Tips & Tricks
May 28, 2021

How to create the Best YouTube thumbnails to increase your video views?

Why YouTube Thumbnails are Important

It’s true that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but that doesn’t stop the vast majority of readers from trying.

Think about the last time you perused a library or bookstore. If you weren’t there to buy a specific book or look for an author’s latest release, you probably zeroed in on the book that had the flashiest cover. It might not have been a direct representation of the contents, but it certainly influenced your decision to pick it up.

It’s the same story with YouTube thumbnails, but because we’re talking about an industry run by bedroom-publishers and dominated by click-bait, the YouTube thumbnail is even less of a reflection of a video’s content and even more important for attracting attention.

You Need a Good YouTube Thumbnail

A lot of elements go into creating a good YouTube video. You need engaging content, a good idea, and a likable narrator/presenter. It takes time to edit a good video, and that’s before you consider the effort that went into planning, preparing, and filming.

The problem is, even if you perfect all of these aspects, your video will still fail if the thumbnail is poor.

The vast majority of YouTube views occur within the YouTube algorithm. The “recommended” videos are essential for a channel’s growth and a good thumbnail will help your video to cement its position on this list.

The goal is to increase your click ratio. In other words, you need more people clicking your video when it appears on their recommended page. The only way to do that is to create a thumbnail that stands out from everything else on the page.

Once that ratio increases, the YouTube algorithm realizes that you have something special, and so it gives you more virtual real estate, thus increasing your clicks. Eventually, you’ll rank highly on every user’s recommended list and may even earn yourself a spot on the Trending page.

It’s a long journey and there are a lot of “ifs” and “buts”, but it all begins with a good thumbnail.

Keep it Clean

The early days of YouTube were like the Wild West, where everything was possible and everyone could pretty much do what they wanted.

Thumbnails were filled with half-naked men and women striking sultry poses, or thumbnails that blatantly lied about content.

These days, those thumbnails are no longer effective. If you lie or trick a user, they’ll dislike your video and send it into the YouTube abyss.

You need to be honest and transparent while also titillating the viewer. It’s a tricky balance to strike, and that’s why not everyone is creating successful YouTube thumbnails!

It’s also important to watch the trends. If you start a YouTube channel in 2021 using the tactics employed by early adopters in the late 2000s, you’ll be ushered into obscurity.

See what works for other users, adopt the most successful styles, and make sure that thumbnail is perfect before publishing your hard-work on the platform. Otherwise, you could be spending 10+ hours filming and editing a video just to see it fail because you threw together a slapdash thumbnail in five minutes!

And remember, if you want an easy way to make high-quality thumbnails, use https://www.slazzer.com/advertising Snap a picture on your phone, remove the background in one-click with Slazzer, and you’re now ready to overlay text and create the next trending video!