Hi Mick - good post. You make some very valid points for the newbie writer. You will notice I added two tags for you. Always try to use your five-tag allowance.

Here's a list of top writer tags. They may help.

https://medium.com/feedium/list-of-medium-top-writer-tags-number-of-hits-and-amount-of-writers-34ce3f4234a6 But also, these have large numbers attached to them so maybe opt for a few of these and some which are smaller.

That's what I do, for what it's worth.