I - Who Am I ?
I'm 
Steem is such a big opportunity that no one wants to miss, specially me. I want to use the Steem network in the best possible way, that's why I'm writing these guidelines to improve my Steem experience.
II - Reputation! Reputation! Reputation!
For me this is the most important number that I want to increase, not my account balance, at least for now. Accounts with high reputation are perceived to have high quality content, so some users don't even read articles posted by low reputation accounts, on the other hand, some up-vote posts from high reputation accounts without even reading the content.
So by having a high reputation account, you are increasing the chance of your posts being noticed more quickly and more probable to get up-voted.
III - How To Increase Your Reputation?
There is no easy way around this, you have to work really hard to achieve your reputation goal. The reputation score depends on the up-votes you get in both your posts and comments, so these are the two areas where you have to invest time and mind power to increase your reputation score.
This is my plan, not a perfect one, but it's the plan that I think will work for me.
[1] - I will only post high quality content.
Building a high reputation is like building trust with your readers, you don't get it for free, you've to earn it. So by only posting articles that are high quality you will build a trust between you and your up-voters who will up-vote your next article too.
[2] - I will aim to post 1-2 posts everyday.
quality is more important than quantity, so investing time in one post is better than wasting hours in a lot of posts.
[3] - I will post comments more frequently.
You should aim for comments that add value, otherwise, there is no need to post them. Comments are actually an under-appreciated way of increasing your reputation. By creating comments on popular posts, you are increasing your chance of people following you if they see value in your comments.
[4] - I will reply to users commenting on my posts.
This will create a connection between me and my readers, which will increase the chance of them following me.
[5] - I will be consistent and persistent about applying the above rules.
If your posts are consistent, people will look for your posts everyday to read and up-vote them.
[6] - I will take my time when it comes to choosing the right title.
Avoid all kind of misleading and click-bait titles, readers can flag your posts and they will do so if you don't respect them. Getting flagged will destroy your reputation, and it will be harder for you to recover from it.
[7] - I will aim to post my articles at the best time possible for higher visibility.
Quality content is important, but if your post them when no one is surfing the website, then your post won't get the attention it deserve. Also if you are still a small player, avoid peak time to reduce your competition with other posts.
[8] - I will take care of my post layout.
I see a lot of people post great articles with great ideas, but they fail miserably when it comes to their post layout. Your posts should be clean and professional, return to a new line and create a new paragraph when it's needed.
[9] - I will search or create relevant pictures that fit my post.
Pictures as the saying goes are worth a thousand words, They will make your post more readable thus more probable to be up-voted.
[10] - I will learn to be more patient.
Don't get frustrated because your posts didn't get the up-votes they deserve. Users don't know who you are yet, so don't expect from them to invest their time or their Steem power on some random user. This shouldn't come as a shock to you, as I said earlier, at this stage, you shouldn't care about how much money you are making but rather focus on increasing your reputation score.
[11] - I will aim to be competitive.
After all, we're all competing for the whales votes. Always try to come up with new post ideas that other users didn't write about yet.
[12] - I will take care of the minnows too.
I understand that minnows don't have as much voting power as whales do, but collectively they will lead big whales to your post, specially bot whales.
[13] - I will aim to update my posts as soon as new information are available.
Every second you let your posts without updated information is a wasted second.
[14] - I will treat my followers well.
You should respect your followers intelligent and spare them from any bad posts.
[15] - I will learn from other successful users.
You should take advantage of Steemit transparency when it comes to users activity and try to find out the reason behind their success.
[16] - I will work on multiple ideas at the same time.
Whenever you think of a new post idea, create a new text file and type it down before you forget about it, so whenever you find something interesting that is relevant to your post idea, type it on that text file. This will come handy when you actually start working on that post.
[17] - I will make sure that I still have fun.
People tend to do better at things they enjoy, so you should make your experience at Steemit enjoyable, otherwise you won't last long before you give up.
[18] - Track your ranking.
start tracking your reputation raking to see how you are doing compared to other users. You can do this using this cool website, SteemWhales.
IV - So you've achieved a high reputation, now what?
Achieving a high reputation score is more of a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Now is when the fun stuff starts, your high reputation will allow you to see concrete results form any hard work you put on your posts.
You still have to follow the same rules above even to a higher degree, but the advantage here is that you can invest your time confidently knowing that your hard work won't go without reward.
V - So you've earned a lot of money, now what ?
This is what every user in Steemit wish to have, a high reputation and a lot of Steem Power. Now you can start making real money by up-voting quality content.
Your votes have more weight to them, so don't waste them and invest some of your time in finding quality content. Finding content that will succeed is hard, but over time, you will get better at it. This doesn't mean you should stop posting or commenting, just reallocate some of your time to find good content to up-vote.
At this point, you should consider yourself a shareholder in the Steem network, if you think that this experiment will succeed, then reinvest your Steem Dollar into the system and start making decisions that benefit both, you and the Steem network.