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It’s February 2010 when State of Search for the very first time publishes to the world. We chose SES London 2010 to be the place we would tell the world there was a new blog out there. The initiative from me and Lisa was originally meant to be a place where we could publish our own stuff but very soon the first bloggers who wanted to join in showed up. Louis, Sam and Nichola were amongst the first to be part of a team which would grow very rapidly.

The team

Which brings me to the blogging team. There is no doubt whatsoever that the success of this blog has been all made by the bloggers. At State of Search we are not looking at how big the name is from someone who comes to blog with us, we look at their potential. We love to have youngsters eager to share their knowledge and open up to the world. And I think we’ve succeeded in that. The team has produced some fabulous content and has proven itself to also be a real time: we are all friends, even though some of us have never met. Note: in the coming two weeks I will be highlighting the bloggers here on the site, so keep your eyes open for that!

The success

A lot of people ask me: how many visitors do you get? Well, we could do with a little bit more off course, but we generally do very well. From a couple of hundred daily visitors when we started we are now at several thousands a day. It varies a lot from day to day, depending on the topics we discus or the amount of posts we put out there, but we do good. The success of the site can also be seen by the huge amount of attention we get. We are mentioned a lot, people respect us and when we are at conferences, everybody knows us, and that makes me proud!

The events

You can now safely say there is one place on the web you have to go if you want to know what is going on at Search & Social conferences, especially in Europe: State of Search. Our event coverage has been phenomenal, if I can say so myself. Just check out all the great stuff which came out of there. With official partnerships with SES, A4U Expo, ISS and many others we have proven to be the event-site in the industry!

The radioshow

I couldn’t leave out the radioshow off course. Every Tuesday night (at least here in Holland, in the US it’s still morning) my good friend Roy and myself talk for an hour on webmasterradio.fm about everything which is going on in the world of search and social. We have received a lot of guests from around the industry, which is something we are very proud of because that confirms the trust people have in us. We are looking forward to another year of making these shows.

The future: what will it bring?

So, State of Search is doing pretty nice. Hell, we are doing great!!! But we want to do even better. And for that we have some pretty cool stuff lined up for you. I wanted to give you a little peek into the future of State of Search.

In the near future (until the end of the year) you will be seeing some great posts looking back at 2010 and looking forward at 2011, as well as a guest post from for example Sri Sharma. In the new year we will be flying even harder than before. Just a couple of previews:

A new design of the website

We are currently working on a new look and feel of the website. Growth means the design has to grow with us and we have so much great content on the site, we are looking for ways to show you that content even better. A deadline has not been set, but I can assure you we’re working hard on that!

A guestpost series!

Yes! We’ve been very successful with this format over at Searchcowboys in the past and we’ll be doing a new guestpost series in the new year soon. Great names and great content combined on one place: State of Search.

More news

We started of not doing news (that much) but in the last few months we found that our readers like to hear the latest news about what is going on, so we started providing that news more and better. In 2011 we’ll be giving you more news about search and social. And if you have any tips, let us know!

NEW Bloggers!!

Yes, we have a great bunch of bloggers here. But as said, we are always on the look out for great talent. Our scouting system is working just fine. Which means you can expect some cool new names early 2010 who will woo you with their great knowledge.

Other things you can expect from us in 2011 you will be amongst others:

• A series on 101: back to the basics
• A series on advanced tactics!
• We will finally be rolling out our plans with the panel
• Whitepapers
• More background stories
• There are plans for webinars and events flying around somewhere…

So the future looks bright for State of Search. We hope off course that you will be joining us in that future. And bring your friends!

Finally, I’m sure we’ll see each other online, but if we don’t: have a great christmas and an even better 2011!

By the way: we are moving up into the top 10 of online marketing blogs here.

Posted in General | Tags: 2010-2011, newsletter, State of Search