This Monday I announced on Searchcowboys I will be leaving the website. After almost two years of "working my ass off" for the website and making it a big success I really felt the need to take new steps.

I’m not going to repeat the entire article from Searchcowboys (read it here) but I do want to highlight a couple of things.

Thank you cowboys
First of all I want to stress again how much fun it has been getting Searchcowboys to where it is now. It has been hard work but it has also given me very much. I’ve really made name for myself over the past year and I couldn’t have done that without Searchcowboys. Therefore I have to thank everybody involved in the website, especially off course Henk and Paul, the founders of Dutchcowboys.

What’s next?
If you’ve followed me over the past year you will know I really love blogging. And that means I won’t stop blogging, even though I won’t do that on Searchcowboys anymore. I will continue to blog on several places like Searchengineland, Searchenginewatch and others. I will off course be blogging here and I’m thinking of setting up a blog where I can put my ‘in depth articles’. Also the radioshow on Webmasterradio will go on as usual. The name will stay the same for now, though that might change some day, who knows.

Sometimes its good that you monitor what is being written about you. That way for example I found out that Searchfeature.com, a website I didn’t know beforehand, was doing a poll on which blog was the most helpful when it comes to search. We were nominated. And guess what, in a list with, amongst others, Searchengineland, SEO Chicks and Searchenginewatch, we won!

Now I don’t know how many visitors actually go to Searchfeature.com, but still, if its only a few, it still is an honor to be winning a contest like this, especially since the votes come from readers.

So we won, what did that give me? Well, except for the honor, they also interviewed me! So you can now read a big interview with me over at Searchfeature.com. Be sure to read it and tell me what you think of the interview!

One of the things I have been working on very hard over the past year is Searchcowboys. This website focusses on search and social media and has a strong focus on Europe. When we started the blog we believed there was a need for a European voice in search. Nine months after the official launch I believe the original thought still stands and is successful.

"1000 posts on Searchcowboys. Is that something to be proud of? Well yes, I believe it is. 1000 posts in less than a year. That’s an average of 3 posts a day. However, since we do not post in the weekends, that average is actually higher.

But what I’m more proud of than the 1000 posts is what we’ve accomplished on other parts. We wanted to be a European voice in search marketing. Though not every post is about Europe, I do think we succeeded there. Many people come up to me at conferences telling me they like the European angle we take. And that makes me proud. I love it when people address me like that. It means that what we were aiming for is actually what comes back in peoples minds: a website about Search with a specific European view. Also we notice that we are becoming more and more well known in the industry. Many have heard of Searchcowboys and when I visit a conference I meet a lot of people who visit the site, maybe not every day, but regularly."

• Searchcowboys first of all has given me a lot of pleasure. I’m doing something I really like: writing and even better, writing about search.
• Searchcowboys has brought me a lot of new friends. People from all over the world are now on my contact list and I talk to them regularly. When I visit conferences there is always someone there I know.
• Searchcowboys makes it possible that I visit a lot of events, which bring me network opportunities, knowledge and fun
• Searchcowboys has given me the chance to build my personal brand
• Searchcowboys gave me business opportunities: I have done workshops where people first gotten in touch with me because they knew me from Searchcowboys
• Searchcowboys gave me the opportunity to speak on conferences and write for Searchengineland

I do have to say: Searchcowboys gave me the opportunities, I myself made it work

• I would like bloggers to write more than they do know
• I would like more revenues from the site
• I would like even more visitors to the site
• I would like more possibilities to make changes to the site
• I would like to have the time to write more in depth articles.

All in all: Searchcowboys has been good for me! And I will be doing this for a while I think