Well, I posted EARLY, which means anyone just checking out games while the jam was still in development phase saw mine, even if it was still getting updates. Basically as soon as I had a minimum viable product for all game, sound, and theme, I put it up there and modified it each day. Second, I think incrementals just get a lot of views on itch. In that first week, most of my traffic was from the incremental tag or the cozy tag and not from the gamejam links. So... if you didn't put tags on your games, put tags on them. Non-game jam traffic definitely has an effect on popularity!
Besides that? Luck, I'd say.