Greetings ladies and gentlemen,

I have seen, heard and felt that a lot of people have problems with getting views on their guide. So, instead of repeating a short version of the total version over and over again, I thought, why not make one big version and put it online?

At any rate, in this guide we will answer the following question:
How can we get as many views as possible?

People might have different reasons to upload a guide. The most guidewriters however, want to have as many people reading and using your guide, as possible. There is no bigger honor than seeing someone in game who says: `Thank you, your guide was useful.`

More views means more people will have read your guide, meaning that the chance that your guide will be used, is more likely. There is, however, also another reason why you would want views:
Improvement

If you get more views, you will get more comments and votes. Based on those comments you will be able to make your guide better, thus gaining higher rating. People are more likely to read high rated guides, so you will have more views.
Views -> Comments -> Improvement -> Rating -> Views

Eventually, your guide might become the top one, which means that a lot of people might be using your guide, which is quite an honor indeed.

Now we know why we want views, let's discuss how we get them

Ask yourself, what needs to be in a guide in order for me to read it?
First of all, it must be written by someone who knows what he is doing, he shows quality content.
Second of all, it must be easy to read, I do not wish to read blocks of text.
And finally, I should know the guide exists, or else I wouldn't even find it.

So there are multiple aspects on getting views, I will break down the aspects for you:
1. Guide content
2. Guide presentation
3. Guide advertisement

In each chapter, you will find one of these aspects explained in detail.

This one is quite obvious. The more quality content you have to offer, the more likely you will get upvotes, the more views you will get. What does it mean to have quality guide content? How do I offer what my readers need?


Tip 1: Cheatsheet

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The cheatsheet is a very important part of your guide, it is basically a summary of all the choices you make for that champion. In order to get a quality cheatsheet, one must test all kinds of items, runes, masteries, summoner spells and skill orders. If this is not tested, then the build would be based on assumptions. Assumptions can be made by everyone, so why would anyone read your guide instead of some other guys guide?

You want to offer your reader the best quality out there and you cannot do that if you do not even know what you are doing.


Tip 2: Explanations

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You are a guide, you are supposed to show your audience the safest way through the dangerous wilds, mountains and hazards. But there is just one problem:
You aren't there, you cannot hold their hand while they play their game, you cannot show in game how they should do it. This means, that you need to explain everything so that the reader is well prepared for the matches yet to come.

If the reader has read your whole guide, he should not be able to go to the discussion and ask questions. If the reader asked a question, it means your guide is incomplete and thus more information and explanations should be added.

What the minimal expectations are for the explanations in your guide:
1. Explain 100% of your build (runes, masteries, summoner spells, items + build order, skill order)
2. Explain 100% why your build is better than other builds and/or picks for the certain champion with a certain role mentioned in your guide.
3. Explain 100% of your champion+role (pros and cons, abilities <how they work>, early game, mid game and late game)
Keep in mind: Everything you put in your cheatsheet needs to be explained in your guide. Every item explained in your guide needs to be put in your cheatsheet

What the bonus material is for your guide:
1. Show alternative viable picks for the champion and explain them in detail
2. Explain warding (unless adc), ganking, clearing (if jungler), positioning (unless tank), farming (unless support) and objectives.
3. Explain counters and synergies, and not just 1 or 2 each, but try to explain as many as possible.

Try to keep in mind that everything you put in needs to be explained well. If you want to put in counters and synergies, but do not really know how it is, then do not put it in. It makes you both look stupid as it wont help the reader. Never put something in your guide that you are not able to explain.


Tip 3: Non-content

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You probably have seen some guides out there that told things like:
Lore, skins, stats, stuff like that

These things are useless and add nothing to your guide. You should be careful with using non-content chapters, for they may not be the major part of the guide. Like I said before, you should be able to guide your reader by just telling how the champion+role works. Lore and other things might be stuck in someones mind while the important stuff, like tactics or builds, are forgotten. This is not what we want, try to minimalise this.


