- If there's one thing holding you back on YouTube,
it's probably not even the algorithm,
it's probably your thumbnails.
Hey everybody, this is Roberto Blake,
of robertoblake.com, helping you
create something awesome today.
And today we're gonna talk about YouTube thumbnails.
This is another YouTube advice video.
I usually do these on Fridays,
but I sneak them in sometimes on other days of the week.
So if you're trying to grow your YouTube channel,
you're struggling as a YouTuber,
or you're trying to grow your online business
and leverage YouTube as marketing,
then you might want to subscribe.
I started doing YouTube videos seriously
and on a regular basis in July of 2013.
It seems like forever ago now,
but one of the advantages
that I came to the YouTube platform with
was mastery of Photoshop.
So I had shops in Photoshop and that meant
that I could do really good YouTube thumbnails.
My first videos on YouTube actually revolved a lot
around tutorials for video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro,
and also tutorials in Adobe Photoshop.
So, those are skills that you actually need
as a YouTuber.
You need to be able to make great thumbnails,
but you also need to be able to edit great videos.
And I came to the platform with those skills.
But are also the thing that I wanted to teach other people.
Not everyone has those skills.
I was making videos and doing Photoshop
before YouTube ever existed, and that's not everybody.
So I want to give you some practical advice.
I think we'll do this as five tips
that can actually make your YouTube thumbnails better,
and then also I have a tool that can help you
if you're just someone who's not good at design
and visual art.
So one of the first tips is going to be
mastering your software.
You need visual editing software
in order to make YouTube thumbnails, and to make them good.
The obvious choice is Adobe Photoshop,
which is currently a subscription
that's ten dollars a month.
You also get another photo-editing program
called Adobe Lightroom, which is more geared
toward photographers.
For ten bucks a month, it's a great deal,
but not everyone can afford it for some reason or another,
or they just don't like the subscription model.
That's fine.
There is another great option available to you.
If you can't do Photoshop, the next best option
is something called Affinity Photo.
Affinity Photo is a standalone application
for both Mac and PC, just like Photoshop
is for Mac and PC, while it's not an Adobe killer,
it does have a lot of the same features
and streamlined interface, and it's only 50 bucks for life,
no subscription model.
The beauty of this is Affinity Photo also opens
Photoshop files, which means that you can still work
within that same type of file system.
You can still use all the templates that you can find
online for Photoshop, or any other resources you have.
If you used to be a Photoshop user,
you still get to use them in Affinity Photo
if you switch over.
So that's an option for you.
Finally, there's the free option: GIMP,
which is Graphic Image Manipulation Program,
I think is what the acronym stands for.
GIMP has been around forever and GIMP is opensource.
But you know what that means.
If it's opensource and free, then it's also clunky
and it's not updated very often.
So, that's what you live with. You get what you pay for.
Mastering these software tools means that you can make
your thumbnails better.
It also means you can make them faster.
And the more you understand the tool that you're using,
the better off your life is gonna be.
If I didn't use Photoshop literally every single day,
Premiere Pro every single day, I don't know
that I would be able to do nearly as many things
or as much content as I would
because the process would just take forever.
So once you master your tools,
and you don't have to learn every single tool
in the program.
You don't have to learn every single menu system.
You just have to really focus on the ones that apply to you,
and get really good at them.
So, I think that that makes a huge difference,
and it will save you so much time,
so once you choose a tool,
watch as many tutorials as you can,
for like 30 minutes or an hour a day,
and then spend every other day working in it for an hour,
not just to make something but to just try to
understand it a little bit better.
And I think that that will definitely help you.
Tip number two is more of a design tip.
Don't make cluttered thumbnails.
Cluttered thumbnails that are very overwhelming,
and they have no real priority to them
are the most annoying thing in the world,
and no one likes clicking on them,
and they're just a headache to look at.
Minimalism is the key here, ladies and gentlemen.
You want to know about minimalism?
Look at the design of Apple.
Looking at the marketing of Apple and Samsung
and Microsoft. Less is more.
Less is often more.
Simple and clean thumbnails go a long way,
especially when you're just getting started.
Don't try to be fancy.
It's overkill.
Just like trying to be too fancy with your YouTube videos
when jump cuts will get a lot done for you.
It makes a difference.
I got to 280,000 subscribers without being that fancy.
I'm good, but I decided that I wanted to do
a certain amount of output.
I wanted to not throw eight hours a day into this,
and so minimalism is your friend.
It's also your friend in design
when it comes to these thumbnails.
So take that seriously.
Speaking of good design, let's talk about fonts.
Tip number three: better typography, better fonts,
and make sure that you're not using too many of them.
Here's how to do better with your thumbnails
with regard to fonts.
Number one: stop putting red text on black backgrounds.
We can't read it. It doesn't work.
Learn color theory. That's another tip.
But, learn color theory.
The other thing I would definitely say is
make your fonts big enough
if you're going to bother to use them,
make them big enough to read
because 60% of traffic is coming from
the YouTube mobile app now, which means that these things
are really teeny tiny.
So we need to be able to read them.
It needs to be able to kind of be like the billboard test.
If something would make a good billboard,
it would make a good thumbnail.
So really just understand that we don't want to squint.
I usually wear glasses.
Make your text big enough to read.
Make it stand off of the background.
