Head of SEO Interview Questions UK: 8 Real Questions and What Interviewers Want

Before your Head of SEO interview, it helps to see the questions from the interviewer's side. We have picked eight from our set of 12 and added the reason each one gets asked.

Eight Head of SEO interview questions, and what the interviewer is thinking

1. How would you build an SEO strategy for a large site, and how do you prioritise what to do first?

Why they ask: To test strategic leadership of SEO across a complex site.

2. How do AI Overviews and generative search change SEO strategy, and what are you doing about it?

Why they ask: To check awareness of search changes and strategic adaptability.

3. Organic traffic drops 30 per cent over two weeks. Walk me through your investigation.

Why they ask: To test diagnostic ability under pressure, a classic head of SEO scenario.

4. What is your approach to technical SEO at scale, covering crawl budget, indexation, JavaScript and site architecture?

Why they ask: To test depth of technical knowledge.

5. Tell me about a time you delivered a significant improvement in organic performance. What did you do and how did you prove it?

Why they ask: To seek evidence of results and measurement discipline.

6. How do you approach link building and digital PR without risking a Google penalty?

Why they ask: To test knowledge of authority building and spam policies.

7. The development team says it cannot fix SEO issues for six months because of competing priorities. What do you do?

Why they ask: To test influence and prioritisation across the business.

8. What do you see as the biggest challenges for SEO leaders in the next two years, and why do you want to lead SEO here?

Why they ask: To understand strategic perspective and motivation.

A sample answer to question 1

How would you build an SEO strategy for a large site, and how do you prioritise what to do first?

I begin with business goals and revenue contribution, then audit three areas: technical health, content and authority. From Search Console, GA4, log files and a crawl in Screaming Frog or Sitebulb, I identify what limits visibility. I size opportunities by search demand, current ranking position and commercial value, so that I can estimate the revenue impact of each initiative. Then I prioritise using impact, effort and dependency, because technical fixes that unblock indexing often come before new content. A roadmap typically runs across quarters, with foundational fixes first, then content and category expansion, then digital PR and authority building. I agree success metrics with leadership, such as non-brand clicks, organic revenue and visibility on priority topics, and report on them monthly. I also make sure engineering and product teams have clear tickets and rationale, because SEO delivery depends on development capacity and buy-in.

Common mistake to avoid: Listing tactics with no prioritisation; ignoring development capacity

Want the rest?

Full model answers, key points and common mistakes for all 12 questions are on the Head of SEO interview questions page. The first five are free, no sign-up needed.