Unfortunately if you wanna start comparing your tracks to those released by big name artists you're gonna enter into the loudness war...
Basically this means elements within your track (drums mainly) are gonna need to be pretty heavily compressed (as well as the whole track in the mastering stage) to be able to compete with the loudness of modern tracks. Limiting is a big part of getting a track loud in the final stage, but it will help massively if you suitably compress certain things in your track before you get to the mastering stage.
Speaking from experience I finished a track a while ago and although the mixdown wasn't bad, everything in the track was undercompressed, so when I went to master it and push it louder, there was only so much I could do pushing it into a limiter before things started to sound really shit.
The main thing you'll find if your track is generally undercompressed is that modern tracks will dominate it in the mix and make your tune sound weak by comparison, as elements in your tune will appear too quiet due to the mix not being "fat enough".
But as Russla says, it's all just about general mixdown (including compression where needed), and then after that basically just running it into a limiter - the better the mixdown, the more you should be able to push it louder without it falling apart.
Hope this helps!