SEO Foundations—LinkedIn
What domain extensions tend to represent trustworthy links to target?
.edu, .org, and .gov
What should you use when you move content from one location to another to perform maintenance on your website?
302 redirect 302 redirects are used to tell search engines a page is temporarily down, but will be back up soon
What is true about ongoing analysis of websites linking to you?
A combination of tools and technologies can be used to understand who is linking to you and the quality and relevance of those links Different tools can provide different functionality and data around the websites that link to you. A combination of webmaster tools and dedicated technology is often used in backlink analysis
Which scenario represents a link that would be generally considered the most relevant?
A link from a food blog to a recipe A link from a food blog to a recipe makes sense semantically as these topics are closely related
Which is not a benefit of SEO for an organization?
A marketing approach that is completely free to an organization While search engines do not charge for organic listings, putting in place and executing an SEO strategy will cost time and likely money
What types of metrics can help us understand how much of what type of traffic search engines are bringing, how engaged those visits are, and whether or not visitors are accomplishing business goals?
Acquisition, Behavior and Conversion
Serena manages a programming team responsible for creating new web pages. What advice should she give her team with respect to structured data?
As a general rule, any time you can specifically identify content for a search engine by using schema, you should Structured data is extremely helpful for search engines to understand many different content types and should be used everywhere possible
How do search engines interpret links from one website to another?
As a vote of confidence in the site being linked to, weighted by the authority of the linking site Search engines treat links as a weighted democracy, where both the quantity and quality of links pointing to a page are examined
Your small business has a product that people love and a website that has been linked to by other sites. Which factor do these links represent when a search engine is evaluating your site?
Authority Search engines evaluate links and references pointed to your website as "votes of trust" in your content
Which might be a logical hierarchical site structure for an E-commerce website?
Category > Subcategory > Product
Which are the most important aspects in creating good content?
Clarity, quality and relevance
Mack has asked you to review his company's content strategy after the company has received quite a few complaints about its postings to social media channels. What would you recommend to Mack?
Create explicit policies for writing and publishing content and ensure content creators are accountable Taking this action, especially for social media content, will help to ensure consistent communications and instill respect for online reputation management
Which is not a best practice in creating good content?
Creating content that ensures the target keyword appears once per every 10-20 words Search engines expect keyword targeted content, but also additional, related information that is useful to visitors
You are in charge of a team of copywriters producing content for your website. What guidance would you refrain from providing?
Do not include images or videos since search engines can have trouble interpreting them There are ways to help search engines understand non-textual content, and this content can be useful and important for human visitors
You lead a content team at your company and are tasked with creating your website's structure. What advice would you refrain from giving your team?
Do not worry about the site's structure since a search engine simply crawls all the links it can find Search engines need to understand the structure of how pages relate to one another to return the best pages in search engine results
What can Google Analytics tell you about missed opportunities with your keywords?
Google Analytics only provides data on traffic you are already attracting, not on missed opportunities Google Analytics only provides data on keywords that have directed traffic to your site. Keyword research tools can help to find new opportunities
Which are the typical components of an organic (natural) listing on a search engine results page?
Headline, description, and visible URL
Your company, "Excel Sports," sells football uniforms to high-school teams among other football equipment. Which would be the best URL for a page specifically promoting these uniforms?
High-school-football-uniforms.html This URL provides a description of the specific product being promoted on this page
Tools such as Moz's Keyword Explorer and Google Trends can not be used to do which of the following?
Identify conversion rates for traffic that arrives on your website through specific keywords These tools do not have insight into what happens to traffic once it has arrived on your site - this is where web analytics and conversion tracking tools can help
You are asked to look at the performance of your search engine optimization efforts on your company's website, to determine whether organic search is meeting business goals. How can a web analytics tool help you?
It can be used to see how the organic search channel is performing against business goals and objectives Web analytics tools can provide data around how different marketing channels are attracting traffic and whether or not that traffic is accomplishing business goals
What is a benefit of maintaining a keyword distribution spreadsheet?
It organizes and documents the content of your site and keywords that content is targeting The spreadsheet provides a single place to manage and document the content of a website for each keyword target, available to all members of the team to work from
Which is a reasonable expectation of a successful SEO program?
