Being an Admin of a popular (but not super large) Mob Arena server, I'd suggest having fun with players; making a comfortable environment. Depending on the fan base your server has, be sure to center the fun around them, and not what you specifically want. Let the community have a say in what happens on your server.

I would suggest a private server. Much more fun, everyone knows each other, no greif, etc.
That's what I run. My friends and I pay for it, and we have a friendly community.

I have a small server that is lag-free with a friendly community. Because of storms in my area, the IP changes frequently. Becuase no one bothers to check the planetminecraft page for the new ip, I lose a generation of players everytime it changes. I have always hated the servers that do it just for the money, and wish that more people would join mine. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Servers. They get to the stop by standing out and making a name for themselves, whether it's through a catchy name, or some sort of theme that they work around.

Been online for 4 months. Have had 9,800 people log in. I've done this ALL myself. It is called dedication.

Website: www.MineCrap.co
Server: co.MineCrap.co

When I fist started my server it had any players. I was wondering the exact same thing as you bro! Then I noticed that every BIG server has something special and unique about it. And something very special, it might be hunger games (even though there are thousands of hunger games servers), Infected from MW3, Nazi Zombies from COD, or if you have a famous youtuber on your server! Any of those are great ideas that could help you become something more than just a small server and yes they helped me :)

Starting is the hardest! :)
I am a server owner too, but I got my server hosted only recently.
Although it just got hosted I had a server at my home, and on both of the server I could never get alot of users...

Diamond for you, good blog! :D
~Bh