As to the inaccurate merit reflection you mention, that is likely because you are browsing through the profile’s merit history, which, as it states, reflects the merit TXs over the last 120 days, and therefore does not account for TXs before then. In addition, the received airdropped merit, in any, will add to the total merit toll, but will not be reflected in the merit history.
Use tools such as the following to surpass the 120 day limit:
BPIP project (
Vod)
Full merit transaction history for any user - now with GRAPHS! (
LoyceV)
Swiss army knife Tool to query Merit data online - Full History (
Piggy)
Tool to run online SQL queries over Full Merit Data (
Piggy)
Merit Dashboard (
DdmrDdmr)
In relation to tips on how to earn merit, and what quality means (being as subjective as it is), the forum is flooded with posts suggesting this or that. Start by searching and reading what is already around, which will give you hours of entertaining enlightenment on the subject for sure.
Note: I literally had to zoom out of the OP to be able to attempt to read it.