HubSpot SEO II Certification Exam Answers

HubSpot SEO II Certification Exam Answers

Question 1: Liam is an SEO specialist at an advertising agency. He believes that he can improve the company’s search performance by creating a blog series and pillar page. However, the CEO has been hesitant to sign off because content creation takes a lot of time and she isn’t sure they’ll see the ROI. How can Liam convince the CEO that this is a worthwhile investment?

• Show the CEO the Google Analytics and Search Console reports on how much traffic the company website is getting, their keyword rankings, and their click-through rate.
• Create a slide deck presentation on content marketing and why it’s important to be constantly churning out fresh content for Google.
• Gather data about the search volume for the keywords Liam wants to create content for, showing the CEO the potential search visibility, clicks, and leads they might gain by following this strategy.

Question 2: Select all that apply. Which of the following strategies help you communicate the value of SEO to stakeholders?

• Putting the user at the center of everything you do
• Making your work accessible to people outside the SEO field
• Following SEO blogs, newsletters, and social media
• Tying your actions back to business goals

Question 3: Why is it important to keep track of trends and updates in your business’ niche?

• So, you can better communicate with your colleagues and/or clients.
• So, you can anticipate how trends and updates might affect your website.
• So, you can become a subject matter expert in your business’ niche.
• It isn’t important to keep track of trends and updates in your business’ niche.

Question 4: What is an SEO competitive analysis?

• The process of researching your business competitors to find out how you can beat them in the market
• The process of generating reports on the search impressions, clicks, and click-through rate of web pages
• The process by which you analyze the different keyword opportunities on your website
• The process of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of you and your competitors’ SEO

Question 5: Select all that apply. What are the goals you want to achieve through an SEO competitive analysis?

• Discover your competitors’ winning strategies
• Benchmark your current SEO performance
• Reveal any competitor gaps or weaknesses
• Identify areas of improvement in your SEO strategy

Question 6: True or false? Your business competitors are not always the same as your SEO competitors.

• True
• False

Question 7: What are keyword gaps?

• The phrases that your competitors are ranking for, but you aren’t
• The keywords that you currently aren’t targeting
• The phrases that don’t have a lot of search traffic
• The search phrases that your website does not rank for

Question 8: Select all that apply. Why is it important to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your website and your competitors’ sites?

• To capitalize on your competitors’ weaknesses
• To stay up-to-date on trends in search
• To optimize the strengths of your website
• To improve the weak areas of your site

Question 9: True or false? When performing an SEO competitive analysis, you do not need to analyze your site on a page-by-page basis.

• True
• False

Question 10: What would you be tracking in a goal completion report in Google Analytics?

• Which goals are being completed (e.g., form submissions, pages visited, or events triggered)
• Which pages attribute to the most goal completions and their conversion rates
• The proportion of goal completions in comparison with overall page visits
• All of the above

Question 11: What is the best timeframe to report on content to lead generation?

• 1 month
• 3 months
• 6 months
• 12 months

Question 12: Select all that apply. Which of the following metrics should be included in a content quality report?

• Bounce rate
• Average time on page
• Goal completions
• Organic search impressions
• Percent exits

Question 13: Which type of report will show you what brought people to a particular page?

• Keyword rank in Ahrefs
• Content to leads in HubSpot
• Goal completions in Google Analytics
• Clicks to impressions to CTR in Google Search Console

Question 14: Greta is an SEO professional working for a large law firm. She is gathering her monthly reports on their website performance, and her manager has asked that she focus on demonstrating how SEO is contributing to the business’ bottom line. What type of report should Greta pull in order to best show the ROI of SEO?

• A goal completion report, which shows which pages are generating the most form submissions
• A content to leads report, that shows which pages are converting the most leads
• A keyword rank report, which shows the overall web presence of their keywords
• A top pages report, which shows which pages are generating the most traffic to their website

Question 15: Select all that apply. Which of the following are examples of site moves with URL changes?

