Hello new users and welcome to the Steem network!
This is a navigational guide for using this website. This guide will teach you everything you need to know about how to move up the virtual food chain here.
Powering up your vote
- You power up your vote by converting STEEM to SP in your steem wallet
Powering up your vote will increase your payout for your posts and the authors you enjoy.
When to vote
Your vote and how you use it matters for gaining more steem power (SP) and effects the amount you are able to reward authors you enjoy reading.
A normal vote is when a post is between 30 minutes and 6 days old. If you vote on a post that is newer than 30 mins old there is less of a curation reward (CR) given to you and more of a benefit to the author of the post also your voting power may be diminished faster. Between zero and 30 minutes there is a scale where more or less of your vote is eligible for a curation reward (CR).
A normal sustainable vote pace is about 5 - 10 votes per day and no more. With any more voting your vote would become worthless.
It takes about 30 SP for your vote to register as being about $0.01 but it is still included in payouts in range below this.
#Q What exactly is a curation reward and when do you get them?
#A When you vote before or with other accounts that have not registered yet on the block you are viewing.
Example
If you see a post that is under one dollar and over 30 minutes old and you vote on it and after you do the post goes over $ 100 you may have a decent curation reward.
In short CR's pay you for finding and voting on content that other users find to be quality content as well, If you think a post is quality but yet to catch on you should vote on it.
How to buy SBD & Steem
Selling your SBD for BITcoin, Ether, or DOGE is simple to do with the number one steemit recommended exchange, Blocktrades
#1. Once you are on Blocktrades main site(link above & in your steem wallet) type your user name and check that the site verifies it. Once it says address is valid, click on get deposit address to buy SBD or STEEM instantly with ETHER.
#2. Deposit Ether, BTC, DASH, DOGE, or LTC to buy STEEM & SBD. Deposit the funds in the address provided to you.
#3 Check your wallet. You will receive the appropriate conversion for what you deposited to the block trades account automatically, you can send any amount it does not need to be what you typed in initially when you started the trade. This process is the same for all the other currencies just copy paste the blocktrades address and deposit what you want to spend in their account after you input your steem info.
To switch between Buying and selling click this icon.
How to sell STEEM/SBD
#1 Go to Blocktrades, the same site as buying and click the switch icon.
#2 Set up your trade 
#3 Transfer steem or SBD using your steem address to the steem account @blocktrades with the memo provided for your trade.
#4 Check your BITcoin or ALTcoin address for your funds.
Vote bots (PPV)
Many users of the steem network have created scripts to run on dedicated accounts to function as services to multiply your sbd by promoting your post or another accounts post for their benefit.
Find all you need about vote bots at www.steembottracker.com
Payouts
- Payouts occur when your post is seven days old
- Use https://steemstats.com/#!/ to track your payouts
- Example: If a post payout says $1 you will get at least .4 sbd and some amount of SP depending on how people voted.
- payouts are primarily in SBD which must be converted to steem with the blocktrades exchange.
Follow these steps and get the most out of the steem network. If you think steem prices will fall then trade out into a more stable crypto currency and then trade back when the market is where you want. By doing this you can multiply your steem portfolio 100% or more in a month.
Thank you for your support! 
& your feedback! 
[EDIT] your posts can be edited up until they payout with updates or corrections :)
DIR
WAL Please donate what you can here to help fund the many steem accounts I support through my voting.
photo credit; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardine
minnow guide v 1.0
keep up with this kind of post, it certainly helps newbies to get used to steemit platform
Thanks for the encouragement!