More information

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1. Using the Guide Editor - MOBAFire How To Series by Mowen
2. Guide basics by Bryun, Jebus McAzn, jhoijhoi, Mowen, PsiGuard, th3BlackAngel
3. Making a Guide by Jhoijhoi
4. How to create a good first guide (for newcomers) by Teh Grazzh0pper
5. Ten Commandments of Writing a Guide by Laggermeister

We discussed what the reader needed in the last chapter, now we will discuss what the reader wants. The reader want to see a nice structured, easy to read guide other than a 90 pages in-depth guide with nothing but text. There are many ways to accomplish a good presentation in your guide. Here are some:


Tip 1: Title

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The title, is the name you gave to your guide. The name you gave to your creation, your art piece. Since it is your creation, you shouldn't name it with something stupid or silly, but a clear direct title.

For example, we have one Gangplank guide, with 2 names, one of them is:
"Boom... Headshot"

The other one is:
"[Top] The Critting Cap'n"

Boom headshot is a quote from Caitlyn, even though the title is for a Gangplank guide. Someone who will see that title might get confused since the reference is incorrect and very bad indeed.

The Critting Cap'n shows clearly about what role he uses, how he builds him and what champion it is by just using a title.

Just like with explanations, try to keep unnecessary information out and put all necessary information in. For example, if you are famous on the internet, you should definately put your name in the title. However, if you are just as famous as all of the other millions of people on the internet, then just leave your title without your name.


Tip 2: Writing style

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Like mentioned before, a guide, is YOUR creation, show it as you think it should be. Do you want to be witty? Go ahead and throw some jokes in there. Do you want to be professional? Go ahead and throw some calculations and analysises in there. Whatever the case may be, show who you are. Write it down exactly in such a way, that you would read it yourself. If you read it yourself and you are not pleased by what you see, write it down again, and again, and again, until it is perfect.


Tip 3: Structure

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Now let's compare a champion guide to a PC guide. If you would look at the full handbook, it would be tons of pages of information, contains literally all information you need. However, if you would read it from the start until the end, it would take days until you are finished reading. To prevent that fact, there is structure within the handbook, so you can find exactly where you can find the solution to your problem. This should also be in your guide.

The reader must be able to scroll down your guide and see:
"Hey! Here is the answer to my problem! Now I do not have to read hours to find what I am looking for!"

Luckily for you, Mobafire has an easy to use chapter system, which allows you to already create a basic structure in your guide! It also has an automatic table of contents! Very useful indeed.

However, sometimes that is not enough, here are some things that might help structuring your guide:

• Paragraph titles
  For example, if you have one big tactical chapter, you might want to make sub-chapters all with their own titles, like I do with each tip I give.
• Banners
  Big pictures that indicate where you are in the guide, mostly underneath chapter names
  Check this link to see an example guide using banners.
• Borders
  Seperation of different parts. Can be greatly combined with titles, as done by me ;P
• Colours/bold/italics/underlined
  Only used for highlighting important stuff. Do not overuse this, since it may cause a rainbow effect, an overdose of colours
• Columns
  Great for comparison and listing. If you have no idea what columns are or want to learn how they work, then I'd suggest you read this guide.
• Listing
  Like I am doing right now with the dots. It is very structured what my hints are right now :P
• Spoilers
  Great for minimalizing information that are just extra, regards your guide. Things like lore, stats, matchups, synergies, things like that.
• Custom table of contents
  Great when you do not wish to use the Mobafire chapter system, but wish to use your own system instead.
• Name-links
  For example: [[Garen]] -> Garen, allows the reader to directly understand the term used
• Images
  It is great to use for explaining items for example. Where you put a picture of Lich Bane for example, by using: [icon=Lich bane size=20] ->
  You can also use pictures from the internet or from your computer.
  You can use: [img=http://www.fiatbarchetta.nl/smf/Smileys/classic/banana.gif] to getfor example. If you wish to upload a picture from your computer, you must upload it first via imgur, then you can "img" the link given to you.
• Videos
  To show how complicated abilities work, or as in-game footage to summarise your gameplay
  
  Example

  [embed=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gvBGmwhOLU&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL112574DBD0EABA60]
  
  Will bring:
  Play Video
• Cheatsheet
  Try to show clear alternatives to your items. See all the way top for an example

More information

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1. Learning to BBCode by Jhoijhoi and Jebus
2. BBCode Guide by Matt
3. How to use Columns by Icecreamy
4. 10 second guide to making a custom table of contents by Astrolia
5. LaCorpse's Cafe // Resources & Downloads by LaCorpse

Some people that may have browsed through certain guide discussions, may have found people that are like:
"Nice guide +1, now +1 my guide too pls"

This, is bad advertising. It shows that you are desperate for views, so desperate, that you just +1 a random guide in order to get higher rating. So, how can we advertise in a well manner?