• Protocol changes
• Domain name changes
• Hosting provider changes
• URL path changes

Question 16: Select all that apply. What are the advantages of migrating a large site in sections?

• Making fewer changes at once decreases the risks of errors.
• Google recommends migrating large sites in sections if possible.
• It can be less expensive for the business.
• There are no advantages to migrating a site in sections.

Question 17: What are the proper use cases for 301 and 302 redirects?

• Use 301 redirects for top-priority pages that you want Google to index first. Use 302 redirects for lower-priority pages which can be indexed later.
• Use 301 redirects all the time. There are no proper use cases for 302 redirects.
• Use 301 redirects when the change is not permanent. Use 302 redirects when the old URL is moving permanently to the new URL.
• Use 301 redirects when the old URL is moving permanently to the new URL. Use 302 redirects when the change is not permanent.

Question 18: Jenny is in charge of creating the URL mapping file for her company’s website migration project. While working on it, she notices that there are many pages which have no corresponding page on the new site, because they have been either removed or consolidated. She isn’t sure what to do about these pages. What would you suggest Jenny do in this scenario?

• She should redirect all orphan pages to the website homepage.
• She should redirect each orphan page to its parent category page or the most relevant similar page.
• She should not redirect these pages.

Question 19: True or false? It is best practice to avoid redirect chains by redirecting straight to a page’s final destination.

• True
• False

Question 20: When is the best time to execute a site migration?

• On the day when the site historically has its highest traffic to maximize the visibility of the new site
• On a weekday between 6PM and 11PM
• On a day that will have the least impact on your business revenue, ideally during off-peak hours
• It doesn’t matter what day or time you execute a site migration; they will all have the same effect.

Question 21: During which stage of a migration should you benchmark site performance metrics?

• Pre-migration
• During the migration
• Post-migration
• There is no identified stage for benchmarking site performance metrics.

Question 22: True or false? Moving a site from HTTP to HTTPS does not count as a site migration.

• True
• False

Question 23: Select all that apply. Which of the following status codes should you focus on resolving during a technical SEO audit?

• 200
• 300
• 400
• 500

Question 24: Crawl budget is mainly a concern for which types of websites?

• Websites with less than 1,000 pages
• Websites with over 10,000 pages
• Websites in regulated industries
• All of the above

Question 25: Select all that apply. Which of the following should you avoid to reduce a site’s crawl budget?

• Duplicate content
• Navigation menus with over 7 items
• Long redirect chains
• Infinite spaces

Question 26: If a website has content added via JavaScript, what additional stage do search engines need to complete?

• Crawling
• Indexing
• Ranking
• Rendering

Question 27: Blake is going through a technical SEO audit for his company’s website when he notices that several pages are taking 6 or more seconds to load. He knows this is too slow and he needs to speed them up, but isn’t sure how to identify what’s causing the slowdown or how to fix it. To get started, what should Blake look into?

• Large code files that could be minified
• Non-essential JavaScript that could be moved to the footer
• Large image or video files that could be compressed
• All of the above

Question 28: What is the purpose of limiting HTTP requests?

• To remove extraneous code and empty spaces in HTML and CSS files to improve page performance
• To reduce a page’s overall download size in order to increase its load speed
• To reduce the frequency at which a browser needs to download information on a page, increasing its load speed
• To maximize website caching so a page can load faster

Question 29: Which of the following is NOT a strategy to limit HTTP requests?

• Combining text resources
• Moving render-blocking JavaScript
• Minifying code files
• Reducing redirects
• Combining image resources

Question 30: Fill in the blank: ___ happens when the server saves the result of a single render and serves that same result when requested again.

• Server-side caching
• JavaScript rendering
• Minification
• Client-side caching

Question 31: True or false? Most elements of a website can be cached.

• True
• False

Question 32: Which of the following is NOT a function of the robots.txt file?