Try not to run the text over anything
that's really too distracting.
Like I said, that clutter, it doesn't help.
Get better at typography.
And by the way, do not use more than two or three
different fonts in a thumbnail.
It's confusing, it's distracting,
and it usually doesn't look good.
And if you don't have a background in graphic design,
probably should stick to one or two fonts and that's it.
Also, everything doesn't always have to be the same size.
I'll do a whole video dedicated
probably to each of these tips at some point.
But I just want to run you through that
because it makes a huge difference.
Earlier I mentioned color theory.
I'm gonna give you a good hack for those of you
who don't know what color combinations to put together,
and you don't want to learn color theory
or use a color wheel.
Here's cheap trick you can use.
Go look up a lot of different sports teams.
Look at the color pairings for their uniforms.
Steal those color pairings, and all of a sudden,
you'll know what colors to put with what.
They've already done the research for you.
It is literally that simple.
You also want to use, in a lot of cases,
colors that really stand out against
the white background of YouTube.
We do have YouTube's dark mode now,
but most people still use the default,
they don't know about that.
So something that doesn't stand out
against the white background
probably doesn't make for a good thumbnail.
You could also use borders around your thumbnails
to help give them a little bit more attention.
So, just look at things like that that are eye-catching,
because you need that attention
in order to be able to stand out,
and to get that initial click,
that's gonna get you more views
and get you more subscribers.
Color can really help with that.
Tip number five is context.
Thumbnails have to tell a story.
Thumbnails have to entice us, trigger curiosity,
trigger an emotion. They have to lead us down a path.
They have to be something that's worthy of clicking on.
Instead of thinking about click-bait,
think about click-worthy.
Click-bait vs. click-worthy is a video that I need to do.
Something that's worthy of our click.
Something that is exciting to us,
but also, you have to deliver on that promise,
meaning that if the video has nothing to do with this,
then it's click-bait.
If you were somehow misleading or deceptive,
that's click-bait.
Your goal is to use a portion of the story
to help you decide what would make a good thumbnail
around this, that is the most exciting point
in the story that I can highlight in some way
and then that is what is going to be click-worthy.
So, I would encourage you to not take just the still images
out of your video and make a thumbnail,
that doesn't get it done.
I would say that maybe you take advantage of photography.
I mean, you're already using a camera
to make YouTube videos.
What's the point of not doing a little photo
that's dedicated to telling the story, right?
It's just a little bit of extra work.
I think that that could go a long way.
I think that making sure your thumbnail
tells the right story, conveys the message of your video,
will help you.
Finally, let's talk about something I made
for those of you who need to make good YouTube thumbnails
right now, and you don't have the time to master
software or learn all the design shops
and all the design terminology and techniques.
I did make something that can help you
called the YouTube Starter Kit.
The YouTube Starter Kit is a bundle
of Photoshop templates and other assets and resources.
I'm even going to add some stuff that's Canva-friendly
for those of you who want to use free tools
like Canva, and you can use this to make
really good YouTube thumbnails.
I've already done most of the work for you,
and you just have to drop in your photos.
So, take those photos, or your text,
in terms of just typing in what you want.
I've already done all the typography.
I've already done all the special effects.
I've already done all of the color.
It's right there for you.
So, there's a bunch of those things.
But I've also done some YouTube channel artwork,
I put in some lower thirds for you guys
that you can go ahead and bring into your editor
and you can animate it yourself.
And I also have some other great little bonuses in there,
including links and resources for free music,
hundreds upon hundreds of songs that you can download
for free, and also the best 100 fonts
that you can use for your YouTube videos.
So, the YouTube Starter Kit is something
that is a product that I sell over on
Awesome Creator Academy.
I'm gonna go ahead and link you guys over
to the YouTube Starter Kit,
and you might want to check the description
to see if there's any kind of discount or sale
going on right now.
Because if there is, I would have updated this video,
and put that link in there.
So, you're welcome.
I made this insanely affordable
because if you had to buy individual templates
you'd be paying five dollars to 20 dollars a piece.
And I'm giving you a hundred of these,
and it's usually for 99 bucks.
So you're getting over a hundred assets,
because I keep adding to it,
and they're coming out to
less than a dollar a piece upfront.
And I also might be running a sale.
So, if that's something you want to take advantage of,
you can just go ahead and grab it from the link down below,
but if you want to go ahead and do it yourself,
like I did, then I've got a ton of tutorials
on this channel that can help you
make better YouTube thumbnails,
that can help you with graphic design,
that can teach you Photoshop, and other tools.
In fact, there are other graphic design tools
that you guys want me to cover,
you want me to do more with Affinity Photo,
or you want to do YouTube thumbnails
that are based in photography,
and you want me to give you some of my tips,
what lenses to use.
I have videos covering that as well.
So, again, if you don't want to buy the YouTube Starter Kit
and you want to do this on your own,
I'm gonna help you do that too.
So, maybe that's something that you want
to subscribe to the channel and check out.
Question of the day: Aside from thumbnails,
what's holding you back in YouTube?
I think some of you actually might be struggling
in YouTube analytics.
Should I make more videos covering that?
Let me know in the comments section.
What's holding you back in YouTube?
Like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome content on the channel.
As always, you guys, thanks so very much for watching.
And don't forget, go out there
and create something awesome today.
Take care.
(easygoing music)