Thanks to Jonathan of MotocrossGear.com for this guest post.

Many of us got our start in internet marketing in the poker industry. The high commissions and seemingly endless opportunities to make money made it an easy choice for me. But after years of hard work making a ton of crappy websites, a few good ones, and a little money, there comes a time when you get sick of the poker/casino business.

The constant spamming, idiotic webmasters who take you for a fool, intense competition that is miles and miles ahead. All of these factors make other industries look like a walk in the park. Just the amount of link buying going on in poker is enough to make your head spin. Then when you factor in that 6/10 of the sites in the serps for the most competitive phrases are all owned by the same group of guys you start to wonder if it’s even worth trying.

You can see why some guys decide to bail out on poker and go for another industry.

But before you decide to embark on a new journey… consider the pro’s and con’s.

Pro’s

• Less competition. Pick a niche with less money and less competition and you’ll find it easier to make progress.
• Easier link building. No one wants to link to a poker site. Pick a niche that is mommy blogger friendly and you’ll be guest posting your face off.
• More fun. Let’s face it… poker is saturated. You aren’t doing something original; it’s all been done before.
• The government is not shutting it down.
• More creative potential. Maybe I have tunnel vision, but the gaming niche is the same old shit over and over again.
• You get paid. On time.

Con’s

• Less money. There are not very many niches as flush with cash as the poker/casino niche.
• Less exciting. There is so much more excitement when a site starts doing well in the poker biz. The amount of money it can make seems endless.
• No amazing conferences to attend. I’ve had some of the best nights hanging out with friends in crazy cities all over the world.
• You risk getting stiffed on payments
• You can get penalized by google

As you can see there are some great reasons to focus on non-gaming stuff. Some of us can focus on more than one industry at once, but in my opinion you are wasting your time if you are trying to half ass poker. The same goes for other avenues. Why spread yourself too thin?

Can anyone think of  any more pro’s and con’s  to  diversifying?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 11:19 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.