A video’s thumbnail is often the first thing viewers see when browsing on YouTube, which is why they’re one of the most important parts of your channel. Thumbnails function as the book cover or billboard for your content as they help your viewers decide whether or not they want to watch your videos. A well-designed thumbnail can attract more viewers to your channel, encourage your subscribers to continue interacting with your content, and make your videos more appealing to a broad range of advertisers.
However, there are some tips and tricks that you should become familiar with if you’re looking to create quality thumbnail designs on YouTube. Listed below are our top recommendations for successfully creating a YouTube thumbnail design.
Coordinating Your Thumbnail With Your Title
The thumbnail and title of your video work together to both inform your audience about your content and intrigue them to click on your video. It’s important to make sure that your thumbnail and title deliver on their promise of what’s in your video, as viewers tend to leave misleading videos immediately, which can hurt your ability to be discovered. The longer your viewers watch your video, the more your content will be surfaced on YouTube.
Aside from being informative, well-written titles need to encourage your viewers to watch and share your video instead of simply scrolling past it. Your thumbnail and title should spark your audience’s curiosity and tease what your video is about.
Creating Engaging and Accurate Designs
90% of the top-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails, which is why strong, vibrant images that convey key information about your video are vital to your success on the video platform.
When creating interesting and dynamic thumbnails, it’s important to consider how the different elements of your design work together. Your image should look good on a small and large scale and your text should be easy-to-read as well as your thumbnail will show up in different sizes across YouTube and other external sites. Incorporating certain colors and fonts that your audience will associate with your business is a great way to use your thumbnail to help build brand awareness.
It’s a good idea to be thinking about your thumbnail image before you even shoot your video so you’ll have several options when it comes time to create one. If you’re not comfortable with pulling an image straight from your video, take a photo at the time of filming to use for your thumbnail later on.
Consider Monetization Opportunities
If you want to grow a loyal, engaged audience on YouTube, your goal is to make sure that viewers are consistently interested in your videos. However, it’s incredibly important to avoid the temptation to create misleading, clickbait-y, or sensational thumbnails to try and gain attention. Over time, these types of thumbnails can be incredibly harmful to your channel as your content won’t be recommended to any new viewers.
Creating informative and appropriate thumbnails will encourage advertisers to choose your content when they’re looking to target videos that contain particular keywords or appeal to a certain audience. If you’re looking to monetize your content, your thumbnail should accurately represent your video and be enticing to potential viewers.
When in doubt, always opt for professional, quality designs for your thumbnails. It’s important to consider the opinions and perspectives of both your audience and potential advertisers when creating your thumbnail designs.
Invest in Professionally-Created Custom Thumbnails
Investing in a service that designs custom thumbnails for you is a smart move. When you’re able to bypass the guesswork that comes with learning how to design thumbnails for yourself, you’ll be able to invest more of your time into other areas of your channel.
Custom Thumbnails is the thumbnail design service for YouTube-savvy creators looking to grow their channel and expand their brand awareness. Custom Thumbnails offers clients professional and engaging thumbnail designs within 24-48 hours of their initial request. Designed as a month-to-month subscription model, you’ll be working with the same designer each and every time, unless you request another one.
Custom Thumbnails is committed to keeping premium customer service at the core of the company as clients can expect a straightforward ordering and revision process, with no limits on how many revisions you request. By exclusively creating YouTube thumbnails, banners, and social media designs, Custom Thumbnails has been able to focus on gaining industry knowledge and experience when it comes to crafting designs that produce the results you’re looking for.
What would you do if you didn’t have to worry about creating your own thumbnails? Would you spend your extra time creating additional content? Promoting your brand and your channel on other social media platforms? Your time is valuable. Invest it wisely by letting the professionals handle your YouTube thumbnail designs.
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