Hey guys and welcome back to my channel.
In today's video I'm going to be sharing with you how to make a YouTube banner.
This video idea was requested by Affiliate Marketing with ELK Endeavors.
He said: "I also need to make my picture for my YouTube channel!", and he's totally right.
Without a good YouTube banner, that shows those who land on your channel who you are
and what you do, you may be losing out on tons of viewers and subscribers.
So stay tuned until the end of this video to learn how to make a YouTube banner for
free with Canva, and to get a FREE cheat sheet with 9 brilliant tools that you can use in
your online business to save time and boost your productivity.
Also, make sure to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified every time I post a new video.
With that said let's go ahead and jump right in.
First off, let's cover the features you should add to your YouTube banner.
As you can see from my own YouTube banner, I've included my photo, name (Marina Lotaif),
channel name (Yes To Tech), the type of content I publish (tutorials for non-techie online
entrepreneurs), as well as my upload frequency (every Tuesday and Thursday).
If we take a look at other YouTubers, you'll notice that they include the same kind of
information.
For instance, let's take a look at Sunny Lenarduzzi's YouTube banner.
She included her photo, name, which is the same as her channel name (Sunny Lenarduzzi),
the type of content she publishes (helping you be your own boss), as well as her upload
frequency (every Tuesday and Friday).
To create a YouTube banner, we'll be using Canva, which is free to use, as well as YouTube's
pre-made channel art templates.
To access these templates, make sure you're logged in to your YouTube channel and are
on your channel's page.
Once there, hover over your channel banner, and click on the photo icon that appears on
the right.
Click on the link that says 'how to create channel art', and then scroll down on the
page that opens up, until you reach the 'YouTube banner template & size guidelines'.
Click on the downward pointing arrow next to where it says 'channel art template', and
then click on 'channel art templates' to download them to your computer.
When we open up the zip file, you'll notice that there will be two file types: a png image
and a psd file for Photoshop editing.
We'll be uploading the png image onto Canva.
Let me show you how to do that.
In your Canva account, click on the search bar, and type in 'YouTube Channel Art'.
As you can see, this graphic size will be exactly 2560px by 1440px, which are the exact
dimensions recommended by YouTube for channel art.
So go ahead and click on it, and select the 'blank' template.
To upload the YouTube channel art template we saved to our computer to this design, click
on 'uploads' from the left-hand side menu, 'upload an image or video', locate the png
template in your files, and then click on 'open'.
Now drag-and-drop that onto your design, and resize it so that it occupies the entire space.
Here's the cool part: everything you add to this dark grey 'text and logo safe area' will
be visible on desktop, tablet, desktop max and TV, without having any bits or pieces
being broken off or invisible.
So let's add the important bits of information to our YouTube banner.
To add our picture, click on 'elements' from the left-hand side panel, 'frames', and then
drag-and-drop the circle frame onto the working area.
Resize it, and place it within the dark grey area.
Now click on 'uploads', and either click on 'upload an image or video' to upload a photo
of yourself to Canva, or if you already have done that, drag-and-drop that image so that
it's within the circle frame.
To add an icon, click on 'elements' from the left-hand side panel, and then either search
for the icon of your choice from the search bar, or scroll down on the elements tab to
find one of your liking.
Once you've found an icon you wish to add to your design, click on it, and resize and
reposition it.
To add our name, click on 'text' from the left-hand side panel, and then on 'add a heading'.
Write your name in the text box, change its font, size, color and appearance from the
text editor up top, and then place that text box under your photo frame.
Repeat the same process to add your channel name, the type of content you publish, your
upload frequency, as well as any other features you may want to add to your YouTube banner.
Once you've finished adding all the pieces of information, click on the YouTube channel
art template, and then click on 'delete' on your computer.
The amazing thing is that all of the elements you've added will be visible to your viewers
independent of the device they're using, even without the template as the background.
You can either leave the background white, or click on it, and then on the color picker
up top, to edit its color.
Once you've finished creating your design, rename it by changing the title up top, and
then click the 'download' button to edit the file type, size and any other options that
appear before clicking on 'download' again to save your design to your computer.
To add this YouTube banner design to your YouTube channel, back on YouTube, click on
'select a photo from your computer', locate the design you just created, and then press
'open'.
Adjust the crop if necessary, but since we used the template, you'll notice that our
design fits perfectly across all devices.
Then go ahead and click on 'select' to save your changes and make your YouTube banner
active.
Now you know how to make a YouTube banner for free with Canva, even if you're not design-savvy.
As promised, to get a FREE cheat sheet with 9 brilliant tools like Canva that you can
use in your online business to save time and boost your productivity, just click on the
link in the description box below.
So which features did you add to your YouTube banner?
I'd love to hear your answer and start a conversation in the comments below, and also make sure
to click on the link in the description box below to get a free 30-day trial of Canva
Pro, which is Canva's premium plan which includes everything in Canva, plus a bunch of other
amazing features.
If you're new around here, hi I'm Marina Lotaif from Yes To Tech, and I'd love for you to
join the family.
You can do so by hitting the subscribe button and if you're already subscribed, and want
to be notified every Tuesday and Thursday at 9:45am Eastern, just click on the bell
after you subscribe and you'll be notified every single time I post.
I hope you guys have an amazing day wherever you are and I'll see you in my next video.