State of Search: looking at the why
Category:State of SearchAs you know I have been working on Searchcowboys for the past 1,5 years. Only a short while ago I announced that I would stop doing that. After building up the brand to where it is now I wanted more time for all my other initiatives.
Last week I launched one of these other initiatives: State of Search. A website (blog) about the world of search. I launched this site with amongst others Lisa Myers and the help of other friends like Roy and Louis. At State of Search we try to take a look at the “why” in search. It’s not a news-site, its about the why of the news and how to react on it.
It might suprise some that I started a new initiative this soon after leaving Searchcowboys. After all, one of the reasons I left Searchcowboys was that I wanted more time. Let me explain.
Why I left
Running a website like Searchcowboys takes a lot of time. Especially if you look at the format of the site, and its sister-sites. Every day I was not only responsible for the marketing of the site (promotion through all sorts of channels, from Twitter to personal encounters) but also responsible for creating most of the content of the website. This meant 6 to 7 articles each day. Because on Friday I am with my kids that meant that Thursdays were even more crowded because I had to fill the site for the day after also. To get the articles I off course had to read a lot of other articles to select what I wanted to write about and then write these articles. You can maybe imagine that this costed me several hours a day.
Meanwhile I also wrote for Searchengineland, Searchenginewatch and was asked to do some other things for other sites. And I also had a day-job to fulfill, I have to make some money… So I decided to make more time for myself. One of the things I wasn’t going to do anymore was Searchcowboys. It was a difficult decision, but the best one to take.
So why State of Search?
If you stop at one blog and start another, doesn’t that make you just shift places and don’t gain any time? Well, no, its not that simple. State of Search is a blog with a completely different angle, its not news-focussed at all and the articles are more in depth. On top of that, which is very important to me, it doesn’t take me hours a day. I don’t even have to write one article a day. I just want good content. And that saves me a whole lot of time.
Why not do this on Searchcowboys?
I was chief editor at Searchcowboys, so why not do this there? As said, Searchcowboys has a specific format. The way the site is set up, it is made for shorter posts and more posts, just like the other cowboys-sites. Maybe I could have changed that but I believe that is the way for Searchcowboys to go, also because it is so connected to the other sites in the network, which all have the same format. My contract even said that the site had to be in line with the cowboys-format. Even if that wasn’t the case though I still think Searchcowboys has to much of a news-image. It just isn’t the right place for these kind of articles. Maybe the new editors will think differently, from what I’ve learned from their posts they are looking at it with a different angle. I wish them all the best with that and hope they will keep the brand high, I worked hard for that after all!
Take a look
I wanted a place of my own where I could place the in depth articles. That was State of Search. Off course I invite you all to take a look at State of Search. You will find some high quality content there. We now are publishing some good stuff and will be doing that in different formats in the upcoming period. So put it in your RSS-Reader and start following it, also on Twitter off course!
As for the radio-show: we decided it was best to also rebrand that to State of Search, so there is no confusion about who is where and doing what. So tune in next week for the new show!
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State of Search got nominated! Vote for best SEO blog! |
April 26, 2010at 11:19 am[…] of Search, the website I founded only two months ago because I wanted to write in depth content, has been nominated for best SEO […]