Lookup Laughs And Loves!

Make it compatible

Make your lookup compatible to as many different browsers as possible; there's Firefox, Internet Explorer and many more browsers to keep in mind. If you're making your own lookup, this is easier, but if you're using a premade it's a bit harder; maybe just send in a neomail to the creator and ask about compatibility.

Do not steal

No matter what you do, do not steal anything from anybody else's work, if you're using a premade, make sure you've credited the creator in one way or another. Even if you use somebody else's image, you should credit them; it makes you guilt free, and so what if you didn't make the lookup yourself? It still looks good.

Avoid scroll boxes

Scroll boxes can be very annoying to some people, so it's best to stay away from these, but within reason; sometimes a lookup with a scroll box looks stunning and isn't too much of a pain. It's up to you to decide, but I certainly stay away from very small scroll boxes.

Music Mania

Music might sound good in some manners, but it's better to stay away from music on the lookup; it detracts attention from your actual lookup. Besides, if you're like me, you prefer to have a quiet browse of the net, and if you've left the volume up high, you parents may get angry if they hear blasting music from your room!

Keep your stats alive

Keep your stats alive; by this, I mean that you should keep your stats clear and visible, and if you hide your true stats, you are breaking neopets rules, and that's a big no no. I also think that you should keep your shield clear as it's nice to know how old an account is when you're searching for neofriends.

Coordinate Colors

If you're making your own lookup, be sure to coordinate your colors well; if your background is bright pink, then you wouldn't put red text anywhere. This makes it very hard to read and it's a lot more logical to use black text or a darker color that doesn't blend in with the background.

Also, choose background and text colors to match any images that might pop up on your lookup; it gives it a magnificent effect that blows people off their feet.

Background Bloopers

Background bloopers occur so many times, people choose images to cover their WHOLE background and then you can't even see their text. It's much safer to stick with a couple of colors for your background and keep images to just a feature. Usually, setting an image as a background ends up with laughs and not loves.

Needed Navigation

Navigation is absolutely vital; there's nothing worse when you reach a lookup and you want to head straight to the boards, or straight to your shop from their lookup, but they have no navigation links. When choosing or making a lookup, make sure there is some sort of navigation links to avoid laughs and to make everybody's time on Neopets a whole lot easier.

Keep your font neat

This is a common mistake. People go overboard with their font effects; they make it bright yellow, they make sure the font face is something fancy, they make their text underlined, bold and italic and they make it a massive, unnatural size.

Even reading all of that makes your eyes tired, right?

So, keep your font plain but still pretty. If you make your font italic, go without underlining and making it bold; if you make it a lovely color, make sure the background suits it; if you make it a fancy font face, make sure you can still read it. Don't make your text so big that you can read it from miles and miles away. That just annoys people and takes too much time to read because you have to scroll down so much.

It's such a simple mistake that you can make yet so many people still do it and they don't realize until somebody tells them.

This tip goes both ways, though.

If you make your font extremely small and hard to read, people are going to get a headache trying to figure out what you have typed. Also, if your font is fairly small, do not make it bold as this clutters the letters and you cannot read it for the life of you.

Don't Go Invisible

This is another thing that is a massive no no.

Sometimes making your font invisible is so much fun, but there are certain limits to everything and unfortunately some people go way overboard with making their fonts invisible. Sometimes they make their whole description invisible or their stats invisible, forcing you to highlight the text to read it. Fortunately, I have not yet come across a completely invisible lookup, which is a relief, but I'm sure there are some out there.

This is a horrible thing to do and it's not just unattractive, it's downright annoying and won't gain you any popularity out there. People will just think you're a pain in the neck and you may very well be a very nice person who has just gone too far.

Don't make this mistake for our sakes.

Keep Your Info Short

I know this is a hard tip to take into consideration and even I ignore this one sometimes.

But it still remains here because it is important.

If you ramble on and on about yourself on your lookup page, people are going to get very bored, stop reading and decide to leave your lookup before visiting your shop, gallery and neohome, before looking at your avatar count and your trophies, and you'll be forgotten.

I do know that it's hard to keep your lookup short, but I like to do the simple things on my lookup, a brief description of myself, my goals, any thank you's I have and of course credit. If you add a few random things of your choice between those things, then it's an absolutely fine length. If you are absolutely dying to say more about yourself, use up one of your pet pages to make a page all about you with everything there is to know about you.

It doesn't sound too hard, does it?

But, as we all know, keeping our lookup lookup great can be as tough as giving a naughty dog a bath, right?

But follow these simple tips and you might just succeed in making people love your lookup and not receiving a single laugh. If you're struggling, just remember this- my very best tip so far:

Your lookup is your time to shine on Neopets, the only page devoted to you. Make it presentable, simple, respectable and easy and you'll be sure to shine!