• Show search engine bots all the pages on a site
• Prevent search engines from crawling private pages
• Keep search engine bots from overwhelming server resources
• Specify the location of your sitemap

Question 33: Select all that apply. Which of the following are included in Google’s Page Experience update?

• Intrusive interstitial guidelines
• Safe browsing
• Mobile-friendliness
• Core Web Vitals

Question 34: Claire is analyzing her website’s Core Web Vitals and notices that LCP is occurring at 10 seconds, which is much longer than what Google recommends. Which of the following elements could be contributing to slowing down Claire’s page?

• A pop-up banner, appearing halfway down the page
• A navigation menu with more than 7 items
• An embedded video below the page header
• A non-responsive website design

Question 35: True or false? Page experience is the primary ranking factor for Google, even more important than a page’s content.

• True
• False

Question 36: What is Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)?

• The visual stability of a website or how predictable it is to use
• The length of time it takes for a page to react after a user interacts with it
• The length of time it takes for the element using the most amount of pixels to render on a user’s screen
• None of the above

Question 37: True or false? Cumulative Layout Shift is only measured on a page’s first load.

• True
• False

Question 38: What is lazy loading?

• A technique that involves loading non-critical assets on a page only when needed
• A type of responsive website design
• A strategy that involves combining image resources by utilizing image sprites
• A tactic to improve page speed by loading JavaScript asynchronously

Question 39: Adding inline CSS dimensions to images, videos, and gifs helps improve which Core Web Vital?

• Largest Contentful Paint
• First Input Delay
• Cumulative Layout Shift
• It does not help improve any of the Core Web Vitals.

Question 40: What is the best practice for using website pop-ups in a user-friendly way?

• The pop-up should appear in at least three different locations on a page to cater to all buyer personas.
• The pop-up should take up as much space on the page as possible so that users can easily see it.
• The pop-up should take up a reasonable amount of space on the screen and not prevent users from accessing content.
• There are no user-friendly ways to use pop-ups and they should be avoided entirely.

Question 41: Fill in the blanks: ___ and ___ form the foundation of technical SEO.

• Website performance; crawlability
• Crawl budget; mobile-friendliness
• Site speed; on-page SEO
• Content; keywords

Question 42: True or false? If you improve the speed at which individual pages load, you’ll improve your overall site speed.

• True
• False

Question 43: Select all that apply. What are the main categories of site moves?

• Site moves with domain name changes
• Site moves with URL changes
• Site moves with infrastructure changes
• Site moves without URL changes

Question 44: Fill in the blank: ___ occurs when a user quickly navigates back and forth between pages in search results.

• Rendering
• Bouncing
• Pogo-sticking
• Rebounding

Question 45: Why is it important to keep track of Google algorithm updates?

• It can help you outsmart Google.
• It can help you better communicate the ROI of SEO to your stakeholders.
• It isn’t important to keep track of Google algorithm updates.
• It can help you understand how your site has been affected in the past and/or could be affected in the future.

Question 46: What is the purpose of an image sprite?

• To decrease the number of image files that are limiting your load speed
• To reduce the load time of a page by automatically compressing the size of all images
• To enhance consistency and ensure that all of your icons match across your entire website
• Both A and C

Question 47: True or false? You can minify code or compress it, but you cannot do both.

• True
• False

Question 48: What is Google Page Experience?

• A set of signals that measures a website’s user experience, specifically on mobile devices
• A set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value
• A group of metrics Google uses to determine if a website’s content is accessible
• A report available in Google Search Console that shows which pages are mobile-friendly

Question 49: What is the first step in any website migration project?

• Creating a URL mapping file
• Putting together a technical SEO specification
• Scoping the project to create a project plan
• Setting benchmarks

Question 50: Fill in the blank: ___ happens when the server tells a web browser to keep the files it downloads, so it doesn’t have to download them again in the future.

• Browser caching
• General caching
• Server-side caching
• Client-side caching

Question 51: What is the purpose of a URL mapping file?