Tip 1: Signatures

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Each time I post a comment, you will see this below it:


This is done automatically. Each time I make a post, everything I put in my signature will be seen by everyone who reads my post. Abuse that fact. Go to the gear on the top right of Mobafire, look a bit down on your screen, and you find "Signature". Type in the link to your guide or whatever you want, and now you advertise each time you make a comment. For free, and it is done by the mobafire rules :P
You might want to use a picture however, if you do not know how to make a good one, I'd suggest you take a look here and ask an art shop for a signature :3
Also you can read this for more information about signatures.
Hint: People are more likely to read a signature that has movement in it. Like my dancing bananas. A small movement element in the signature is enough though, do not overdo it.


Tip 2: Reputation

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If you are more popular, then people will do more their best in order to get liked by the popular guy. If Alex Ich (just an example) were to write a guide, a lot of people would go to Mobafire to upvote his guide, since, well, it is a very good player.

If however, Noobboxer2000 will write a guide, no one knows who he is. If his guide does get viewed, it is not because he is such a wellknown person.

So what can you do to raise your reputation? There is a reputation system on Mobafire. If you help Mobafire a lot by reviewing, signature making, answering Q&A's, mentally supporting other Mobafire members, making amazing jokes, etc. etc.
The higher +rep you have, the higher your popularity, the higher chance people will read your content. More information about +rep can be found here. +Rep is not always an accurate indication of ones popularity however. So keep in mind that someone very friendly and helpful with 50+rep might get more "reputational" views on its guide than someone very silent with 150+rep.


Tip 3: Name and Avatar

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This might seem really silly, but it also matters. I have seen many people passing by on Mobafire, and some of them really have rediculous names and avatars in a non-funny way. If you didn't make an account yet, try to avoid names containing insults and stuff like that. Instead, consider creating a theme for your account, something that represents you.

Some people take it literally and use a picture of themselves in their avatar and use their normal name, nickname of petname. Which is good, since an own name and picture is a good way to represent yourself.

However, some people prefer not to be open on the internet, like me. They use their normal alias and use a certain theme in their avatar, in my case, a banana. This has gotten so far that people do not even call me Meiyjhe, but call me banana or bananadude, which I find very funny indeed. There are some other people who did this aswell and they are right now also quite known around mobafire.
Keep in mind: This should be done in combination with tip 2, or else it will have minimal effect.


Tip 4: Review shops

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Well now, there are actually some places where you can ask directly for a view. They will even post a comment with tips and tricks on how you should make your guide better. This is great, since can solve the viewing problem by quite a bit. There aren't a unlimited amount of review shops on Mobafire, so I'd suggest that you just take one review shop at the time. It is better to first fix the problems one reviewer mentioned, before you go to the next review shop allowing optimal improvement.

You can find some review shops here


Tip 5: Discussion

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When you create a guide, you will have a section where people can comment, called the discussion. It is important that you realise that the way you react to the comments can have a big influence on your views and score. For example, if someone says:
"I think your guide is okay, but the runes and masteries are really bad."

And you respond with: "zomg trollvote, did you even try my guide omg, reported"
Then people will think you are an idiot and a very unreasonable person. Always accept criticism, whether it be positive or negative. Beyond all the words that might seem angry or bad, there might be some really good tips in between. Sometimes someone does not even try to be negative, but just seem so, since communication without facial expressions can be quite confusing at times. If you wish to prevent those situations, feel free to take a look here.


More information

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1. I have found troll votes on the site, can I get them deleted? by Matt
2. Frequently Asked Questions by Jhoijhoi
3. General Rules and Guidelines by Admins

The goal of the guide was to answer:
How can we get as many views as possible?

Now we know that in order to get views, we must:
1. Write quality content
2. Present our guide clear and structured
3. Let people know that we created a guide

Do this, and many people will be happy to read your guide. May you find many fans in your games :D
-Meiyjhe