Content, content, content

What is it that will make your site a success? Your content.
A site is as good as its content is. If you have good and relevant content, then people will find your site. The same people will come back and tell others. Perhaps they will add links to your site on their sites, and by so you will get a higher pagerank.

Also consider specialising your site. You might have an interest in cars and especially Ferrari, then your site should be about Ferrari and not cars. Since your interest is in Ferrari you are more likely to write new and interesting stuff about Ferrari then other cars. Also it is more likely that you will keep the site alive since what you write about is interesting to you.