Dear Jane:

At first glance, it would seem that the more hooks you have in the water, the more likely you are to catch fish.   The only problem is that when doing business online, it doesn't always work that way.  It all depends upon what you use for bait and the kind of fish you are after!

First of all, based upon my direct experience in speaking to thousands of real estate professionals around the country, the vast majority are not seeing much business (if any) coming from their existing Web sites.  Adding more Web sites to their online arsenal will not necessarily rectify this problem, but instead could significantly increase their cost, time, and aggravation in attempting to do business online.

There is a strategy, called multi-branding, where multiple Web sites can be a very powerful way to broaden your online market.   However, before you even think of multi-branding, it is crucial that you have at least one highly-targeted Web site that is consistently producing for you.   Whether you have one or 20 sites, the primary key to their success is that they are "targeted".  Lack of targeting is the single biggest cause of Web site failure.

Almost all real estate professionals deal with fairly broad markets (i.e. buyers & sellers), but this definition of "target market" does not work well online.  When you try to "speak" to everyone on the Web, you are really speaking to no one because your message (i.e. content) becomes too diluted.  It is much better to identify sub-markets or niches for your Web site where the content is designed and written just for them.  Examples of target markets include high-tech relocation, people seeking exclusive buyer agents, first time buyers, people seeking (or living in) a particular exclusive neighborhood, etc..  A good target market has the following qualities:

• A sub-group or niche - that is readily and easily identified
  
• Has specific, well defined needs - addressed by high-value content on your Web site that speaks "just to them"
  
• Is accessible to promotional efforts - reasonably easy to direct to your Web site using search engines, links from other sites, and traditional marketing.

Once you have a Web site for one target market that is consistently producing, you can then think about multi-branding others that address additional specific target markets.  This means creating a different and unique Web site for each specific market.  It is important that each multi-branded site has it's own unique look, feel, content, and even domain name that reflects the needs of the specific market it targets.

The secret to achieving the highest level of effectiveness from multi-branded sites however, is for them all to share a consistent "thread" so that they can be seen as integral parts of an entire "whole".  Since you are ultimately the "brand" promoted by your online efforts, it makes sense that the personality of each multi-branded site be a reflection of who you really are, in a way that is consistent with the target market of each site.
(NOTE: this does not mean make the site about you, only that its personality should reflect yours in a genuine way)

Considering how much of an investment in time, energy, and money it takes to keep one Web site consistently successful, creating and maintaining multi-branded Web sites can seem a daunting task.  If you plan the process carefully however, by creating highly targeted sites that share the consistent thread of "you", your investment per site will not be as great as with a single Web presence.  Best of all though, each of those Web site "hooks" in the Internet ocean will be primed and ready to consistently reel in new business for you!