• To create a map for Google to follow the redirect path
• To map out how many 301 vs. 302 redirects you need
• To map the old site URL to the new site URL
• To avoid pages being interpreted as soft 404’s

Question 52: What is a technical SEO specification?

• A document used during a website migration which captures SEO elements that need to be changed or transferred to the new site.
• A list of technical SEO issues on a website that need to be resolved, which are gathered during a technical SEO audit.
• A comprehensive definition list of technical SEO terms to use when communicating with stakeholders.
• A spreadsheet used during a technical SEO audit which keeps track of metadata on the site

Question 53: Which of the following is the most important aspect of a mobile-friendly website?

• Mobile site matching the desktop site
• Responsive website design
• Images and videos
• Avoiding intrusive pop-ups

Question 54: Raquel is working on a technical SEO audit for a new client who recently decided to move their website from HTTP to HTTPS. When starting her audit, Raquel notices that some HTTP pages were never redirected to the HTTPS pages, which is now causing issues for the site in search. However, this client is very resistant to the idea of implementing more redirects, since they’ve heard that this can lead to a drop in their search performance. How should Raquel approach this situation with her client?

• She should stop the technical SEO audit completely and tell her client that she cannot continue until they have resolved the issues with redirecting the HTTP pages to HTTPS.
• She should explain to her client how redirects work (focusing on how 301 redirects pass “link juice” to new pages), explain how having both HTTP and HTTPS pages creates duplicate content, and how this can negatively affect the site’s performance.
• She should explain that while improperly implemented redirects can result in a drop in search performance, they are a necessary evil and redirecting the HTTP pages to HTTPS must happen immediately.

Question 55: What are the three aspects of a website’s user experience, as measured by Core Web Vitals?

• Visual stability, interactivity, and design
• Interactivity, mobile-friendliness, and speed
• Loading, responsive design, and accessibility
• Loading, interactivity, and visual stability

Question 56: Select all that apply. Which of the following can negatively impact your CLS score?

• Images and iframes without inline dimensions
• Large items like YouTube video embeds or image sliders
• Dynamically injected content
• Improperly loaded custom webfonts

Question 57: Dana is an SEO freelancer working with a client who is redesigning their website. The client’s designer has come up with a design that uses four custom fonts, but Dana voices their concern that this could have a negative impact on the site’s performance. How can Dana explain this issue to their client, and what solution can they propose?

• Using custom fonts is looked up unfavorably by Google, as they prefer designers to use exclusively Google fonts to promote their brand. The designer should use Google fonts in order to comply with these guidelines.
• Using more than two fonts of any kind can confuse users, provide a poor user experience, and increase the page’s LCP. Instead, the designer should use just a single Google font across the entire site.
• Using more than two custom fonts can cause fonts to flicker on loading, showing a flash of unstyled text. This is a poor user experience and increases the CLS score. Instead, the designer should try to find comparable Google fonts to use.

Question 58: What is minification?

• The process of reducing resource size by removing unnecessary comments and spacing in the source code
• The process of replacing repetitive pieces of code with markers directing to the first instance of that code
• The process of redirecting large groups of URLs in batches during a site move
• The process of moving large JavaScript files to the bottom of a page for all non-essential functions

Question 59: Jeremiah is an in-house SEO specialist for a car rental company with locations across the U.S. He works closely with the firm’s web designer, Maria, who mentions to him that she’d like to contextualize the site’s homepage by displaying the nearest car rental pickup spot based on the user’s location. Jeremiah thinks this is a great idea, but has concerns about how it may slow down the site. What solution could Jeremiah employ to keep the functionality while maintaining the site speed?

• There is no solution to keep this functionality and avoid slowing down the page, resulting in decreased performance. Therefore, Jeremiah should recommend that Maria not use it.
• Use an open-source web bundler to combine all the JavaScript on the homepage, placing it at the bottom of the page.
• Put the JavaScript that generates the site location in the HTML of the page where it’s needed, and keep non-essential JavaScript in the page footer.

