We have a thread brainstorming marketing ideas, and it's a great thread. But on the internet, you may have heard the expression, "Content is king." Content's important because it gives web visitors a reason to come to your site, and equally as important, it gives them a reason to bookmark and come back to your site. Content also gives other sites (including directories) a reason to link to you. A site full of banner ads isn't going to make a lot of money in the long run compared to a site with a lot of content and return visitors.
I'll start with a few ideas for creating content:
1- You could create a comprehensive directory for a poker niche. I've created (but desperately need to update) a directory of poker forums and
blogs at
http://www.pokerbabble.com/. You'll notice that I didn't require a reciprocal link to add someone's site to the directory there.
2- You could create and run a news
blog about poker. There are lots of poker
blogs out there, but most of them are of a personal nature. Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report offers what is basically a news
blog, and he makes over a million a year in ad revenue from that site.
3- You could create and run a forum targeting a specific niche. This site is a perfect example of that. There are several forums that target casino affiliate marketing, but this is the only one I know of specifically targeting poker affiliates.
4- You could run a site that reviews online poker rooms, offline poker rooms, poker books, poker instructional videos. Just be sure that there's something of value in the review. A list of features and bonus information that's available directly from the online poker room doesn't qualify as a real review, because it doesn't add any value for your vistiors.
I'd like to see some other people brainstorm content ideas in this thread. There are smart people here, and if the smart people here create valuable content in order to make the internet a better place for poker players, then those smart people will make a lot of money.