Start by looking at who you're following. Is it people who you're genuinely interested in seeing posts from? If so, great! If not unfollow them. Keeping your home feed filled with only content that interests you makes you more likely to upvote and comment on that content.
Engage with others on Steemit Do your followers upvote and comment on your posts? If not, why not? While you can't (and shouldn't) get rid of followers, you can attract followers that will comment and upvote on your posts by commenting on things you find interesting.
Write thoughtful comments When you comment, is it something like "Great post"? Don't do that! Authors are looking to see that you read their posts and found something interesting about them, when you show genuine interest you get quality followers.
Everyone suffers the "disappearing post syndrome". You have about 30 seconds at any time of day to get enough attention to push your post into "trending" if you want it seen by more than just your followers, and about 90% of posts don't do that.
Writing quality blogs and being consistent will slowly grow your income. Looking at what gets better payouts and writing more of that type of blog will also help.
I hope my two cents helps you succeed
Thanks for the info and the help.