My suggestion would be to follow the tags that you like and upvote those thing that you like.

Generally, if your upvote will double the payout for a post then you'll probably see a return on your vote. If you're vote doesn't change a posts payout then you probably need to load more SP in you wallet. You can also have SP delegated to you by a friend, or a service if you don't have the money to invest upfront.

The real money is to be made by writing something that people want to read, and tagging it so the people who want to read it are able to see it. I am still fairly new to this myself, so all of this may be "the hard way" but I'm having fun so far and really loving the lack of ads on here! Good luck and welcome to Steemit!