Advice needed growing entertainment news site -- has potential but I'm a bit lost...

Hi all,

I apologise in advance if this is posted in the wrong place. There are so many categories here and it's a little overwhelming (so if a mod wants to move it somewhere else, please do!)

Am looking for help growing my recently-launched website, which is an entertainment/celebrity news site covering what could be considered a niche area of the market, that's still relevant to the US (in the same way Bossip.com, TheYBF.com and PeopleEnEspanol.com are considered niche... although my site covers different content to those to, just naming them for example sake).

I set out to attract predominantly 18-34-year-old women in North America and so far audience is 74% female, 64% aged 18-24, 25% aged 25-34, 50% based in North America.
The audience interests (according to Google Analytics) are mostly spread out evenly between "Music Lovers/Pop Music Fans", "News Junkies & Avid Readers/Entertainment & Celebrity News Junkies", "Movie Lovers" and "Music Lovers/World Music Fans".

I planned to launch this website two years ago but only got it launched a couple months ago due to having a demanding full-time job (magazine editor at a high-profile [unaffiliated] title, top 100 Alexa ranked [so I'd like to think I know what I'm doing from an editorial standpoint]). Despite the recent launch, there is an archive of approx. 1,200 news posts on the site spanning around 18 months.

Site has been properly SEO optimised, properly sitemapped (as of two weeks ago) etc, posts are shared on Facebook and Twitter. Approx 7-10 stories are posted a day (some video based), a few genuine news exclusives a week, one big buzzy gallery added per week (think along the lines of bikini bodies, baby bumps... the usual celeb fodder).

I'm currently paying a Monday-Friday writer (not cheap, unfortunately, as decent knowledge of the subject is required) and also doing as much as I can (working weekends, making galleries, editing posts, content management etc). It's exhausting but am determined.

The market for this area of entertainment/celeb news is not overcrowded. The top 3 sites are Alexa ranked at around 1,000, 2,000 and 2,500 in the US and 3,000, 4,500, 6,000 internationally. A newer site covering the same subject, which launched two years ago, ranks at about 5,000 in the US, 10,000 internationally.
Just to paint a picture of the potential: The most visited has approx 8 million readers a month and is clearly making a lot of money (they just moved to a big new office in New York, big team, popular web store, hiring new staff etc). A friend's company last year offered to buy them for $2.5 million USD and was turned down.

Right now, I'm still on very low numbers: Around 350 SESSIONS a day (average), a few days have peaked at 1,000 when big stories broke. Alexa rank in the US is 800,000.

So... My question:
I realize that a lot of my site's growth needs to happen organically and I am prepared to be patient, but what can I do to help growth? Where should I focus my efforts?
I'm just one man so need to make sure I'm spending my time on the right things? (Prepared to put in the hours -- currently, as soon as I finish my day job, I spend about 7 hours working on the site. Not doing anything else other than sleep).
(And I'm already preparing to join Google News -- the site was turned down on the first attempt but I've managed to speak to someone in person there who has guaranteed adding me if I do a few things to the site [which I will, of course, do]).

I realise I've been a little mysterious in not including the URL, but I'd really like to hold that back from any public areas of the forum.
If there is anyone who is interested in helping me or has experience with successfully growing news-based sites? Anyone tips?

(Also, if you think you can help in a bigger capacity than just a forum reply, am able to arrange some sort of consultant fee).

Thanks for reading