Website underperforming?

[freelondon]

Hi folks, am new here so be gentle

around 6 months ago i started running a london based events website which lists hundreds of free events

the feedback has been very good, from compliments from friends to congratulatory emails to a mention in the evening standard and other press

but i have a nagging doubt the site is underperforming, in terms of revenue im getting around $80 a month out of googleads, although i havent done much in the way of trying to monetize it as im hoping to develop traffic first

currently, google pr of 4, around 700 unique hits a day (according to sitemeter, my server stats suggest this is slightly higher), which i suppose isnt that bad, but i feel the site has the potential to do a lot better

i have almost 1000 registered users, who mostly use the site to upload details of events they themselves are organising, but the forum on the site is completely unused

another problem is that because the site is so content driven its close to a full time job to maintain the site, let alone having time for marketing etc

as im pretty inexperienced in this i thought id try ask a few folk for advice

particularly re: generating more traffic

encouraging users to be more active on the site

monetizing the site

and any other hints or tips you may have on how to improve the standing of the site and make it more viable in the long term

many thanks

[temi]

Welcome to UK WW, for a new site I think $80 from Google ad is pretty nice, its not know to be the best payer in the industry, I think you should try adding some affiliate banners, try any of the affiliate sites to such as affiliate window, commission junction etc, they pay much better than Adsense, you can run affiliate adds and adsense on your site without any problmes.

Regarding encouraging your visitors to use the forums.... forums are notoriously very difficult to get off the ground, you should put some useful resources in the forum that can only be got at after say 10 post or 20 post or something like that, that will get you some movement on the forum.

Good luck