long term? Hmm...
1) google changes more often than a whimsical wife, so don't put all of your time, money and energy into one site or be let down and want to kill yourself when your perfectly white hat site will be nuked into oblivion by google because at some point it will happen. Google doesn't like white hat sites anymore, they never liked black sites anyway, so they're gonna nuke the hell out of random (white hat and black hat) sites equally to force them to buy google ads or simply for fun
2) thin sites don't work anymore, so if your goal was to throw a 10-article site into google and hope to make $2000 per month then you will have already failed. Be ready to pump up content like a braindead zombie because google only likes sites with 1000s upon 1000s of content pages.... or big brands that have zero content but billions of $$$ to spend on google ads, but I assume you're not one of those billionaires or else you wouldn't be here
3) as many SEOs, as many opinions, so test everything even if a SEO you trust tells you that something might, or might not work.... Given how moody google have become and how they've introduced randomness into their algorithms nothing is certain / written in stone anymore, so be ready to test everything you can to see what works for you, and what doesn't. And speaking of seeing what works...
4) don't put all of your eggs in one basket, as I said in point 1. More specifically, if you have the means, start off the bat with 10-20 sites, and mix and match them to see which ones take off and work on those until they get hit. Create both black hat and white hat sites... create both authority-type and spammy sites... create sites with both 100% unique content and 100% plagiarized content... all of these both in the same niche and in different niches. You never know when google will strike again, and what they'll target next (although they do target affiliate sites usually), so it's best to have backup sites ready to go when the performing ones go down.
5) SEO had become increasingly difficult lately, and one of the reasons is that everyone and their dog want to have 10-20 sites nowadays ranking in google, instantly too if possible, and all of them earning $1 million per month if possible. And this behaviour (and the amount of people coming online to make money in general) are creating a lot of competition and tough competition can be weeded out with strong backlinks, but strong backlinks cost a ton of money. So, if you're in for the long run and want to create a stable (well, stable until google hits you) income be ready to pour at least few $100s (if not $1000s) of $$$ into backlinks so you can keep your site at top and - somehow - proofed against the masses who come to SEO to make money fast.
6) most domain registrars and hosting providers have gone crazy lately, so - again - don't put all of your eggs in one basket, eggs as in domains and hosting providers. Of course, if you're new to owning sites you will almost always go with only 1 domain registrar and hosting provider, there's no need to diversify when you're just starting out. So, pick 1 domain registrar that you like, and 1 hosting provider that you like, and go with those 2 until you have at least 3-4 sites that are making you money to justify branching out into other providers / registrars.
And speaking of providers and registrars, stay away from GoDaddy no matter what you do, or how tempting their offers might sound. Godaddy is one of the most mafioso companies online, so it's best not to have to deal with them from the start. Well, not only with them, but also with the companies on this list in general:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/y...t-reason-to-leave-yoast.1348280/post-14580549
Also, speaking of domains and hosting providers, it's best to buy your domain from a company and have your site(s) hosted with a different company because, as I said earlier, many of these companies have gone scammy, and if something bad happens you'll want to be able to recover at least one of your domain, or the site's files, but if you have both your domain and site with the same company and that company goes out of business or pulls a Godaddy on you (ie steals your domain, deletes your account, charges you 3x the usual purchase / renewal price, or whatever else that Godaddy does) you'll be royally screwed.
For buying domains I recommend Namesilo, Namecheap, or Porkbun (although there might be other good domain registrars out there but I don't remember them at the moment).
And for buying hosting I recommend... hmm... I don't know, I wanted to recommend Namecheap as they're pretty big and popular but last year they tried to scam me so I can't recommend them anymore. Maybe someone else can help with recommendations for hosting....
And I think that pretty much is it. I mean, there have to be a few more tips for long term success and safety of your business, but I'll give other people the honour of listing them
