Comment by eieio

I'm not the parent commenter but:

I have uploaded several games to itch (although it's been a while) and a cool thing I found was that even with no followers back when I started making things, a decent number of people played some of my games! Nothing crazy, but I remember being delighted that the second game i ever made[1] got a few thousand plays and some actual comments.

My experience is that:

    * tags matter! For example, a decent number of people seem to be looking for new incremental games and are willing to try new stuff in that category
    * your primary image, title, and description matter a lot and it's worth spending some time taking a good screenshot (I'm really bad at this)
    * you can upload a gif instead of just a screenshot to include a little gameplay in your title image and that might help
    * participating in gamejams can help a lot because you get some guaranteed players (everyone plays each others games and rates them; maybe you get some feedback too)

I'm not sure where you are in your gamedev journey (there's a good chance you're way ahead of me and this advice is useless!) but "just make some stuff and put it on there and see who bites" was effective and motivating for me early on

[1] https://itseieio.itch.io/sisyphus-needs-a-nap