Looking to Hire SEO Specialists? Try This Simple Test Assignment

by 10 Best SEO

In the early years of the 21st century, technology analysts predicted that search engine optimization would one day become part of the new world of digital marketing. Here we are a couple of decades later, and we can see that this prediction has come true. Digital marketing agencies have fully embraced SEO to the point that they routinely take on projects that consist solely of keyword-based optimization. Naturally, the best approach for business owners is to hire a digital agency for everything from web design to SEO and from content creation to social media campaigns.

With more digital agencies offering SEO services these days, many of them have gone on a hiring spree, but some of them are being cautious when interviewing freelancers who are now entering the job market. It is not just agencies doing the hiring; in some cases, major web properties are handling SEO internally, and they are interested in seasoned professionals to add to their teams.

With all the above in mind, what kind of questions should interviews pose to applicants? Here is an excellent idea:

  • Instead of questions, tell the applicants that they will be expected to write a blog post that is at least 300 words. This small piece of content should highlight a few keywords based on research, and it should be posted by means of a content management system that the interviewer or applicant should be able to access. This test should include directions to turn over the source code along with multimedia assets.

What the interviewer should evaluate with the task above is how much SEO intent can be gleaned from the submission. The quality of the content is not so relevant because you can always hire authors for that purpose, but it should be on point and on topic. A true SEO professional will have a meta title, meta description, HTML or XML headers, and structured data at the least. The image, audio, and video assets should have proper description tags with the right keywords. Applicants who cannot turn over the source code should be discarded right away. Again, do not worry about the quality of content at all; make sure the applicant knows this as well. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/ms1z4m/whatquestionsdoyouaskwhenhiringforseo/.