It should attract targeted, intent-driven visitors to your website By matching searchers with relevant content, a search engine provides very targeted traffic to relevant content
Which is the recommended method of implementing structured data?
JSON-LD
Which are currently the most important Core Web Vitals metrics?
LCP, FIDm and CLS
What is the difference between Lab data and Field data?
Lab data comes from a simulated environment while Field data uses reports on actual users interacting with a page Field data uses Google's Chrome User Experience initiative to provide data from actual users while Lab data is simulated
Which is not considered an "on-page" element that can be optimized?
Links pointing to a page from other websites Links from external websites are important, but not part of the your pages themselves
Which steps represent the cycle of proper analysis?
Measure > Learn > Take Action
Which feature could you optimize that may not impact your rankings, but may help improve the click-through rate of your search engine results?
Meta description Optimizing the meta description can improve your current click-through rate as it is often used in the search engine result listing itself
Which is not considered an "on-page" element that can be optimized?
Metadata and HTML tag attributes
What are the two ways to classify internal links?
Navigation links and contextual links
Which is not available as a filter in the Performance > Search results report?
Operating System
To have successful, optimized content, what should you focus on doing?
Optimize for both search engines and for human beings The ultimate goal of a search engine is to provide results that people will find useful, and a balance of optimizing for both human and machine audiences is ideal
Why might you choose to bid on keywords in paid advertising programs during the keyword research process?
Paid advertising programs can provide immediate traffic that can be analyzed for performance before choosing to invest in keywords organically for the long-term Bidding on keyword terms allows you to track and measure performance of the traffic being generated to help decide if targeting that keyword organic will be worthwhile in the long term
Sandeep is creating a website for his company to showcase its products and services. He uses services like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising to have the site show up in search results as a sponsored link. This is known as a _____.
Paid listing Sandeep will use a paid listing to advertise his website in search results, bidding on keyword terms he would like his ad to show up for
Sam decides to hire an SEO consultant that recommends using "black hat" techniques for quick results. What might happen if Sam approves a program like this?
Penalties for getting caught trying to cheat the system can be anything from dropping your rankings for minor infractions to dropping you from the entire index Black hat techniques are almost always found and penalized by major search engines and should not be used
You are interested in how your site is performing in terms of search queries and landing pages. Which section of the Google Search Console would you most likely use?
Performance > Search results This section allows you to see clicks, impressions, click-through-rates, and average positions for keyword queries and landing pages against devices, geographies and more
What does a Priority Score represent in the Moz keyword explorer?
Priority Score is measured on a scale from 0 - 100, where a higher score means a better balance of higher volume and lower difficulty
Which are the most important factors when search engines are evaluating links pointing to your pages?
Quantity and quality of those links
Which factors are involved in search engine optimization?
Relevance and authority
Which are the criteria used for selecting which keywords to target?
Relevance, search volume, competition
Where do you set the rules to control how search engines crawl through your website?
Robots.txt
What resource can be used to learn more about structured data, supported types, and implementation?
Schema.org
How do search engines "see" web pages?
Search engines see markup and code that act as instructions to a browser for rendering pages The code, scripts and markup returned by web servers are visible to search engines and used to instruct the browser how to display the page
Where in Google Search Console would you go to find information about malware or evidence of hacking that may be taking place on your site?
Security & Manual Actions
Amanda installs a base web analytics solution for her company. What is the next step she should facilitate?
She needs to define the business objectives and KPIs and configure those in the analytics tool Amanda needs to understand what metrics will indicate success (or failure) specific to her business or organizational goals. As each organization is different, custom configurations are necessary
Your company sells Adidas soccer shoes online. What would your research tell you is the keyword search most likely to provide relevant results for your audience?
Soccer shoes near me This term reveals the intent of a searcher looking to buy exactly what your company sells
What is the best method to ensure search engines see your XML sitemap(s)?
Submit them directly to the search engines via their webmaster tools Major search engines allow for the direct submission of multiple XML sitemaps through their webmaster tools
Samir is responsible for installing marketing technology tools across his company's website. What action could he take to ensure search engines understand which URL parameters impact content and which do not?
Tell major search engines directly which URL parameters to ignore through their webmaster tools Major search engines offer webmasters the opportunity to manage URL parameters that are in use and should be ignored
Which is not something that should be optimized when including images in content?
