How to create a clickable YouTube thumbnail

YouTube uploads 400 hours of video content per minute, which is consumed by 1.9 billion users per month. It can quickly happen that your YouTube thumbnail gets lost in the crowd. To prevent this, we have summarized the most important aspects so that your thumbnail stands out and positively influences the YouTube algorithm.   

What is the purpose of the YouTube thumbnail?

The main task of the display image on YouTube is to make it clear to the potential viewer as quickly as possible what your video is about. On the one hand, this task is also performed by the video title, of course, but the majority of all YouTube consumers primarily pay attention to the thumbnail. This should serve to give the user a first impression of whether this video could be relevant to him. Moreover, visuals can convey much more emotion and information than plain text. 

That is, the YouTube thumbnail allows us a greater potential to stand out, which we should use accordingly. The display image of our YouTube video should therefore on the one hand reflect the content of our video visually and/or in writing, make the user curious and make him click on the video.

What should be on the thumbnail?

As just described, the content of your video should be rendered in visual form. This can happen by taking a screenshot of an exciting part from your video.

Another variant – which we, for example, follow – is to have photos taken of you or the other protagonists of your video in the same outfit after the video shoot and then to crop them in a photo editing program and place them in front of a suitable background. It is important that when you create the YouTube thumbnail, you realize what is the most important element of this video.
For example, if you’re shooting live-action explainer videos, you’re the most important element.

This should be displayed as large as possible so that it can also be easily seen on smartphones. 

In general, it can be said that faces have a magical attraction on people. That is why e.g. also on Instagram usually photos with people better than nature photographs. So if it’s compatible with the video content, use faces on your display images.

First and foremost, as already mentioned, the thumbnail serves as a pictorial illustration. Nevertheless, you can include text boxes. The font should contain no flourishes, be as bold as possible, and be as clear and concise as possible. An example of this would be the often used font “Bebas Neue”.

Due to the fact that the thumbnail is displayed very small in YouTube search, your image should appear high-contrast, sharp and saturated, and contain large color areas.

An approximate guide is 30% oversaturation and 20% oversharpening.

Whether complementary or discordant colors are used depends entirely on your content. But the fact is – color stands out.

The use of pictorial means such as the cropped people and the background on one side, but also the text including the text box on the other side, should not make your image look untidy. Make sure that each element is placed sensibly, but still retain spaces between them.

In order to build up a certain channel CI over time, it is important to decide sooner or later on a certain design that is both recognizable and represents your company, your brand or simply you as a YouTuber to the outside world.

Which program to use to make your thumbnail clickable?

Besides the classic image editing programs like Photoshop and Gimp, there are also free design template websites that make life easier especially for the beginners.

One of these sites is Canva. With Canva you can use ready-made designs and customize them for yourself by changing colors, fonts, shape elements, and for example. Adding a background from your video and integrating it creatively.

Other programs you can use for YouTube thumbnail editing are Fotojet, Google Slides and Adobe Sparks.

Size and format of your thumbnail

The optimal YouTube thumbnail size is 1280 x 720 pixels. Therefore, when editing, make sure that you keep the 16:9 aspect ratio. It should not exceed a file size of 2 MB and be in one of these image formats: JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG.  

What big mistake should you avoid?

In the early days of YouTube, it was common practice to stand out on YouTube at any cost. That’s why caps lock titles with countless emojis, but also thumbnails with scantily clad ladies and naked skin were the rule. Both will be punished on YouTube in 2020. Although the use of the above-mentioned things is still partly allowed and would also attract attention, the YouTube algorithm punishes both harshly. Therefore, you should avoid nudity and clickbait in order to give your potential viewers the opportunity to click on your video in the first place through this YouTube SEO principle.

If you’re still having trouble creating your thumbnails or want to take your videos to the next level with professional video production, schedule an appointment now.