This is a great question, thanks for asking! I haven't been here much longer than you, but I've managed to build up my reputation reasonably well. To do that, I've done a couple of things:

1. I spent lots of time creating good content. Not just on my own blog, but by answering questions like this one, reading and responding to other people's blogs, and posting good responses. If you're only posting "good post" or something similar, don't be surprised if you don't get good engagement or even flagged.

2. I powered up my posts for a while, and converted all of my SBD/Steem into SP. I'm not in this for the money, and even if I was it would take a long time to get something worth cashing out. Change your rewards from the Default 50%/50% to Power Up 100% and watch your reputation soar.

As to the connection between reputation and voting power, there definitely is one! The higher your reputation, the more your vote is worth. I've heard that once you get more vote value, you can even get a slider that will let you provide a partially weighted vote instead of a vote that's always weighted at 100%!

Good luck, and hopefully you find a good groove here and enjoy the community!