Welcome !

I suggest searching for the Steemit 101 ebook guide.
You can find it released for free somewhere on the site. (I am using the android eSteem app, so cant provide the link without losing the comment XS)

Then theres all the FAQ and intro guides you can find in the right hand sidebar.

Next step would be making an "official" intro post in #introduceyourself with a verification image (image of you holding a piece of paper with your Steemit user name on it) and tellimg us a bit about yourself.

Well written, such a post can give you a good start ( thetes this crazy tradition where the intro posts get MASSIVE number of upvotes, though it seems to be calming down a bit recently.)

For "bonus cash" you can use the eSteem app to comment (long comments tend to get you 8 auto upvotes to encourage use of eSteem, once per post) and post through chainBB to get every post upvoted by cryptoctopus, also to encourage use of said platform.