be shorter- Starbucks

Explain what is Google Ad API?

Google Ad API is designed for representing large, tech savvy advertisers and third parties. It allows developers build an application that directly interacts with Google Adwords server.

Mention what all things can be done using Google Ad API?

With Google Ad API, you can build an application that can do following things

    You can automatically generate keywords, ad text, custom reports and landing pages
    Develop additional applications and tools to help you manage accounts
    Synchronize Adwords data with your inventory system to manage campaigns based on stock

Explain how you can track conversions in Google Adwords?

In Google Adwords, conversion tracking can be done in following ways

    Tracking purchases by involving basic tracking code provided by Adwords and modifying it with additional code unique to your particular e-commerce platform
    View-through conversion window options tracks when a person sees your ad but does not click it (impression)
    By enabling your ad rotation setting to optimize for clicks, meaning that Adwords will serve the ads it feels are likely to be clicked
    By accessing search funnels inside tools and analysis, you can also know when customers clicked on your ad for the first time and how frequently they saw your ad before converting.

Explain what are the other two options for bidding other than C-P-C?

Other than CPC the other two options are CPM (Cost per Thousand Impression) and CPA ( Cost Per Action ).

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PPC Job Interview Question and Answers 2015

Here I am sharing PPC Job Interview Question and Answers 2015.Learn these ppc interview questions to tackle your next interview easily.

1.What is the difference between search engine marketing and Internet marketing?

Ans:Search Engine Marketing is specific to marketing your brand/service/products through search engines. It can be in the form of organic search results where landing pages are aimed for higher ranking, or in paid search results, where ads are aimed to display at maximum exposure for targeted keywords at minimal cost possible.

2.What is Quality Score and how does it affect your work as paid search specialist?

Ans:Quality Score’s a part of Google’s way of determining ranking of AdWords ads. This can be achieved by, among others, improving relevance between ad copies and keywords, improving quality of landing pages. By obtaining high quality score for my keywords, I can reduce expenses for my PPC campaigns.

3.How do you manage large set of keywords (hundred thousand to millions)?

4.How do I reduce costs of my paid search campaigns?

5.Describe the structure of a Google AdWords paid search campaign ?

Ans:Google AdWords PPC advertising structure is composed of one or multiple accounts (if necessary). An account can handle up to 25 campaigns. Each campaign can handle up to 100 ad groups. Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns can have up to 1,000 keywords and 20 ads within an ad group.

Google AdWords
Advantage: Most robust and corners majority of all paid search traffic
Disadvantage: Due to its big number of advertisers, cost per click is generally more expensive

Yahoo! Search Marketing
Advantage: Lower pay per click cost compared to Google AdWords
Disadvantage: Way behind Google AdWords in terms of reporting features

MSN adCenter
Advantage: Studies show that users of adCenter are more likely result to conversions
Disadvantage: Weakest PPC interface compared to Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing

6.How do you describe building your keyword list?

Ans:
a.Identify your audience
b.Review your existing offerings
c.Look at your competitors
d.Check web analytics results
e.Expand keywords using various tools

7.What is your strategy on geo-targeting ads?

Ans:The question will seek answer on how you’d approach ads that are displayed for specific locations. Is it just based on IP filter or should you extend it.

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Six of the most interesting SEM news stories of the week - SEO Perfection

Welcome to our weekly round-up of all the latest news and research from around the world of search marketing and beyond.
This week: changes to structured snippets, a new feature on YouTube, online ad stats and Bing is going to decide what you’re having for dinner.

Google AdWords doubles structured snippets

In August, Google introduced structured snippet extensions that allowed more information to be shown below a text ad, and now just in time for Christmas, Google has announced that advertisers can now add a… wait for it… second line of structured information to their ads.


According to Google:

    “Now if you select two predefined “Headers” and define two lists of customized values, they can both show with your ads at the same time - whether that’s a combination of styles and brands or destinations and featured hotels. For example, if you’re a retailer that offers window treatments, you might create one structured snippet for the most popular shutter styles and another for the services you offer.”

And you thought you were getting nothing for Christmas.
Accelerated mobile pages (AMP) coming to mobile search in February 2016

The Accelerated Mobile Pages project is an open source initiative which aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web, and according to a post on the AMP Project blog, Google will begin sending traffic to AMP pages in Google Search as early as February 2016.

Twitter will also begin to experiment with linking to AMP content after Pinterest’s trial revealed that AMP pages loaded four times faster and used eight times less data than traditional mobile-optimized pages.

