In a recent RSS Pieces post, Mary presented her seven-day plan for increasing your blogging preference. With just one piece of advice I was able to do it in three.

The key? Writing a so-called controversial blog post, in this case on the nature of the BubbleHeads and the non-existence of the proverbial real estate bubble. The result? Well, possibly a lesson in being careful what you wish for.

For a couple of different reasons, I track viewership on my three main websites through the same account on 123stat.com. Using different page names, I can see how many people enter my site through a given page, though the daily breakdowns I have overall don't appear on the entrance page report.

When I first posted my article the response was virtually nil. Pat at TransparentRE chimed in, as did Athol Kay. And then silence. At least until yesterday afternoon when I checked my sites statistics (which I do with the regularity of a dieter stepping onto the scales in hopes of movement) and I noticed a spike. A significant spike, in fact. And as I checked the referring sites, I discovered my post had been targeted by the DCHousingBlues blog. Targeting likely is a generous term, as there was no counter-argument except to say I have no facts to back my position.

Oh, and he pointed out Tobey is a cute dog. On this, we agree.

By the end of the day 161 visitors had come to one of my three websites, with the majority of the traffic moving through the blog.

As I moved off the front page of the DCHousingBlues, my 15 minutes of infamy seemingly at an end, I found myself in the midst of an even larger traffic spike. The source? HousingDoom.com.

(Incidentally, feel free to cut and paste the sites into your browser - I'm not particularly inclined in passing along a link to these folks.)

As of this writing, 163 visitors had come through my sites, again the majority beginning with my blog.

I started reading some of the comments on the BubbleBlogs but stopped after awhile - I'll respond, but I'll do so on my own blog - my own turf, so to speak. And honestly, a large number of posts weren't worth the response - as predicted in my article, anything short of capitulation is unacceptable. Either agree there's a bubble or face the full wrath of electronic sticks and stones.  (My favorite responses were those chiding me for not providing any stats to back my argument against a bubble, even as those commented provided no statistics of their own.)

Soooo ... as blog experiments go, I'll chalk this one up to any publicity being good publicity. After all, I presume the large majority of those who read these blogs are not going to be purchasing in the near future. And the impact of a bubble blogger on my business here in Phoenix will be negligible ...

Or will it?

And here's where I see the positives, in spite of the statement to be careful what you wish for.

There have been 1,017 visitors to my three sites so far this month. Of these, 62% have started on my blog (and yes, I know what this says for my main sites' recent traffic but I digress.) Of this 62%, nine percent has moved on to Dalton's Arizona Homes. And another eight percent has moved directly to the individual property page I had posted as the template.

By my math that means the blog has driven an additional 57 visitors to my main site and 50 extra visitors to the property page for my listing in Estrella Mountain Ranch.

I've also watched the number of links tracked through Technorati increase, the Technorati-driven value has risen appreciably and my traffic also increase which also should help increase placement in the search engines.

Call it viral marketing at its best and worst.

Should you venture into Bubble-land, be aware at the start that it's not for the faint of heart. Tobey's growling at much of what's being written ... I'm more inclined to sit back, smile and share a good laugh at a large chunk of it.