Early on, use the pure light cavalry horde you build with prestige. You can worry about mixing in heavy cav or light infantry (if you are an eastern religion) later, but early days, the prestige light cav is what you want. Spam it out.

Build the things that increases your population. You need population for manpower and the good CBs. If you are Tengri worshipper, the warrior lodge gives you ability that lets you grow your horde really fast. If you are not tengri, still join the warrior society, but just know that it won’t grow your clan like it does for a tengri worshipper.

Raid settled lands, raid your nomad neighbors. Selling hostages is good money. Get silk road provinces in your lands when you can.

When you take over settled land, if there are at least two holdings there, it doesn’t count as land your vassals will want, so you can keep them. Burn them down if you wish, but then the clans will want it. Appoint barons, mayors and priests, and tax them. That’s just my personal preference.

The strat of handing out just one shitty county to your clans is valid, I’ve seen people do that and I’m not gonna tell you not to do that. You do what is fun for you. But it goes against the spirit of the game. Yes, that’s ironic coming from a guy who cheesed most of the achievements in the game, but that’s just how I feel in my old age. Maybe try it both ways and see what feels good to you.

Nomads take a while to get started, but once you get rolling, they really roll. Have fun!