Hi Janine,
For the URL you can create a redirect on your domain. Something like yourvirtualwizard.com/fanpage. Once you hit 25 fans you can create a custom URL
http://facebook.com/username and your fan page URL will not contain the all those extra characters. You can use bit.ly if you want but I would recommend using the redirect on your domain for branding.
Growing your fan numbers:
1 Create a welcome page. Talk about your business, provide links, show your other social networks, maybe an audio or video.
2 Post exclusive content on your fan page. When you do tweet about it so people have to come to your page to read it.
3 Use Twitter. Tweet about content, say come connect with me here too, start discussions on your page and tweet about them to encourage interaction.
4 Do a "hide and seek" Place something on one of your pages within your fan page and when they find it they are taken to a free report or something. People will see all of your pages and the value you have to offer and become a fan. Be careful if you want to do a "contest"
http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php
5 Interact, use the discussion board to start conversations. If someone comments on your page respond, ask questions, start discussions.
6 Have the fan page widget on all your internet real estate.
7 You can use facebook ads. These are very customizable so you can target your audience better.
8 At events make sure your business card as your fan page URL on it somewhere so people can find you there.
9 Use applications to improve your page: fbml, bizcards, extending, twitter. There are lots of applications look around and see what will help your fan page