The "SEO" attribute of the <img> tag There is no such thing as an "SEO" attribute for an HTML <img> tag
What does the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric measure?
The amount of time it takes to render the largest content element visible on the screen LCP marks the time at which the largest text or image is rendered on the screen
Which is not an important aspect of the way you set up your website to a search engine?
The company you choose to host your website with.
What is schema as it relates to SEO?
The criteria against which websites are evaluated for search engine visibility
What might indicate a trustworthy directory?
The directory conducts an editorial or review process, only accepting quality and relevant websites Directories with formal review processes that only allow listings of quality and relevant sites tend to be trustworthy in the eyes of search engines
You are putting together an initial formal keyword research plan. Which factor would you least likely expect from the plan?
The impact of keywords on the company's profit margin Initial keyword research does not measure actual results. Once keywords are selected and generating traffic, web analytics tools can be used to understand their financial impact
How does a search engine understand the way your pages relate to one another?
The search engine navigates through your site's internal linking A search engine crawls the pages of a site by following links in order to understand a site's structure
Where can you find data around the Core Web Vitals metrics?
These can be found across a number of Google tools and services, including Search Console and PageSpeed Insights These important metrics are made available by Google across a number of different tools, services and applications
Why should you target "long tail" keywords?
These keywords are typically more relevant, less competitive, and collectively can provide ample search volume Long tail keywords can collectively provide a lot of search volume that is extremely relevant and generally less competitive to rank for
Anitha and her team are working on brainstorming keywords as part of their research. What is the most important aspect of this research?
Think like a customer Anitha and her team should put themselves in the shoes of their potential customers when researching keywords
You are leading a marketing team's content strategy and need to create an editorial content calendar. What is the primary purpose of this calendar?
To map out the content development process and create accountability How you structure it may vary, but an editorial calendar lays out a plan for who will create what content when
Which is not a common use of URL parameters?
To request search engines to re-index a page
Kasandra would like to know if and how Google has crawled and indexed a specific page on her website. Which is the easiest way to do this?
Type in the URL in question at the top of the page using the URL Inspection feature The URL Inspection feature provides reports around crawling and indexing for a specific URL
Once goals and objectives are clearly defined, what should a successful company do next in its content strategy?
Understand its key audience and its key audience's needs
How would you resolve an issue involving two different URLs with the same content?
Use a canonical tag A canonical tag is used to tell a search engine the primary URL that should be used in cases of duplicate content
When you are building your network of external links, what should you not do?
Use a paid SEO consultant that can provide thousands of links every month These are likely to be "black hat" techniques and run the risk of getting you penalized by search engines
Which type of keyword strategy would you use to convert visitors to your website?
Use specific keywords that have a meaningful search volume, are relevant, and are not too competitive This is an optimal approach with keywords, balancing relevant search traffic with attainable results
Your website is promoting an event for a local charity. What should you do to get the most search engine visibility out of the content you are using?
Use structured data to include all information available about the event This allows all the specific content, such as location, dates, pricing, and more, to be easily identified by the search engines
Johanna needs to ensure a particular webpage does not appear in search engine results. What would you recommend she do?
Use the noindex meta tag This, or returning a noindex http header, is the preferred method for preventing a webpage from appearing in a search results page
Why should you use cells or tabbing on the left side of a keyword distribution spreadsheet?
Use these cells to show the hierarchy and structure of the various pages of your website
What needs to be done before a webmaster gains access to Google's Search Console for a given website?
Verify that you have valid access to the domain and are authorized to see the reports contained within Search Console
What types of XML sitemaps can be submitted through Google Search Console?
Web pages, video, image, news and mobile XML sitemaps of many types, including pages, videos, images, news, and mobile can be submitted through Google Search Console
Which would not be an example of a possible Key Performance Indicator (KPI)?
XML sitemap
You are analyzing keywords, and notice several have significant numbers of impressions with low click-through rates. What does this mean?
You are showing up in search results often, but users are rarely clicking on your listing While you have done a good job of search engine visibility for this keyword, your listing is not enticing people to click on it
A successful long-term SEO strategy must keep in mind that _____ is king.
content The actual content of the site is the most important factor and has the largest long-term influence on your SEO success
