Mark Knopfler fans will understand where the quoted phrase in our blog headline comes from. I was first introduced to Mark’s wonderful storytelling abilities by my husband, Jay, when we were dating or first married. One of Mark’s songs that I first took a great liking to was his song “Quality Shoe.” Be prepared for the earworm that comes from wanting to listen to this song over and over!
What Do Shoes Have To Do With SEO?
The answer to the question above is this: a great deal!
As we’ve called out in a number of blog posts over the past year, the SEO landscape continues to shift — and on a daily basis. As we recently expressed in this blog post about thriving — not just surviving — in the SEO jungle, it’s our belief at our Boston SEO Company/digital marketing agency that the organizations who will continue rank well in search-engine results, despite all the change on the search-engine front, are those that really try to walk in their target audiences’ shoes and answer the questions and concerns they have. And, keep in mind, that these questions and concerns may be related to the product or service the organizations who succeed at SEO offer, or they may be unrelated, or only distantly related.
Sure, as we discussed in another blog post about succeeding at SEO, entitled “Give The People What They Want, you can use keyword research tools to determine on which topics, particularly questions, your target audiences are regularly conducting Google searches. But part of walking in your target audiences’ shoes also includes:
- digging down deep mentally and emotionally to really understand your marketplace and your organization’s place in it
- making and taking the time to think about what are the likely questions your target audiences have about your products or services, plus, about working with/buying from/engaging your organization
- brainstorming with individuals at all levels of your organization, particularly those who are in customer-service roles, or who actually provide or deliver your product or service, to determine what client “pain points” your product or service addresses
- reaching out to customers with whom you have a strong and longstanding relationship to ask them for feedback about why they chose to work with your organization or buy your product, and how the product or service has made their life or job easier
- In addition to chatting with your organization’s staff and clients about the problems your products or services solve and using those to inform website and other online content your organization publishes, as part of such internal and external discussions, ask about other pains/challenges your target audiences deal with regularly (even if you don’t offer a solution to them). Simply providing helpful information online on topics or questions that are tangential to your products or services, but important to your target audiences, is a great way to have search engines serve up your website or Google My Business Profile in related to searches being conducted by your target audiences even if they aren’t directly related to your organization. It’s a win-win.
So, break out those quality shoes and start the walking-in-your-clients’-shoes process today! And, check out this blog post that speaks to another reason you and your organization are “going to need some quality shoes.”
Plus, if you’re an avid walker (literally vs. figuratively) like us, check out our many blog posts about walking by selecting walking as your category when you visit our blog.
This is a great blog posting and very useful. I really appreciate the research you put into it..
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The empty level-one heading and blank snippet make it difficult to understand the article’s topic or key takeaway. Adding a descriptive title and a short introduction would give readers useful context.
The focus on the article’s main heading makes the structure especially clear, though I’d be interested in seeing more detail beneath it.
The article appears to be missing its title and body content, so there isn’t enough context to comment meaningfully.
It looks like the article content didn’t load—the heading and snippet are empty, so there isn’t enough detail to engage with the topic.
The level-one heading format is clear, but the article would benefit from adding substantive text and a more descriptive title so readers understand the topic immediately.
The emphasis on the level-one heading is a useful reminder that clear structure starts with a well-defined main topic.
The level-1 heading appears to be empty, and the article snippet contains only blank entries, so there isn’t enough visible content to understand the topic or respond meaningfully.
The blank heading and empty snippet make this article difficult to evaluate—adding a clear title and a short summary would give readers useful context before they continue.
The article appears to contain only a blank level-one heading, so there isn’t enough content to comment on yet. Adding a clear title and a brief introduction would make the topic easier to understand.