If you're making music you should have at least these basics covered, online profile on the popular social and indie websites along with at least 3-4 songs for people to listen to, pictures of you or your group (2-3 if possible) a bio and some YouTube videos.
If you don't have these basics in place get busy getting them together because they help people discover you and people who are already familiar with your music learn more about you, get a feel for your personality and what you look to bring with your music. Any one of these may cause someone to take an interest in what you're doing musically in addition to what they have already heard from you they'll check back to see what's new.
Artist that falls short of gaining the progressive momentum they seek usually happens because:
They are inconsistent in making music
They are not working regularly to hone their craft and improve on the music they deliver
They have not found a unique way to tell their story or make their song memorable
They don't know how to write a good song
Poor production quality and/or track selections
Those are just some of the more common reasons artist don't progress the way they'd like to. As an artist whether you sing or rap, you need to be continuously working on improving what you do and the more you do it the better you'll get.
Everyone listens to music and as listeners we know the difference between a singer/rapper just starting out and a polished singer/rapper that's put some time in. How they sound, the clarity in their voice, their delivery, the song structure and quality of their music production as well as the overall sound quality of the song are all indicators that lets us know where that singer/rapper stands musically.
People will rock with whatever they like as long as they like it. If the look and quality is up to par with what they expect they will support and stick with you. So artists should be writing every day and if you produce your own music then you should be doing both every day.
Another thing that I didn't mention in the list above is strategy, many don't have a plan of how to effectively create awareness and promote the new music they're creating.
A$AP Rocky (a rapper from Harlem, NY) made a low budget music video for his song "Purple Swag" put it on YouTube, promoted it and increased awareness about the video being out and ended up doing impressive numbers with that song. Note: though the video might have been shot on a shoe string budget or maybe he didn't even have to pay to get it done but the point I want to make is that the audio production for the song was in step with industry standards.
So with that, know that the details behind the music are important, even before you think about selling or promoting your music and a lot of artist lack consistency in their work ethic and quality in the products they turn out.
Check out the Disc Makers website to download free guides that cover many of the points that in my opinion prevent artists from seeing next level movement. These are very basic points and checks but I feel it's necessary to say because I come across a lot of artist that don't realize they fall into some of the pitfalls I listed previously.