Heya, welcome to Tapas Generally speaking, growth (especially with your first comic if you don't have a large following elsewhere, like Instagram or Twitter) is a slow burn. In my experience I think the most important factors are:
post consistently and often. The more episodes you throw out, the more times you'll appear in the "fresh" or "sort by update date" sections* and the more chance people will have to discover your work. (* I believe a series can only appear in Fresh once per day last I heard, so spamming a bunch of episodes in a single day is counter productive. pace them out at least once a day. most people do once every or every-other week). It's absolutely okay to take breaks here and there, but you'll typically see the best results when you're posting regularly.
Network/get to know other authors around Tapas. Participating in this forum is a good way, as well as just being an active reader on other's series that you enjoy (liking/commenting on their episodes, etc.). The point isn't necessarily to "get" something from the other creators, but when you become a recognizable community member, people take notice- and when people take notice, they'll often check out your stuff! Especially since other creators know how important likes and comments are for the site algorithms, getting even a few people who can regularly keep up with your series can do wonders for hitting "Trending" and "Popular", which are much more visible than just "Fresh".
Not to mention there are cool opportunities that pop up here and there as well: after just being on these forums (actively... I had lurked for a while beforehand) a few months I've already taken part in 1.5 comic collabs, 2 art collabs, found a commission for some novel cover art, and nabbed a spot in a community-centric anthology. Not to mention user reviews, and all of the misc. discussions that take place otherwise. There's a lot to be learned about comic making practice and theory in general around these parts~
- Lastly, don't be afraid to dip your toes into external promotion as well. I started my art social media accounts (I use fb/instagram/twitter) a little over a year ago, and while I don't think I've gained too many subscribers from those sources, I absolutely feel like they've helped generate views at least, which is valuable in its own way.
But yeah I'd say mostly focus on creating the content, since that's the whole point after all- then get out there and socialize some and make some art friends!
(also @niah146 pretty much ninja'd the important points, and more concisely... so yeah, what he said!)