***Please Note: The following is NOT cheating, it is a system of mining nearly guarenteed to find you twice the amount of ores, if not more, and if you mine like this a lot you will find diamonds!***

Have you seen people with nice, straight mines? Chances are these are the same people who will have very few resources to use, and will end up begging you for resources.

Here's why:

After an investigation of a singleplayer world with an xray mod, I saw that ores spawn quite close to each other. This is true - and there is a LOT of ore that spawns. Problem is, they are either to the side of where your staircase mine is, or it is to the top or bottom. Follow these tips below:

1) Mine all around. This means do something such as a quarry style mine - it will take a while, but it will work.
2) Mine randomly. Make lots of turns, go up and down crazily, and chances are you will run into ores. This won't necessarily get you diamonds - they are rare still - but common ores you will get aplenty (and you may still get diamonds yet!)

Have fun getting people to beg you for resources!