First of all I should say that I am not a 'star' or something similar here. If you check articles from @sweetsssj , @trafalgar or @timsaid you will see that they are earning much more here than me. So they may have even better answers than I can give you.
But let's try:
I think it is important to communicate with other users by commenting on their articles (in a friendly way). Best is not only to write "Nice post!", but to show real interest and discuss the content of the article.
I always try my best to write high quality articles. If for example I write about science I always list the sources at the end of the articles. If I show images of animals or plants I will deliver the scientific names (if possible). These are just two examples.
Write about things you are interested in (not about what you think people want to read). As an example I started to write about chess, even if I considered it to be a small niche. Amazingly my chess quizzes have been my most successful posts in the past.
Of course I am aware that in my case it was very helpful that I invested some money in Steemit. Therefore I have more Steem power, and, yes of course, it is a fact that people hope to get my upvotes if they are upvoting me. To invest into Steemit helps the platform to grow and the value of Steem to increase. Therefore I have no 'bad conscious' to be rewarded a little bit for my investment. The more people invest the higher the value of Steem and the more we all will benefit in future ... That's my honest point of view.