[Sage Knight]

First of all, get a better, shorter domain name probably .COM extension 10 USD. I'd start from scratch basically. Buy a premium theme should cost about about 30-40 USD. Remove the ads opportunity cost would be less than 5 USD. Never add Ads on new sites. Get some friends to first post quality content on your site or just have a good discussion with yourself, if you know what I mean ;]

And yeah last but not the least you need more modern community software. You should try demos of various software, even free forum software IMHO. When you're all done with that go for promotion, hire some members as mods so that they can also pitch in. Organic is the way to go, great content will lead to better search results. You can also find on various sites "Ad Boards" just post a motivating intro there, remember content is king and focus on a niche never spread yourself too thin and NEVER make loads of sections which are empty.

And while you're at it save up the money for something more useful and unique such as a custom plugin.