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What is the best way to interview an SEO?
Posted by on November 16, 2025 at 5:19 pmI am a personal injury lawyer in a competitive market.
How do I vet the best SEO to add to my team?
Even more specifically, how do I sort through the 100s of applicants when I post a job?
If I have them write sample content, what do I look for in a standout candidate?
Where is the best place to post a full-time SEO job?
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1 Reply
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Key Questions to ask
1- Case study and what exactly candidate did to achieve that case study
2- Put some scenarios and ask him to write some good meta properties that can help in better CTR
3- Past projects and what he did on those projects
4- Technical questions like ask Schema, Guest Posting, Internal & External links, On Page best practices.
5- What does he do in technical SEO ?
6- Give a live site and ask him to prepare an indepth Audit report
7- Ask him to analyze your competitors
8- Ask him to suggest 10 keywords about your business as a business owner you can relate with the keyword.
Rest take the help of YouTube videos for understanding things in detail.
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I would ask them what they do to acquire links.
Content can be easily created by an LLM, and you can vet that.
Link building is what separates the men from the boys. If the bulk of their day is spent on acquiring links, I would say that is 90% of the battle won.
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Ask for law firm referrals.
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questions to ask:
1) what is the purpose of SEO? (any answer other than “to get to the top of the search engines” is wrong. If they say UX, conversion, web design, etc., those are wrong, this person does not understand SEO).
2) walk me through the process of how you would prepare a 6-12 month roadmap to get us to the top of the search. They should be able to answer this question in 1 minute or in 60 minutes, or anything encompassing.
3) take a few random things they say from #2 and make them dig in. Make them explain the concept to you both high level and in excruciating complexity.
If you remember from my other comment, here, *you will not know if they are correct unless you understand SEO*.
4) ask them for a case study or 2. If the first words out of their mouths are not “sure, sign this NDA,” do not hire them. Believe me.
5) Explain SEO to me in one sentence or less, including how it works. The answer should, to a large degree, involve describing how authority is the main ranking factor, and perhaps, how to get authority.
Alternately, ask “what is the difference between websites that rank and websites that do not rank?” If they say something about “good content helps you get to the top of the search engines,” do not hire that person.
6) Name 2 penalties and what causes them and how to stop them.
This is a good hour of material.
Or you can hire me to sit in in the interviews.
The reason people (correctly) dislike SEOs is because most of them do not grasp how it works and mislead you like crazy, or say things like “content is king” when *anyone who has done SEO knows this is garbage*.
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