[GUIDE] Making a Successful Guide

Introduction​

[justify]Hello there! Here is a guide on making a successful guide, a bit redundant. I may not be the best guide writer, but I have a general knowledge about them, as I make many and leave many comments to others. Guides are a great way to get rep, cash, attention and even notoriety. Possibly even a sticky if brilliant!

I. Introduction
II. Content
III. Appearance
IV. Other
V. The End!​

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Content​

[justify]The most important part of all guides is the content![/justify]
Topic
[justify]First of all, you need to have your topic idea! Be sure to search before you make your guide, as repeated guides are often annoying. Sometimes it's hard to search for a topic, like mine, because when you search for something like "Making a guide" you still get 17 pages of hits...just do your best. A link to the search bar is near the top right of the page, next to "members" and "arcade", below the PayPal Button. Or just go to search.php Once you have found you topic, you need to have some knowledge of the topic, maybe even a mastery of it! If you are a programmer, make program tutorials and snippets. If you're a graphic artist, make program tuts. If you're an old school neopetter, make neopets guides. Just be sure to know what you're talking about![/justify]
Subject
[justify]For your subject, you need to be short and decisive. You need to include what the guide is about; I usually like to include [GUIDE] in the beginning too. If it is in-depth, you may want to mention that. It's okay to put something like this in First Letter Caps, like I do, but don't do ALL CAPS as that is really annoying.[/justify]
Introduction and Closing
[justify]It's also a good idea to include an introduction and closing to your guides. In your intro, basically state what the guide is about and the benefits of whatever. Maybe even disclaimers or whatever. You should put your outline here if you have one. For your closing, you should add something like "Please leave constructive criticism" so you can improve your guide and future guides. You can also put disclaimers here, along with telling people thanks and they can pm or post for help and whatnot.[/justify]
Include
[justify]With your guide, do include:

• Headings
• Sub-Headings, if a long guide
• Pictures(screenshots), possibly captions
• Links
• Lots of text, be in-depth
• Spoilers, sometimes
• Bold, Italics, and Underlines to emphasize important text
• Outline, if really long
• Lists, like this, if needed

Don't include:

• Huge images, don't stretch the page
• Too many spoilers
• Too many smilies, these get annoying fast

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Appearance​

[justify]Appearance is also a critical aspect of your guide![/justify]
Colors
[justify]Colors are very important! You need to make your headings and subheadings stand out, but you don't want them to be blinding or unreadable. I recommend colors such as greens, blues, reds, purples, and some oranges and pinks. Don't you anything wild like yellow. For your font, I would recommend keeping them the norm, maybe changing font size or changing the color to something plainish, maybe a shade of gray or something.[/justify]
Formatting
[justify]Be sure to change up your formatting! I center my titles and make them bigger, along with a color. With my subtitles, I leave them to the left, but make them bigger and add color. You can also make them to the right, possibly centered. For your text, you can do whatever. Some people center their entire guide, others leave them to the left. Usually I leave them to the left, but this guide I have it justified. Don't put this to the right though, as that is kind of tacky.[/justify]
Pictures
[justify]As I mentioned earlier, pictures are a key part of most guides! I do not have many pictures in mine though, the irony! But that is because there isn't much to put for a guide like this. I usually like to center the pictures, though. Be sure to crop them and resize them also, pictures that stretch the page ruin the guide. You can also add a caption under the image or on the image with an image editing program. Most people have something more advanced, but if you use just paint, hit Ctrl + E and change the dimensions.[/justify]
Organization
[justify]Organization is also important! As I have mentioned earlier, if your guide is really long, use subtitles! If it's super duper long, include a quick outline.[/justify]
Emphasizing
[justify]Be sure to emphasize important and key parts of your guide. You can do this with Bold, Italics, and Underlines. Don't overuse these, though; only do this for important text. If need be, you can change certain text colors to emphasize parts.[/justify]
Consistency
[justify]Consistency is also very important! Use the same colors, justification, etc. for each thing! As you have noticed, all my titles are red, 200, and centered; all my subheadings are left-aligned, 150, and blue; all my text is justified and normal.[/justify]

Other​

Here are some other important things!
Do's and Dont's
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• Don't ask for rep!
• Do ask for comments, constructive criticism, and suggestions/feedback
• Do proofread for spelling and grammar!
• Don't plagiarize. Leave sources if the guide is part yours(if you took screenies from a guide or something) but if the guide is completely the work of someone else, don't post the guide!
• Follow your advice! Read your comments and make changes if necessary
• Preview your guide
• Save your guide if need be, not all guides are written in a day!
• Make the guide long, but not too long. Basically, be in-depth but don't make it take an hour to read.
• Edit your guide as need be

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Links
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• Lightningstalon's [GUIDE:] Your Posts, Now Sexier
• Lightningstalon's [GUIDE:] Your Posts, Now Sexier (Compressed)
• Elite's Screenshot Guide
• Lazypando's Neopets Games Guide Index
• Forum Cash Rewards For Guides
• Search Tool
• TinyPic - Host Your Images

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The End!​

[justify]Thanks for reading! That is the end of this guide. Please leave constructive criticism along with your feedback. Be sure to post suggestions, errors, and even things you would like me to include. I noticed I said to include pictures, but I didn't, that's because if I were they would be useless pictures showing where stuff like the search bar and whatnot is lol.[/justify]

<3 Cackle​

 

Actually, this is a very nice guide. You went into a lot of detail that I figured you would have missed. Great job. + rep

Also, once a couple others read of this and you perfect it, maybe ask for a sticky? Just an idea.

 

Thanks

This will help next time I make a guide

 

Im hoping to make a guide for snowmuncher, and im sure this will help, thanks.

 

"Too many smilies, these get annoying fast"

I agree completely. People who think that smiles befriend me or strengthen my interest annoy me.
Cool guide - I find guides on how to make a guide inherently hack though <_<

 

Great a few things to think about before I make a guide if I do ok I probably will just because I like making guides lol and its nice to see other notice that guides tend to need more information.

 

I noticed that your guide is also very clear and concise.
A very good role model for guides to come

Keep up the good work

 

There is already a guide how to make guides right?

but thx ^^

Please don't spam quick, short messages to obtain points. You are also gravegigging. Please read our rules here: announcements-rules-and-information-f73/site-rules-and-ranks-t11757.html

 

Wow, when I looked at the title, I assumed that the guide would be more a joke than anything. But as a read through it I found it to be an awesome guide. +Rep.

BTW you gatta make more guides

 

Very good, I am thinking of doing my own guide today or tomorrow. I will probably refer to this guide as I am making it!