Anyone who is new to Steemit typically asks how to make high-paying posts. How come someone who just joined Steemit made 300$ from an introductory post or a popular steemian who posts a nice photograph made a three digit payout?

In this post, I want to highlight some of the common practices good authors on Stemit use. I hope you will start too. You don't need to follow these rules, but they definitely helped​ me get where I'm right now. The memes are just for fun.

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Don't write and post immediately

If you have a killer idea for a post, don't just write and post it right away. Give it at least 24 hours before you submit it. It may turn out to be not such a great idea after all. This way you could revise your post for mistakes you probably made and can add additional paragraphs or images. You could spend some time working on a cover image. This all adds up to create a better post.

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Do Research

Don't know what to write about? Open a search engine and look up things you personally are interested in or do for a living. People want to hear your opinion, especially if you are an expert in something and want to share some knowledge with the community. The more research you do, the easier it will be for you to write about your passions. Maybe you are a drummer? Write a post about the history of drums.

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Be Polite

It's nice to be nice. You will not get many upvotes and followers if you are rude, here on Steemit. Even if you rant, do it with style. Writing fuck 20 times in a post didn't make it better. Another thing I noticed, steeminas are peaceful creatures by nature. Even when they disagree among each other​ they will engage in long conversations, each giving his or hers opinion. This is the opposite of the Facebook mentality just to troll what you don't like.

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Engage

Some of the most paid posts have many comments. That is because they are not passive content you just read. In many cases, they require the participation of people in some form or another. #steemitphotochallenge is a perfect example. The Chat is also a great place to find new followers and promote your posts.

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Formatting Is Important

Well-formated posts always make a good impression. There are a couple of ways you can write and format your posts. I use raw Markdown code. Try to format your posts in a unique way. What I mean by that is to try different approaches to formatting your posts until the layout works best for your particular material.

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Use Grammar Tools

You don't need to be a native English speaker in order to write good posts in English. There are tons of apps that can help you with your grammar. I use a Safari extension called grammarly.com that corrects my spelling and grammar. Do a little research and find one that best fits your needs.

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Use 5 Tags

Tags are your secret weapon! You can use only five, and you should use all of them wisely. Your first tag is your main category. Look up if there are some categories you can start to contribute that are still young. You can even start your own tag.

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Don't Overpost

One of the main mistakes new fish do is to overpost their blog. There are many reasons for that. Maybe they​ are excited about just signing up and want to share all 250 of their favorite videos from a Youtube playlist. Or maybe they think that if they post 40 posts a day they will get more upvotes. Either way for the other users this is just another form of spamming their feed and this will probably get them unfollowed or worse muted. I recommend posting up to 4 posts a day, and if you feel the need to post more just don't overdo it and save your ideas for later. Quality over quantity!

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Don't Resteem That Often

Yes, resteeming is great, but when you just start out no one will notice your posts hidden among all the resteemed posts you put in your blog. A good rule would be to have at least 50% your own original material on your blog. People follow you because of you, not your resteems.

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Don't Copy/Paste Stuff

Plagiarism is bad, m'kay! Everybody knows it and everybody does it on different levels. This is and always has been a hot topic. Just copy/pasting post from other sites will get you nowhere, believe me. If you really like a publication you found somewhere, read it from beginning to end, and tell it with your own words on Steemit. If it's good content, people will upvote. Of course, it's a good idea to give credits to source articles and images. Your posts will look more nice and informative.

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Use Images

Never underestimate the power of images. A post with no images is less likely to be opened by people, it's a psychological fact. On the other hand, don't overdo it, crowding your posts with too many images will confuse your readers and will probably close your post. A very important rule is always to give credits to the image authors. If you get caught stealing original images you will most likely to get flagged and all your reputation will probably drop to 0.

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PROMOTE!

Promote, promote, promote! Even for 0.001 SBD, you can get your post to the promoted tab. Especially if the tag is not that popular. For a newcomer the promote option is a great way to get more coverage and recruit more followers.

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The Art Of Patience

And most important of all, be patient. Good things come to those who wait. Slowly build up your loyal followers circle, with each post you will learn something​ of value and gain a follower or two. Find your own path on the Steemit journey and with enough dedication and effort, you can create great posts too.

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