Very useful post with some interesting ideas. For me, there are a couple of of things which are essential.
Firstly post content that you know about, or are passionate about. You mention about writing for your audience... I kinda disagree, you need to be writing about the stuff that honestly interests you. It makes no difference if the subject is popular, or niche... I think most people will appreciate and enjoy the honesty. By all means write the post in a way that the audience can easily understand (explaining key concepts, neat and tidy formatting in the post) but you still have to be true to yourself.
Secondly, you should actually enjoy the process of posting/blogging. If you are only doing it for the money, then that will show in the final post. And I think people can tell if someone is genuinely enthusiastic, or just blogging for money. I already post on various social media, and I do it because I love sharing my images and the stories behind them. If it turns out I can earn money on the Hive for doing the same thing then that's fantastic, but it is not my main motivation