HUBSPOT SEO CERTIFICATION EXAM FALL 2023
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
A healthy SEO strategy balances building ___ with building ____.
1. relevancy; authority
2. backlinks; internal links
3. sitemaps; URLs
4. content; link juice - ANSWER: 1. relevancy; authority
That's right! Depending on how established you website is, your focus will shift more
towards building relevancy with content or building authority with backlinks.
What are the three stages of ranking?
1. Crawling, relevance, authority
2. Discovery, indexing, ranking
3. Discovery, relevance, authority
4. Relevance, indexing, ranking - ANSWER: 3. Discovery, relevance, authority
That's right! Each of these three stages correlates with an action the search engine
takes: crawling, indexing, and ranking.
In the context of SEO, what does E-A-T stand for?
1. Expertise, authoritativeness, technical SEO
2. Expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness
3. Ease-of-use, authority, trustworthiness
4. Ease-of-use, application, trustworthiness - ANSWER: 2. Expertise,
authoritativeness, trustworthiness
Brianna is a marketing manager at XYZ Agency in charge of setting the firm's SEO
strategy for the next quarter. Currently, XYZ's website uses the design from its
redesign in 2010. Though the website gets a decent amount of organic traffic, the
numbers have been decreasing month over month. Brianna has three writers
working for her and has been given some budget for SEO improvements. What steps
would you recommend Brianna take to improve her company's SEO strategy next
quarter?
1. Hire a web design agency to redesign XYZ's website and task the content writers
to create at least three blog posts per week for the next three months.
2. Perform usability testing on XYZ's existing website to determine areas of
improvement and do keyword analysis to determine which keywords to target with
their content.
3. Start reaching out to journalists to build backlinks to XYZ's blog posts and add
more conversion points to their websit - ANSWER: 2. Perform usability testing on
XYZ's existing website to determine areas of improvement and do keyword analysis
to determine which keywords to target with their content.
,That's right! Before diving into content writing or website redesigns, Brianna should
take the time to understand what's working and what isn't. Then, she can make
decisions about what changes to make based on that data.
What is the difference between a heading tag and a title tag?
1. Heading tags specify the title of a web page in search results. Title tags provide a
hierarchical structure to a web page.
2. Heading tags provide a hierarchical structure to a web page. Title tags specify the
title of a web page in search results.
3. Heading tags only appear in search results. Title tags appear on a web page.
4. There is no difference. They are the same thing. - ANSWER: 2. Heading tags
provide a hierarchical structure to a web page. Title tags specify the title of a web
page in search results.
That's right! Heading tags and title tags are often written in the same way, but they
serve two different purposes.
True or False? Words like "click here" or "learn more" are effective link descriptions.
True
False - ANSWER: False
That's right! Descriptive link text is important for SEO because it describes the
contents of the page you're linking to.
You need a meta description because it: (Choose all that apply.)
1. increases clickthrough rates and visits from organic search.
2. allows search engine crawlers to scan the content of your page.
3. gives the right people the right information at the right time.
4. increases visits from social. - ANSWER: 1. increases clickthrough rates and visits
from organic search.
3. gives the right people the right information at the right time.
4. increases visits from social.
That's right! Meta descriptions provide a brief summary of your page that appears in
search results.
Examine the pictured blog post. How would you improve the on-page SEO of this
blog post?
1. Format the content with an H1 header and H2 subheadings.
2. Add an image for every step.
3. Use different font colors for the headings and body text.
4. Capitalize each word in the blog title.
5. Include a personal anecdote in the recipe introduction. - ANSWER: 1. Format the
content with an H1 header and H2 subheadings.
That's right! Properly formatting this blog post with H1 and H2 headings will help
search engines better understand the post's content.
, Choose all that apply. Which of these questions does keyword research help you
answer?
1. What are people searching for?
2. How difficult will it be to rank for a search query?
3. Why do people search for one keyword over another?
4. What format do people want to receive information in? - ANSWER: 1. What are
people searching for?
2. How difficult will it be to rank for a search query?
4. What format do people want to receive information in?
That's right! Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms
that people enter into search engines.
True or False? Long tail keywords make up the minority of searches online.
True
False - ANSWER: False
That's right! Long tail keywords actually make up the majority of searches online.
What is the topic cluster model?
1. A website page that covers a specific topic in depth and is linked to a cluster of
related content
2. A way of organizing a site's content pages using a clean and deliberate site
architecture
3. A Google algorithm update from 2015
4. A set of specific phrases that have low search volume and low competition -
ANSWER: 2. A way of organizing a site's content pages using a clean and deliberate
site architecture
That's right! Topic clusters help you rearrange your site architecture in a way that's
easier to understand for both humans and search engines.
Eric, a content writer for a new sneaker company called Soles, is working on a series
of blog posts to help build up the brand's reputation online and generate more leads
to their e-commerce website. So far, Eric has searched online for keywords using
free tools like Answer the Public and Google's auto-suggest and has a long list of
popular search terms with a lot of search volume. How would you suggest Eric
improve his keyword strategy to get maximum results for his blog series?
1. Order the list of keywords by which ones have the most search volume and start
creating a blog post for each keyword.
2. Perform competitor analysis, determine which search terms competitors are
creating content for, and create the same style/type of content.
