At one point in my life I wanted to be a journalist.  I've always had dreams of becoming a renowned author.  Yet I didn't study writing and am no where near being a pro, not even a decent amateur.

But I love to write, especially about a subject I know so well, real estate.  And it's a good thing I love to write.  Because I have plenty of blogs to write in.

Why So Many?

Did I mention I love to write?  One of my first domains was for a free Point2 Agent website that I had planned on being like a "Part 2" to another P2 site about the same town.  I didn't know about creating one authority site and felt because as a free member I was limited to only 15 pages per site that by having two I'd cover everything I wanted to regarding the village of Oak Lawn.

So I built links to both sites and kept both domains.  But then I created one main site for the town and had this other domain that I had built up with links and climbing search engine positions.  Then along came Wordpress blogs and this was my first.  It's been through many different templates and I'm loving the newest look.  This is a hodgepodge South Chicago Real Estate blog that I put all kinds of news and articles on.  And I use it mainly for links out to my other sites.  This is my one standalone blog.  Funny thing is, some locals have actually posted comments on it, and I don't really promote it.  The domain has just been around for a while.

Once I created one main website using my original domain, I had a wordpress blog added to my Oak Lawn real estate site.  This one is hyper local and is only for Oak Lawn and surrounding suburbs.  If I had to do it all over again I wouldn't have created and put so much into this little niche site.  But it was my first baby and I just can't get rid of it.  And I've gotten business from it so it's worth keeping.

Next was my favorite Chicago Suburbs real estate news blog that was built into my main Cook County real estate website.  This is my biggest authority site that has brought me a lot of business.  I don't get many comments but I do get people signing up for it.  And I know people read it because they call me with questions about some of my posts.

I think Active Rain was my next blog followed by the South Chicago Area blog I have at Real Estate Webmasters.  Both of these blogs are different than my other blogs.  On AR I write some Localism posts and more general real estate and website stuff.  My REW blog is mainly for other real estate professionals and not so much for the public. 

For some reason I joined Blogger (Blogspot, whatever it is) and started one there called Chicago Suburbs Real Estate Resources.  This is purely self promotional to get links back to my other sites.  I have no idea if anyone reads this but if they do, I hope it gives them a reason to check out one of my many websites.

And now I started another one!  After many years as a standard member, I finally upgraded my website at Point2 Agent.  And the upgrade gets you a blog (actually multiple blogs, but one's enough for me).  So I am now introducing my newest Southwest Chicago Suburb Real Estate blog.  I'm just starting with this one and they allow quick posting of listing activity which is nice. 

Whew!  I'm wearing myself out thinking about all of these blogs! 

I actually threw one away

Believe it or not, I had started another hyper-local niche area blog for another large village I work in and the surrounding towns.  I loved the look of it and I had created it (with another Wordpress template), to look more like a regular website.  At the time I just felt it was too much and ended up "killing" it.  And guess what, I kind of regret doing that.  It's a popular area combining two of the top towns sales-wise of all the areas I work in.  So it would have been nice if I had kept it up.  In fact, it held first place position for the main keywords in MSN and Yahoo (didn't have it long enough to get good Google ranking although it started climbing).

Wouldn't one have been sufficient?

Hey, I'm still questioning my multiple websites.  Imagine the authority my main site would have if I had put all the same effort into that one site.  But I'm always afraid of putting all my eggs in one basket.  I already had a Google penalty on one of my sites (we think it was for reciprocal linking) and even though it wasn't my main site, it was a long 3 months when it lost it's top Google positions.

I like trying different things and I know several agents that have multiple websites and blogs.  However, they usually have a spouse or assistant helping them.  I'm a one-woman show.  It's a combination of work and a hobby for me. 

I never journaled or wrote in diaries, so I'm making up for it now. 

And I'm still being tempted

I have an account on Wordpress.com that I've yet to use (my other blogs are Wordpress.org blogs hosted elsewhere).  I joined Zolve which has their own Community Blogs.  I just got the invite today from WannaNetwork.  But so far I'm resisting.  I've     got     to     resist...

Update:  I just found out you can get a free Wordpress blog at Bloodhoundblog.net!