Above, BlueWing's Steven Aguiar (right) with Normandy American Heroes founder Rudy Passera (center) and US sales representative Steve Judd (left) at the 2018 Los Angeles Travel and Adventure Show.

In the late summer of 2016, Rudy Passera approached BlueWing with a vision for his passion project. Rudy provides sweeping historical World War II-themed tours of Normandy. At the time he was largely supporting himself with income from a separate job, but he thought he could grow his tour business with the right marketing and sales structure. Less than a year later, Rudy’s vision came to fruition. Increased awareness led to a flurry of new tour reservations. The uptick in bookings brought a wave of money into the business.

And at last, Rudy left his other job to focus exclusively on Normandy American Heroes tours. "It is awesome to be able to focus full-time on my business. I didn't think it would be this quick," says Rudy.

BlueWing worked hand-in-hand with Rudy to execute a strategy driven by our expertise yet based on his knowledge of the business and familiarity with his target customers. Overall, we’ve helped Rudy generate 784 new leads for his business and 44 new customers.

It’s just Google’s world and we’re all living in it. And now that’s a mobile-first world, Google’s rewriting the rules of the internet. Again. Google recently announced that it will prioritize mobile-first indexes over desktop indexes. If you are wondering what that means, then here’s a translation in plain English: Google will use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, even when you are searching from a desktop.

With social media usage growing 356% in the past six years, companies are spending a lot more time crafting, cultivating, and fine-tuning their messages to reach target audiences on their social sites. Whether it’s to gain more followers, increase customer engagement, or boost sales, an effective social media strategy is critical to a business’ growth and success.

But what about search engine optimization (SEO) strategies? Are brands still leveraging the power of SEO to increase the discovery of their content through search engines? In general, should companies be betting on more than social?

Absolutely. Although social media marketing is exploding, SEO techniques remain highly relevant in 2016. In fact, search is still the leading referrer to the majority of websites. According to Kissmetrics, more people look for business through search than on social media. If your company neglects effective SEO strategies, you are leaving lots of leads, prospects, and money on the table.

If you're still not convinced, read the below 16 stats, which prove that SEO is not dead and demonstrate how its application is vital to your digital marketing strategy.