My site : www.tomakali.net
Alexa : 417,539
Members: 657
Invested: USD 2500 for Mods,SEO,SMO,SEM
After investing on SEO,SEM my site grew in ranking from 1 signup/week to 5 signup/week
My learnings: Do not invest too much on content building for new websites, concentrate on member building
Invest USD 1,000 for seo for the first/sixth month which will give a boost to grow rest of the year.
SNS is very important for the site's engagements
Donot allow all members to post on blogs, selectively allow according to their behaviour
Beware of chineese/nigeria internet goons.
Spend quality time to visit member profiles, learn them
Dont sit and relax thinking websites are automated earning machines
its not worth to try google adsense unless you reach Alexa 99,999
Once you reach Alexa 99,999 start building blog contents
Be specific about inpage seo, use google keyword tool for good.
Target some activity/mass mails every WEEK wrt to your local festivals or sports/hypes
Webmaster share your success stories which will be helpful to others :)
Let this be a tutorial to newbies