How to Optimise Your YouTube Video Thumbnails

Making your mark on YouTube means getting people to click on your videos. Your average feed has dozens of videos from subscribers, known influencers, and recommended channels – so how do you make yours stand out?

Thumbnails are one of the most pivotal components of a YouTube video. They summarise what your video is about, add a visual component, and encourage users to click. YouTube video thumbnails are a core part of the SEO strategies we advise about at MinMxD, and in this article, we’ll tell you all about them: how they affect views, how to create them, and how to make sure you’ve got the right fit.

Get in touch today to see how we can minmax your YouTube strategies!

Whether a user is scrolling down their feed, watching a related video, or checking out your channel, you want to make sure they see something they like. Every video on YouTube comes with a thumbnail attached – making yours stand out, and making sure the user is interested, is the primary role of YouTube thumbnails in affecting your views.

YouTube video thumbnails can also refer to the short video that plays when someone hovers over your video on desktop, or leaves their screen over it on mobile. These videos can also be optimised, and serve a similar purpose to the static thumbnail – giving the viewer a sneak peek into your video’s content.

Ways that YouTube thumbnails affect your views include:

• Providing a higher click-through rate (CTR)
• Offering extra information on top of your title
• Grab attention through attractive visuals
• Summarise the video’s content
• Offer brand recognition – this can be done through consistency within thumbnails (e.g. formatting, colours, logos, or even your face)
• Drawing people in through emotion and engagement (such as through expressions, action, or images that suggest a story)

Optimised thumbnails with these features in mind really help your video stand out from the crowd.

Another thing to bear in mind with optimisation is mobile versus desktop. If you really want to minmax your viewership potential, make sure to align your thumbnails with what’s best for mobile viewers with smaller screens. Statistics show that in Q3 and Q4 of 2023, nearly 90% of YouTube users accessed it via mobile. If you want to make data-driven, impactful decisions for your thumbnail optimisation, mobile should be at the top of your priority list.

What is YouTube SEO?

YouTube thumbnails are a part of the larger concept of YouTube Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). This involves optimising:

• Your channel page
• Playlists
• Metadata
• Video descriptions
• The videos themselves

Beyond this, you can also consider whether you’re optimising your content for YouTube or for other search engines like Google or Bing. Ideally, your content would be optimised for all these channels so that it’s most likely to show up in front of your prospective viewers.

Thumbnails, and your video title, work together and are a crucial part of your YouTube SEO. They share a close relationship as they need to convey the content of your video but in different ways. Both your thumbnail and your title serve to bring in users, and show users and search engines what your video is about before they event click on it – like the title of a webpage, or the name of a book.

Check out our YouTube SEO strategies for gaming content creators to find out more >

There are two main ways to create a YouTube thumbnail: outsource it, or create it yourself. Many creators find that outsourcing their thumbnail creation is a great move which leaves them to pursue more engaging activities like creating new content while also increasing the overall quality of their thumbnails through bespoke-design graphics and visuals.

However, if you’re set on making your own thumbnails – be it for creative control, budget, or any other reason – then you need to know how to do it.

To create thumbnails yourself, it’s good to have a basic grasp of design concepts like branding, colours, text visibility, and image composition. If you can tick these boxes off, the next step is to choose where you’re going to make your thumbnails.

Here is a step-by-step guide to making a YouTube thumbnail:

1. Source an image, such as a frame from your video, a screenshot, or a photo
2. upload it to an online thumbnail tool, or edit it offline on an image editor to a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels
3. Add text, background, and other visual elements to make your thumbnail look professional and stand out
4. Add a photo of yourself – your face can be your brand, and people respond well to videos with people in the thumbnail

If you’ve followed these steps, you should now have a serviceable thumbnail to use on your YouTube video! In case you’re stuck, some great tools to use are Canva, Adobe, or Fotojet – it’s worth playing around with each to see which you prefer.

After creating your thumbnail, it’s time to test whether it’s making an impact. A/B testing lets you check the metrics for your thumbnails, including things like:

• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Traffic
• Engagement
• Viewership rates

This allows you to determine what works, and what doesn’t. You can then use this data to inform your thumbnail choices. Online tools like TubeBuddy can be a good way to perform these tests.

As many A/B tools are paid, it’s worth considering whether this is something you really need, or whether you can do other forms of market research to make an informed decision in a different way.

How to Change a YouTube Thumbnail

You can set a thumbnail while uploading a video to YouTube, but you can also change it after the fact by going through your Creator studio and editing the specific upload you’re trying to amend.

The best practice for setting a custom thumbnail is to schedule your upload, upload it as draft, or upload it privately first. This lets you make on-platform adjustments like thumbnail, title, tags, and description before the video goes live.

If you post your video privately before making it publicly available, this gives the added benefit of allowing you to check that everything is working as intended (both in the video, and the other features like thumbnail surrounding it). This is also useful for adding in crucial contractual elements, like comments talking about a sponsorship.

Strategies for Your YouTube Thumbnails

The first thumbnail you set for your YouTube video doesn’t have to be its last. In fact, many creators like to change their title and thumbnail shortly after the video goes live. This could be to make it more relevant to the video’s content, to drive in additional traffic, or be due to changes based on observed metrics.

In any case, setting and changing your YouTube thumbnails should be based on an overarching strategy. Here are our top six tactics you can follow to achieve the best results:

1. Consider your target audience – what do they want to see? Typically, this will be something that lets them know the video is from you, that shows them what the video is about, and that includes some kind of incentive or engagement that makes them want to click.
2. Pay attention to shifts in how thumbnails are displayed in your niche, and align yourself with these changes.
3. Make the title work with the thumbnail, not against it. They shouldn’t repeat information, but instead give unique value to offer even more of an idea about what your video will cover.
4. Don’t make your designs too complex – it’s best to appear simple, easy to understand, and enticing to your viewer.
5. Use text sparingly – some text is ok, but the thumbnail is best served as a visual aid. Make sure any text you do place pops out of the page and is clearly visible on top of the background.
6. Use colour psychology to set the mood for your video. This can set your viewer up with the right emotions in place to enjoyable view your content.

Building your thumbnails means understanding your audience, using the right resources and people, and feeding into an overarching strategy. While crucial in getting viewers, your thumbnails will work best when paired with good content and a plan for growth.

At MinMxD, we provide YouTubers and content creators of all shapes and sizes with bespoke services and strategies to achieve the results they desire. If you’re interested in how we can help you reach your potential, get in touch today.

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