I would be a happy person if I had at least $2000+ a month. Rent is expensive these days, and as long as I have enough to get by, and live comfortably I'm happy.
I usually email my members weekly or biweekly depending on the promotions running on my site.
How often do you send out emails for marketing/promotional purposes?
Sites that use keyword stuffing or black hat SEO methods usually get penalized by Google. It's a good practice to avoid stuffing keywords so it doesn't harm your site, and rankings.
It depends if the small business is an online based business or an offline one. The more you promote both offline, and online the better. However, if you have a offline business it may be harder to get customers locally when you promote online.
It's very important to choose the right domain name to define your website. I usually brainstorm ideas, and check the availability of the domains before deciding on a name for my new projects.