It’s one thing to understand who your audience is, but how do you get a true sense of what your customers experience? Eli Schwartz advises walking a mile in their shoes. Eli says: “Map out your customer journey and figure out where search fits.” How do you start mapping an actual search journey? “It's very, very simple: you switch chairs. Marketers always have this marketing hat on when they're trying to sell something. Their boss gives them something, or it's their own product, and they put their marketing hat on. ‘What are the things I need to do? How do I package this? How do I promote it? What should the price be for SEO? What should my keywords be? What should my pages look like? How much content do I need? Who am I going to hire to do this?’
SEO in 2026