3. Organize keywords by topic to create a topic cluster content strategy and
prioritize the keywords with decent search volume, but not much competition.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
A healthy SEO strategy balances building ___ with building ____.
1. relevancy; authority
2. backlinks; internal links
3. sitemaps; URLs
4. content; link juice - ANSWER: 1. relevancy; authority
That's right! Depending on how established you website is, your focus will shift more
towards building relevancy with content or building authority with backlinks.
What are the three stages of ranking?
1. Crawling, relevance, authority
2. Discovery, indexing, ranking
3. Discovery, relevance, authority
4. Relevance, indexing, ranking - ANSWER: 3. Discovery, relevance, authority
That's right! Each of these three stages correlates with an action the search engine
takes: crawling, indexing, and ranking.
In the context of SEO, what does E-A-T stand for?
1. Expertise, authoritativeness, technical SEO
2. Expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness
3. Ease-of-use, authority, trustworthiness
4. Ease-of-use, application, trustworthiness - ANSWER: 2. Expertise,
authoritativeness, trustworthiness
Brianna is a marketing manager at XYZ Agency in charge of setting the firm's SEO
strategy for the next quarter. Currently, XYZ's website uses the design from its
redesign in 2010. Though the website gets a decent amount of organic traffic, the
numbers have been decreasing month over month. Brianna has three writers
working for her and has been given some budget for SEO improvements. What steps
would you recommend Brianna take to improve her company's SEO strategy next
quarter?
1. Hire a web design agency to redesign XYZ's website and task the content writers
to create at least three blog posts per week for the next three months.
2. Perform usability testing on XYZ's existing website to determine areas of
improvement and do keyword analysis to determine which keywords to target with
their content.
3. Start reaching out to journalists to build backlinks to XYZ's blog posts and add
more conversion points to their websit - ANSWER: 2. Perform usability testing on
XYZ's existing website to determine areas of improvement and do keyword analysis
to determine which keywords to target with their content.
,That's right! Before diving into content writing or website redesigns, Brianna should
take the time to understand what's working and what isn't. Then, she can make
decisions about what changes to make based on that data.
What is the difference between a heading tag and a title tag?
1. Heading tags specify the title of a web page in search results. Title tags provide a
hierarchical structure to a web page.
2. Heading tags provide a hierarchical structure to a web page. Title tags specify the
title of a web page in search results.
3. Heading tags only appear in search results. Title tags appear on a web page.
4. There is no difference. They are the same thing. - ANSWER: 2. Heading tags
provide a hierarchical structure to a web page. Title tags specify the title of a web
page in search results.
That's right! Heading tags and title tags are often written in the same way, but they
serve two different purposes.
True or False? Words like "click here" or "learn more" are effective link descriptions.
True
False - ANSWER: False
That's right! Descriptive link text is important for SEO because it describes the
contents of the page you're linking to.
You need a meta description because it: (Choose all that apply.)
1. increases clickthrough rates and visits from organic search.
2. allows search engine crawlers to scan the content of your page.
3. gives the right people the right information at the right time.
4. increases visits from social. - ANSWER: 1. increases clickthrough rates and visits
from organic search.
3. gives the right people the right information at the right time.
4. increases visits from social.
That's right! Meta descriptions provide a brief summary of your page that appears in
search results.
Examine the pictured blog post. How would you improve the on-page SEO of this
blog post?
1. Format the content with an H1 header and H2 subheadings.
2. Add an image for every step.
3. Use different font colors for the headings and body text.
4. Capitalize each word in the blog title.
5. Include a personal anecdote in the recipe introduction. - ANSWER: 1. Format the
content with an H1 header and H2 subheadings.
That's right! Properly formatting this blog post with H1 and H2 headings will help
search engines better understand the post's content.
, Choose all that apply. Which of these questions does keyword research help you
answer?
1. What are people searching for?
2. How difficult will it be to rank for a search query?
3. Why do people search for one keyword over another?
4. What format do people want to receive information in? - ANSWER: 1. What are
people searching for?
2. How difficult will it be to rank for a search query?
4. What format do people want to receive information in?
That's right! Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms
that people enter into search engines.
True or False? Long tail keywords make up the minority of searches online.
True
False - ANSWER: False
That's right! Long tail keywords actually make up the majority of searches online.
What is the topic cluster model?
1. A website page that covers a specific topic in depth and is linked to a cluster of
related content
2. A way of organizing a site's content pages using a clean and deliberate site
architecture
3. A Google algorithm update from 2015
4. A set of specific phrases that have low search volume and low competition -
ANSWER: 2. A way of organizing a site's content pages using a clean and deliberate
site architecture
That's right! Topic clusters help you rearrange your site architecture in a way that's
easier to understand for both humans and search engines.
Eric, a content writer for a new sneaker company called Soles, is working on a series
of blog posts to help build up the brand's reputation online and generate more leads
to their e-commerce website. So far, Eric has searched online for keywords using
free tools like Answer the Public and Google's auto-suggest and has a long list of
popular search terms with a lot of search volume. How would you suggest Eric
improve his keyword strategy to get maximum results for his blog series?
1. Order the list of keywords by which ones have the most search volume and start
creating a blog post for each keyword.
2. Perform competitor analysis, determine which search terms competitors are
creating content for, and create the same style/type of content.
3. Organize keywords by topic to create a topic cluster content strategy and
prioritize the keywords with decent search volume, but not much competition.
