What i would do in your case would be to develop a website with no ads. NO ADS at all.. Ads in new sites that dont have a lot of content drive visitors away. Visitors get that "Just in it for the money feeling". Now, after about a year and your site is developed with daily unique traffic then I would advise to place ads in a reasonable place or even potentially sell the site here on namepros.
Content? hmm.. The economy today is starting to pick back up, however we are still in a recession. I think an idea for your site would be to discuss ways of saving money and explaining the ins and outs of credit cards, loans and that sort of thing.
Another great idea if your good at marketing would be to create a site that users can follow / interact with the creation and process of an online business... IE, marketing, pricing and that sort of thing. Basically, you create a blog like site, and also create an online business using a secondary domain. IE wesellstuff.com You would create the secondary site from the ground up using the input from users. This has done before and has been very rewarding. It benifits both parties as the owner gets two successful sites and the end user gets to learn different tricks of the trade.
For advertising, you could use affiliate programs, ad words and other methods. Read my post :
http://www.namepros.com/website-development/606243-something-i-forgot-about-wish-i.html
Hosting. There is many many web hosts here at namepros. Im sure someone is willing to help, i see offers for free web hosting all the time. Or you could even make an arrangement with one to host you for free and when your site develops you will be able to provide him a certain percentage
Source:
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5+ Years in Industry
Many Successful Sites