It's quite easy, to attract merit to you profile. Actually when you keep consistent a good post and intention  as a good forum contributor. You can easy get merit by being of help to someone else. But mind you, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get merit in all your quality post. And the board in which you post matters a lot, you can make a good quality post in off topic and expect a merit from a source or anyone, else you're just deceiving yourself. The best way to get merit is when you keep up a good post without expecting merit. Most newbies make the mistake of hunting merit and after they must have tried all the tricks they can think of, they just quit and leave the forum. But if only they could focus more on becoming a good contributor and at the same time learning from the process.