They may also get a ranking boost and a “fast” label. Although keep in mind the word “may” here... According to Search Engine Land, during a special press event in San Francisco, Google reiterated the importance of page speed and responded informally that it would likely label such pages as “fast”. Again, this last bit is incredibly tentative.
Online advertising lifts a flat European ad market

According to IAB data, and as reported by Warc, online advertising across Europe grew almost 10% in the first half of 2015 and is expected to grow even faster in the second half.

Online advertising was up 9.7% on a like-for-like basis in the first half to reach a total of €16bn. The full-year total is predicted to be almost €34bn.

Within the region, Central and Eastern European markets were growing fastest, at 12.9%, but more mature markets in Western Europe also reported an increase of 9.3%.

In terms of format, display advertising accounted for €5.6bn (35%) of all online advertising spend. Its growth rate of 13.0% was the highest of any format.

Mobile display advertising spend was up 57.5% to pass €1bn in the first half of the year and took a 24% share of all display advertising. Video also passed the €1bn mark.
What’s good for dinner? Bing will tell you

Bing is taking away the pain of having to decide what to eat at restaurants with the new ‘Menu Favorites’ feature.

Using millions of user reviews, restaurant menus and other rich data sources, ‘Menu Favorites’ identifies the most popular dishes at each restaurant with “high quality results.”

You can see this at work if you search for a restaurant and look within its information card. When you click on any dish from the menu favorites section you’ll see descriptions and user reviews detailing the item.

menu-favourites

This will fly against my normal decision making process of ‘the one that sounds like it comes with the most fries’.
TV drives mobile app installs

According to Fetch (link launches a Pdf), mobile app installs can increase from anywhere between 56% to 74% after a relevant TV ad is shown.

The positive impact of a TV ad can apparently last up to two hours, with a 24% increase in installs in the first 10 minutes after viewing, falling to a 20% rise in the next 30 minutes.

Unexpectedly, prime time (between 6pm - 7pm) was not the most ‘impactful’ period, but instead it was between midnight and 1am, when there was a 650% increase in app installs. Prime time was the second most effective period.
YouTube introduces a permanent ‘trending’ tab

It will be easier to find the latest videos of cats being terrified of harmless vegetables and parodies of The Force Awakens trailers on YouTube now, with a trending tab that surfaces ‘viral sensations’ in real-time.

According to The Verge, the tab uses an algorithm based on comments, views, and "external references," and it collects all of the selected videos in one place instead of recommending them within YouTube's homepage.

The videos featured here won't have anything to do with your viewing history, although YouTube may choose to keep some particularly explicit videos out of the tab. That word ‘some’ implies more than it's probably meant to.

Android users will be able to pick specific categories in the Trending tab (music, gaming, and news) but other platforms will have to wait/find their own explicit videos the old fashioned way.

 
Tags #AdWords #Snippets #Bing #onlineadvertising #Youtube

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Understanding PPC

PPC (Pay Per Click)

PPC advertising, also known as “Paid Search” or “Search Engine Marketing (SEM)”, is the process of paying for advertising on sites and search engines but the advertiser is not charged unless someone clicks on an ad. Most often (but not always) PPC is an auction where you compete for position against other advertisers.

PPC can allow for much quicker wins in visibility or conversions for advertisers whereas SEO is a long term effort of building a community to help your organic presence. While it can take a long time to rank #1 organically on search engine results pages via SEO, advertisers can use PPC ads to appear above organic or SEO results, seen in red in the image above, within minutes of opening an advertising account.

Advertisers select keywords to bid on, which match to the search queries, or actual words users are searching for. Similar to SEO, content (in ads) and relevancy are significant factors in getting ads to show in the top position. Search engines like Google give each ad a quality score (1-10 basis) based off of numerous factors which they unfortunately won’t elaborate much on. That quality score is then multiplied by your bid to get an overall Ad Rank.  In an auction setting like Google’s, an advertiser only ends up paying just a bit more than the one below them, after all Ad Ranks are evaluated. So the amount an advertiser bids is not necessarily what’s charged upon a click.

Why do advertisers pay for these ads when they can try to rank naturally for free?

Real-estate on the search engine results pages is at a premium.

Many users simply click on the first link of the results page, regardless of whether it’s an ad or an organic listing.

The opportunity to generate conversions can be heightened when ads are prominently displayed.

 New market segments can be identified, based on what people are searching for, and ads can be shown where an advertiser’s site may not be able to rank naturally.

Competitors are likely paying for ads or have the opportunity to, potentially winning new business or taking it from others.

Paid search also spans into other websites outside of popular search engine result pages like Google, Bing and Yahoo and types vary from text, to image, to video among others. The most important thing to remember is that ad relevancy to the searcher/web surfer is most important and will ultimately lead to the most efficient PPC campaigns, depending on an advertiser’s goals.

