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Two words: index funds.
Don't try to beat the market. There are thousands of incredibly smart people being paid large amounts of money to spend all of their time looking for ways to beat the market. We call them hedge fund managers, investment bankers and mutual fund managers. Even they regularly fail to beat the market.
Do not invest in an actively managed mutual fund. Investing in a mutual fund is slightly smarter than trying to beat the market yourself: in essence you're paying someone to try to beat the market for you, someone who devotes their lives (and their considerable staffs) to beating the market. But even mutual funds fail to beat the market more often than not, once you take into account fees.
Do diversify your portfolio. This means holding a range of large-cap, small-cap and foreign stocks, along with some bonds and real estate (in the form of REITs, real estate investment trusts). You can do this by investing in several different index funds that track different indexes.
If you don't have enough money to buy into several index funds, ETFs are a good second option. ETFs are essentially shares in a bundle of stocks identical to those making up a stock market index. You can buy and sell them like normal stocks, and there's no minimum investment. Keep in mind transaction fees however. Say you buy $700 worth of ETF shares and pay a $7 brokerage commission. That just knocked 1 percent off your first year's return. If you're only investing $140 you just lost 5%, and are better off putting the money in a high yield savings account.
Do buy and hold, do not trade stocks rapidly. Again, the transaction costs associated with making a trade mean that you have to make much more money on the trade then the average market performance just to stay even with the market.
Do read "A Random Walk Down Wall Street." Best book about the stock market ever.
Watch Jim Cramer because he's entertaining. Do Not watch him for investing advice.
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