I had a typical factions server before, and now I've shut it down after 5 months with no hope of gaining a good player base. It had a couple online but NO ONE stayed active. Within a month of opening a new server, I got a higher score, more votes and more EVERYTHING within 3 weeks. I get around 15-20 on a day now at a good time.
I opened a OP Factions server, with unique plugins, better acrobatics, and physically more more cool stuff. The minecraft community is younger now, so you need to actually make them visually see something cool rather than things with commands that are a long process. Usually you see OP Factions servers with just OP Kits, right? Well I made some Ore biomes, a ton of custom biomes with portals, and a beautiful seed with a lot of Mesa and grand canyon looking places.
Make your server unique, get a cool, attractive and fast paced banner that makes them see all the cool features within seconds. (No one wants to look at a banner for more than 5 seconds) and do the best you can to post it on every minecraft server website. Add good and cool vote rewards to get your position higher, and don't hesitate to buy a cheap banner instead of getting one made for free that isn't good. I got mine for cheap, just ask me and I can get one for you for about £2-3.
Best of luck, this is what I did.
