Finding a unique area or niche in the poker world is key to success. The major poker related themes touched on below have already been done several times over. Penetrating and competing against established veteran websites is financially and physically taxing. Although reinventing the wheel is usually not a good idea, focusing your startup poker site on a particular aspect of poker is a great idea. Not only will it make you unique, but it will also give you a great entry point into the online poker website environment. Since most website traffic comes from search, hammering unique keywords and poker ideas will get you higher rankings from search spiders. Better rankings correlates to increased website traffic and higher profitability. Below are some of the major poker related themes that have already been done several times over. These website ideas are somewhat generic and have been done over. However, modifying or uniting a few of these ideas to suit your interests could create a quality foundation for your new poker website.

Review Sites – everypoker.com
Websites focused on reviewing online poker rooms are by far the most prevalent type of poker website. These sites are nearly all the same and are massed in the thousands on the internet. Not only are they commonplace, but they also are very hard to compete against. Review sites have been around since the beginning of poker affiliate-ships. Most veteran review sites are created for nothing other than poker profitability – the owners have no vested interest in truly promoting quality poker rooms, only the most profitable ones.

Forum Sites – pokerforums.org – deuceace.com
Social interaction is one desire of many poker website developers. This is easily achieved by online forums and message boards. Unfortunately, these types of websites are extremely hard to startup. The growth in forum membership for the vast marjory of sites is at a snails pace. Often paid posters are necessary to get the forum started. After a solid base has formed in your forum new members are easily recruited – until then be prepared for months of inactivity.

Rakeback Sites – rakeback.com – raketherake.com
Although extremely popular the concept of rakeback is no longer new. Rakeback as been around for years and the majority of players have a rakeback account. This makes the rakeback market very mature and in-penetrable. Starting a rakeback site may be one of the hardest ideas to successfully execute. Moreover, rakeback sites are domain name intensive – hence all of the domains using the word rakeback are taken.

Tracking Sites – sharkscope.com
Having a tracking website like sharkscope is very labor intensive. Hiring the programmers and design artists to code and create your tracking site will make it financially intensive. Again, this market is highly saturated with almost all of the tracking niches covered.

News Sites – pokernews.com – cardplayer.com
Being up to date and building a trustworthy image is a hard obstacle to overcome in building a poker news website. Furthermore, these websites require a lot of news content to rank high in search engines. This mean you will have to hire a team of poker news reporter to update your site on a daily basis. Most established poker news sites already have magazines and podcasts – making competition in this market nearly impossible.

Blog Sites – pokerbloggs.com – pokerelmo.blogspot.com/
Sharing your personal poker experiences is one of the few competitive areas of poker website development. With increased popularity of social networking, the personal side of poker life is powerful. A good blog could have a lot of readers if the authors have exciting and fresh content to share on a daily or hourly basis. The key aspect of blogs is posting incredible content each day. The temptation exists in updating infrequently, resulting in the loss of viewership. Never get a sub-domain in your blog like the one listed above. Always reserve your own domain name and get a content management system like wordpress if you decide to go this route.

Educational Sites – internettexasholdem.com – twoplustwo.com
One of the best educational sites on the internet is twoplustwo.com – created by authors with several book publications it is considered a main source of authority on the game of poker. Establishing this kind of street credit is next to impossible. Without major endorsements or public book publications this avenue of poker website development is impossible.

Ranking Sites – pocketfives.com
Ranking sites require software programming and partnerships with online poker rooms for poker feeds. Creating a player ranking system is another problem in itself. A lot of the poker sites have deals with existing ranking sites, making this space difficult to enter. Sites like pocketfives also have critical mass with dedicated viewers. This is why creating myspace and facebook like websites is nearly impossible.

Software Sites – holdemindicator – calculatem.com
The main issue with this type of site is the initial investment into the software. Talk also exists of poker rooms banning partner poker programs to level the playing field – making this a financially dangerous area to try and enter. Program uniqueness would be difficult as well since existing partner programs are sophisticated enough.

Affiliate Sites – pokeraffiliateship.com
This is a surprisingly overlooked area in the poker world. A few major affiliate resources currently exists which promote joining poker affiliate programs. These sites make tier 2 revenue by referring affiliates instead of players. This seems like a great concept, except for the fact that only a handful of poker sites offer tiered revenue sharing.

Bonus Sites – pokerbonuses.com
Bonus code sites fall into the category of reviews most of the time. Bonus codes are no longer a benefit in the poker world. Every site offers affiliates the same bonus advertising. Bonus codes are becoming very generic (they all give you the same bonus). These sites are often very boring and again have generic information. Since every poker site offers its affiliate similar bonus programs, their is nothing proprietary or unique about bonuses.

Going beyond the traditional ideas for poker website is key to your success. Find an undiscovered or under developed poker concept and make it your own. Focus on the content and less on stunning graphics or web designs. Content is king and creating exciting content will win over viewers more than any design will in the long run. Like the game of poker, web development should be viewed as a long term proposition. Poker websites are successful because of skill, dedication and perseverance – not luck. As the popular saying goes, "success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration." Work a little each day creating your online poker website. Exciting poker website innovation is when great ideas and long term execution come together.