How to create great YouTube thumbnails

THE TWO MAIN FACTORS FOR RANKING YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEOS

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1: Optimizing Your Title

So you have made your video based around a really great keyword phrase, but their are still some important steps to getting your video ranked and watched. First, you need to cover what the viewer sees when they first see your video flash up in the search results.

1. Insert your keyword phrase in the video file name.

The first place you should put your keyword phrase is in your video file name. This will tell YouTube what the video is about.

Why?

YouTube can't actually "watch" your video to see how relevant it is to your target keyword, (although they can transcribe your video) but, YouTube can read your video's file name.

If your keyword phrase is "sales funnels for beginners" for example, your video's file name should be "sales funnels for beginners".

2. Insert your keyword naturally in the video title.

This is more important to your audience than it is you YouTube's search algorithmn When we search for videos, one of the first things that our eyes are drawn to is the title.

Along with the thumbnail, this is what determines whether or not the viewer will click to watch your video, so the title should be compelling, but also clear and concise.

It is a good idea to optimize your title for the keyword phrase, but only if it fits naturally into a title that tells viewers exactly what they're about to see. If it doesn't, don't worry.

Also, avoid using an enticing title that bears little or no relationship to the video content. This will just result in virtually no watch time, because viewers will immediately realize and switch to another video.

Make sure to keep your title fairly short. 60 characters or less is the accepted length. This means potential viewers will actually bother to read it.

Again, check out what your competitors are doing. Look at their highest ranking videos and see how the title reads.

Going back to our example from Brian Dean. This image shows Brian's most viewed videos. As you can see, the thumbnail doesn't change that much, well maybe the shirts are a little less scary!

Tips For Writing GREAT Headlines

Keep It Simple

Write your title so a 4th grader can understand it.
Build Intrigue

Use words and phrases like: Stop...

Before you do x watch this...
Use Uncommon Words

Make your viewers look twice at the title

Put Dates or Brackets In The Title

Research shows that adding dates or brackets increases views by 20%
Uplift Your Audience

Your title should be something that makes them want to watch because they think it will make them feel better.

Don't craft the video, first craft the title

Prince EA

Search vs Suggested Videos

YouTube explains in their discovery and search algorithm the following:

"Videos are ranked based on a variety of factors including how well the title, description, and video content match the viewer’s query. Beyond that, we look at which videos have driven the most engagement for a query, and make sure it’s easy for viewers to find those."

So yes, keywords matter from both "on-page" and “in-video” perspectives. Matching search intent is critical, especially when you are a new channel.

However, if you want to grow, you need to also start to appear in YouTube suggestions. The key ingredients for achieving this are watch time and high video engagement.

YouTube wants you to keep viewers on their platform for as long as possible. That’s because more watch time = more ads shown = more money in the bank for Google.

They also want you to drive engagement to your videos, through comments and shares, likes and dislikes and they’ll reward you with visibility in suggested search.

2: Optimizing Your Thumbnail

After your title, the thumbnail is the next most important item for getting people to click on your video. There is a lot of data on what works and what doesn't but here are the general rules.

1. Correct Thumbnail Dimensions

I would recommend you use an application like Canva to design your thumbnails. Canva has built in templates, but you can also use custom dimensions as follows:

YouTube Thumbnail Dimensions

Optimize your YouTube thumbnails with these dimensions: 1280 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall, with a minimum width of 640 pixels. A ratio of 16:9 is ideal as it's used most often in YouTube players and previews

In this video, Sean Cannell gives a really good overview of how to build and optimize a thumbnail using Canva

2. Best Thumbnail Color Schemes.

Your thumbnail is part of your branding, so use a consistent color scheme. You may have noticed from Brian Dean's videos we showed earlier, that all his thumbnails have the same green color scheme.

Use a Color Scheme That Stands Out

Notice that Brian's video stands out and is recognizable in this screenshot. Also, not that the Ahrefs video in Orange also stands out and is recognizable. They also use a consistent color scheme.

Your thumbnail is part of your branding, so use a consistent color scheme. You may have noticed from Brian Dean's videos we showed earlier, that all his thumbnails have the same green color scheme.

Notice that Brian's video stands out and is recognizable in this screenshot. Also, not that the Ahrefs video in Orange also stands out and is recognizable. They also use a consistent color scheme.

As you may have noticed, YouTube uses three main colors on their site: white, red and black on a gray background.

If your thumbnail uses lots of white, red, grey or black it’s going to be hard for your thumbnail to stand out.

Instead, try using these colors in your thumbnail:

Yellow or Gold*
Green
Orange*
Purple
Pink
Blue

You can also use a black background with these brighter colors* as text or graphics.

Playlist Color Schemes

Another approach is to choose a consistent color scheme for all videos in a playlist. Simon Sinek uses this technique in his "Infinite Game" playlist.