Previously SEO was like Greek or Latin. But today SEO has become a household terminology even for IT novices. There are so many SEO Professionals popping up too. The challenge is to identify the right SEO professional for your requirement.
Based on your organizational requirement, the hiring policy may also vary. Firstly you need to set the objectives for which you need the requirement. Consequently you will derive the solution as to what will be the interview pattern.
Here is a generic step-by-step guidance for zeroing in on the right professional.
Step 1 to Conduct an SEO Interview
1Be sure that they have Search engine algorithm awareness.
To understand or outwit the search engine you need to analyze their algorithm first. Before that you need to develop a passion for search. Thus you need to ensure that the professional has good search expertise. For example, the professional should be aware of various search options
Step 2 to Conduct an SEO Interview
2Be sure that they know how to use Search options.
Most prominent search engines have enhanced search features. As far as Google, the leader in this domain, they offer features like Advanced search, trends, wagon wheel, instant, related search. The professional should be well versed with these offerings.
Step 3 to Conduct-an-SEO-Interview
3Check on their Exposure to SEO tools.
There are various SEO tools like Raven SEO, SEO powersuite, SEOmoz. The professional should have worked in at least one of these extensively. The reason being, if you are well versed to one of these you can easily play around with other tools too.
Step 4 to Conduct an SEO Interview
4Know about their knowledge of Analytics usage.
There are tools like Adobe Site catalyst, google analytics. These tools provide value added analysis of various parameters of your website performance like unique visit count, landing page data, navigation summary, entrance keywords and so on.
Step 5 to Conduct an SEO Interview
5Determine what type of tools they know how to use.
There lots and lots of free and paid seo tools that are of high value. To quote a few:Google keyword position checker – Determines the position of your website in search engines for a specific keyword. Page rank checker – Shows the Search engine ranking of your webpages.
Step 6 to Conduct an SEO Interview
6See if they can help you with Competitor analysis.
Unless you exactly know where you stand now, you can’t reach the top. So you need to analyze your competitor web page to track their keywords and backlinks and derive some calculated insights and plan your SEO procedure accordingly.
Step 7 to Conduct an SEO Interview
7Be sure that they can use Webmaster tools.
Most search engines provide unique and customized data to the webmasters of the websites that integrate with them. For example, google alerts its webmasters about crawl errors, malwares, updates.
Step 8 to Conduct an SEO Interview
8See if they have Knowledge about recent developments.
An ideal webmaster or SEO pro should know to read and interpret mails or signals from the corresponding search engines. Unless this procedure is done on a daily basis your growth is at stake. Google announced webmasters about their Panda and Penguin updates well in advance.
Step 8 to Conduct an SEO Interview
9Patience.
Last but not the least, you need to wait and make calculated SEO attempts in order to avoid being blacklisted by Search Engines. You should know that the saying, “Build your castle and people will visit”, is not applicable to SEO procedure. You need to perform White Hat SEO and wait for results. You wont show up for all your target keywords suddenly. It takes some time for your website to get indexed, crawled and get noticed. While there are lot more info that could be shared, this article ends here, for the purpose is to trigger your further thought process. Keep all these factors in mind while hiring your SEO expert.
9 Steps to Conduct an SEO Interview
