Perhaps part of the problem is your trade offers themselves. Exactly what are you selling, in what amount & what are you asking for & in what amount.
Additionally, our individual trading pool is only comprised of current hoodies, guildmates, & friends list. If you marked a trade 'guild only' when creating it, then your potential trading partners are guildies only.
Preferring smaller guilds is fine. But if it's not active ( for example: very few if any trades listed at any time, not many folks talking, etc), then it's not a valuable reasource for you in building your city.
At some point, you need to start paying some attention to your friends list if you wish it to also be a valuable resource for you. How many friends would be in a position to potentially want what you have for trades? For example, if you're looking for EMA goods, Bronze Age friends can't help -- if you've got a ton of such friends then you've limited your own options. Friends also need to be actively playing in order to help you. One day, instead of using the friends bar to aide everyone, go to the townhall to do it there instead. It's log keeps 5 day record of all city events. After aiding everyone directly from that log, go to your friends list ... all the folks still with a lit "aid" button never aided you over past 5 days. Drop that unhelpful lot, & search for better options.