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What is SEO, SMO & SEO

What is difference between SEO and SMO?

SMO is through social media, online and community website for public dissemination of a set of methods. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feed, "Digg This" top to, blog writing and non-cooperative in the form of third-party community features (such as: Flickr photo slides, YouTube's video sharing). Social media optimization is a form of search engine marketing；
SEO is more popular in recent years, network marketing, the main purpose is to increase the exposure of specific keywords to increase website visibility, thereby increasing sales opportunities. Into site SEO and SEO station two kinds. SEO work is to understand the main types of search engines crawl the Internet page, how to index and how to determine their impact on a particular keyword ranking search results and other techniques to the optimization of web pages related to improve search engine rankings to improve site traffic, and enhance the site's ability to sell or promote the ability of technology



SEO and SEM: Two Names for the Same Thing?

By most people's standards, the internet is still very young. New technologies and developments in existing technologies are appearing at an extraordinary rate. As technologies change, so does the terminology used to describe them.

I worked for three years as a webmaster. Ask a dozen people to define that term, and you'll get a lot of different answers. A webmaster may be the leader of a large team, including developers, writers, marketers, designers, usability experts, technical support people, and yes, search engine optimizer. Or s/he may perform all or some of those duties alone.

The same is true for search engine optimization. For many people, the term is a new one, and they have no idea what it is an SEO does. To others, SEO is synonymous with SEM -- search engine marketing. In my opinion, there is a big difference between the two.

Search Engine Marketing

I see SEM as a rather broad term. It's everything that can be done to utilize the technology of search engines with the goal of promoting a web site and increasing its traffic, its "stickiness," and, in the case of sites that promote a business (or are a business), increase profits. SEO, therefore, would be a subset of SEM.

Aspects of search engine marketing which I would consider to be outside the realm of search engine optimization include the following:

Paid Inclusion

This is simply the practice of paying a search engine or a directory to add a site to its database immediately, rather than setting up that site so that it will be found by the search engine spiders on its own. In the case of some search engines and directories, paid inclusion is the only way to get listed. For others, it's presented as an option. If you're willing to pay, your site will be listed sooner. It's also a useful practice if you wish to make frequent changes to your content, because your site will be spidered more often and you will be able to test how changes affect your ranking.

Traditional Ads

This involves placing paid advertising on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Normally, these ads appear based on the keywords entered into the search engines, and one is charged based on the number of impressions, i.e. appearances, of the ad. In other words, you pay whether the ad sends anyone to your web site or not.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC ads are simple enough to look at. They're text-only. PPC ad campaigns are completely controlled by the advertiser. You decide which keywords should bring up your ads, you write the copy, and you decide how much you want to pay. And, as the name indicates, you only pay for an ad when someone clicks it and is brought to your site. There are two main networks of PPC ads, run by Google and Overture, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but in both cases, one should be prepared to spend a great deal of time (and money) monitoring and adjusting such a campaign.

The Advantages of These Practices

In contrast to pure SEO, these SEM practices offer the advantage of immediacy. If you need to increase your traffic and your visibility right away, and you don't have a problem with spending a lot of money, this may be the way to go.

The Disadvantages

You knew this was coming, didn't you? Think about it this way: you've spent your time and money to bring people to your web site. What will they see when they get there? You've convinced them, at least for the moment, that your site is worth visiting, so they're expecting to find exactly the information they were seeking. Is it easy to find? Is it there at all? You only have a few seconds to convince them that your site can deliver what they want. Will your visitors, failing to find what they're looking for, click their browser's back button and try another site?

Your site has to be ready for your visitors. It needs to be written, structured, and coded in such a way that the information is clearly laid out and easy to find. If it isn't, your site will either be immediately forgotten by visitors, or worse, it will be remembered as one that fails to deliver.

SEO First

No SEM campaign is complete without SEO. Moreover, since the purpose of SEO is to make the site better for both search engines and users, you may find that it will suffice on its own. In any case, the advantages of SEO over the other aspects of SEM make it clear that, even if you are going to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.

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What is Anchor Text?

What is Anchor Text?

Anchor Text is the clickable part of the text that links to your website.For example you will regularly see on the web pages  that "click on this" , "for more details click on this link","please click on this link" like that.

Anchor texts is more important factors in SEO just because of one click can get make your traffic and more user on your site.When Google crawling its gives priority to that clickable links on the search engine result page (SERP). While it is important to put your targeted keyword  or key-phrases in anchor text,we must also use variations of key-phrases to ensure a natural feel to the links.    

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