Question 60: Which of the following does Google consider a good CLS score?

• 0.1
• 0.5
• 1.0
• 2.5

Question 61: Mariah is performing an SEO competitive analysis on her client’s website. She identifies that their backlink profile is relatively weak, primarily because her client believes backlinks are a trend and isn’t interested in investing in them. However, she notices that their top competitors have received backlinks from a few reputable news agencies and aggregator sites. As a result, they are outranking her client in the SERPs. How should Mariah approach this situation with her client?

• Mariah should educate her client on the value provided by high-quality backlinks, then suggest a strategy of approaching the same sites which link to their competitors and ask for a similar backlink to their website.
• Mariah should send her client information from popular SEO blogs about backlinks, then propose that she start a cold outreach campaign to 100 relevant websites to ask for links.
• Mariah should instead focus on content marketing and creating more high-quality blog posts.

Introduction to HubSpot SEO II

HubSpot SEO II is an extension or iteration of the HubSpot platform’s SEO tools, designed to enhance a website’s search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities. HubSpot, a leading provider of inbound marketing and sales software, offers a range of tools to help businesses attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. In the context of SEO, HubSpot provides various features and functionalities to optimize website content for search engines like Google. Here are some areas you might explore:

Advanced HubSpot SEO Strategies

1. Content Strategy and Optimization:
   • Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages: Use HubSpot’s Content Strategy tool to create and manage topic clusters. Ensure your pillar pages are comprehensive and link out to related cluster content.
   • Keyword Research: Utilize HubSpot’s SEO tools to identify high-value keywords and integrate them naturally into your content. Regularly update your keyword strategy based on performance data.
2. On-Page SEO:
   • Meta Tags Optimization: Ensure each page has optimized meta titles and descriptions. Use HubSpot’s SEO recommendations to fine-tune these elements.
   • Header Tags: Properly structure your content with header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to improve readability and SEO.
3. Technical SEO:
   • Site Audit: Regularly perform site audits using HubSpot’s SEO tools to identify and fix technical issues such as broken links, duplicate content, and slow page speeds.
   • Mobile Optimization: Make sure your site is fully optimized for mobile users, as HubSpot’s tools can help you track mobile performance and make necessary adjustments.
4. Link Building:
   • Internal Linking: Use HubSpot’s content tools to create a strong internal linking structure that enhances user navigation and spreads link equity throughout your site.
   • External Link Building: Develop a strategy for acquiring high-quality backlinks. HubSpot’s CRM can help you manage outreach efforts and track relationships.
5. Performance Tracking and Analytics:
   • SEO Reporting: Use HubSpot’s SEO reporting tools to monitor your rankings, organic traffic, and other key metrics. Analyze this data to refine your SEO strategy.
   • A/B Testing: Conduct A/B tests on various elements of your site to see what performs best in terms of SEO and user engagement.
6. Local SEO:
   • Local Listings: Ensure your business is listed correctly on local directories and Google My Business. HubSpot can help you manage and optimize these listings.
   • Localized Content: Create content that’s tailored to local audiences and incorporates local keywords.
7. Content Promotion:
   • Social Media Integration: Use HubSpot’s social media tools to promote your content and drive traffic to your site. Engage with your audience to boost visibility and shares.
   • Email Marketing: Leverage HubSpot’s email marketing features to distribute your content and increase its reach.
8. User Experience (UX) and Engagement:
   • Site Speed: Monitor and improve your site’s load times as this impacts both SEO and user experience. HubSpot provides tools to analyze and enhance site speed.
   • Interactive Elements: Incorporate interactive elements such as quizzes, surveys, or calculators to engage users and keep them on your site longer.

By integrating these advanced strategies into your HubSpot SEO efforts, you can enhance your site’s visibility, improve user engagement, and ultimately drive more organic traffic.