I registered today and found out that my rating is around 1200. I would like to raise it but simply playing doesn't seem to help. Are there any specific steps that I could take to reliably raise my rating to 1300?

Yes, It is necesary to study your games to find out what is the area you need to work on.

I recomend you to no play that many 5 minutes games, becouse they teach bad habits. Try playing longer games, and think more carefully the positions.

I notice some of your games you resign them just after you move, this is you relice you did a bad move and resign, if you get to fix this to find a blunder move before and not after you play it, just for this you will get to 1300s maybe more.

I don't know why this is hapening. Maybe you are not visualicing the moves and after you play them you see the consequence. Maybe it is just a matter of time presure and playing whatever instead timing out.

I think some of the other resignations where not lost positions. Maybe you are too easy to resign. For example this game:

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game.html?id=251983539

You could have take the rook with the king and win the game. As some other games you could had draw and still you resigned becouse you lost some material.

Still you need to find out if your problem is you need more time to think or it is visualization.

You can't "reliably" raise your rating to any given number.  It's not a given that you will always be able to improve beyond a certain point.

That is true Andy. Still I think "pojopojo" have not reached his peak yet.

Also I think 1300s is a very posible target for most of the people.

Forget about the rating for now.  Learn to avoid making horrible moves that give away pieces for nothing or overlook direct threats to checkmate you.

Eliminate the really bad mistakes, and the rating will take care of itself, really!

I see you're only playing blitz? I've been playing blitz for some years and haven't been able to hold a stable 1200s blitz rating, without those losing streaks making me falling back to the 1100s now and then, let alone ever reach the 1300s. Maybe some people just aren't made for blitz, our brains are too slow or whatever. Of course I don't know "pojopojo"s pre-CC chess experience, if he/she is a complete chess novice, 1200 would be a great rating.

In slower time controls, when you have enough time to conduct a basic blunder check on every move you're about to make, notice your own and the opponent's hanging pieces, I'd say a 1300 rating will come by itself if one just avoids those elementary blunders.

If you really ant to get better, take lessons.  Find a local chess club or get an online coach.

Guys, thanks for the replies. Especially for pointing out that I play too many fast games. I also realized that blitz is often decided by who blunders less.

I started analyzing my lost games and already found one mistake that I keep making (opening a file when I shouldn't).

As for AndyClifton's comment, I don't think 1300 is a very ambitious goal for Average Joe, is it? I think something like 1800 is achievable for most people if they make the effort. It's 2000+ that you need special talent for.

It's all relative (it depends on what any given player thinks of as "special talent").

Anyway, the problem is that we get an awful lot of people on the forums seeming to demand improvement, especially in some given length of time (6 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, etc).  As though it is some foregone conclusion that they will be able to reach their target level.  Perhaps you won't...but you still should be able to enjoy yourself playing the game.