I’m going to show you how to make attention getting thumbnails for your YouTube videos
that will attract more viewers.
It’s easy.
You won’t need any graphic design knowledge, and you won’t need any money.
Stay tuned to find out more.
Intro
It’s Simon from the Ordinary Filmmaker.
If you’re new here, make sure you click the subscribe button, and all the links to
everything I have talk about in this video are in the description down below.
Before getting started, I want to give a big thanks to Sean over at Think Media for inspiring
this video.
In this video, Sean talks about coming up with a new spin on old ideas, and there are
many videos talking about creating video thumbnails, but in this video I tie thumbnail creation
to the importance of a good title, description and supporting keywords.
After all, your goal is to get your video notice and watched correct?
It is not just about creating engaging thumbnails.
As Sean has stated, custom thumbnails are essential for getting people from YouTube,
Google Search, and across social media to view your video.
After this video, you too will be able to create thumbnails like the pros by telling
you their secrets, resulting in more viewers, subscribers and watched hours.
There’s no cost, and it only takes a few minutes.
Start by taking a picture of yourself.
You don’t need a professional camera.
Your smart phone will do.
You can do a screen grab, but the pros always take photos before or after producing the
video.
Some channels, mine included, will create thumbnails without a portrait from time to
time.
Look at the thumbnails created by Casey for Camera Conspiracies.
He uses basic colours like red, yellow, or black for the background before adding a simple
caption.
He has a unique look and his subscribers recognize his thumbnails.
Here’s a thumbnail I created comparing two professional cameras.
But you are part of the brand, so place yourself in the video.
When your video thumbnail shows up through notifications or browsing, your subscribers
will immediately recognize your videos, cutting through the noise, and increasing your click
through rate.
You can do a screen grab, but the professionals always take photos.
The quality is much better.
Take several shots.
Try different poses.
If you can, get someone else to take the shots for you, otherwise use the camera’s timer
or the smartphone with a selfie stick.
Next, go to canva dot com and create an account.
Canva provides the best user experience, and its free.
While they have a paid service, I have yet to need the features provided by it, and I’ve
been using canva dot com since I started my channel four months ago.
Now that you’ve created an account, locate Use Custom Dimensions on the main screen.
Use nineteen twenty by ten eighty.
Do not increase the resolution as YouTube has a two megabyte limit for the thumbnails.
BREAK.To add the photo we created earlier, simply drag the photo from the desktop, file
manager or finder on the mac.
You can also upload from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Canva keeps a copy of previously uploaded files so they can be used later.
I’m going to select an image I used on a previous project.
Images are easy to position.
Move it around until you have yourself positioned correctly.
You can even zoom in.
My image has a transparent background so I’m going to need a background image.
On the left, click on photos.
Let’s look for a pattern.
Yep, I like that one.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of free image available.
Paid accounts get access to a million images.
Let’s punch up the photo and background.
Start by adjusting the brightness and contrast.
Each image is different and needs to be adjusted on its own merits.
There, that looks good.
And now for the background.
There.
Good.
As you can see the settings are a little different.
Now let’s increase the saturation.
Again, don’t overdue this.
Use your best judgement.
We are not making a Rembrandt here.
Our goal is to attract viewers, not scare them away.
Generally, an increase of twenty to thirty percent is sufficient.
I’m going to pull back on the blur to sharpen the image.
There, that’s it.
Notice the difference between the original photo and the one we just created?
This is what separates the amateurs from the pros.
Okay, We’re almost done.
But now we need a caption.
You’ve got their attention with the photo, but you need a good tag line to pull them
in.
Keep it simple.
Don’t use a lot of words.
Thumbnails are small.
If you add too many words people won’t be able to read it, especially those who have
poor vision.
Don’t restrict your audience needlessly.
Professionals keep words to a minimum, and make them large, taking up as much as a half
or third of the image.
I’m going to create three lines of text.
The first is Quick and Free.
But first, I need a background for the text found over in Elements.
The square works for most thumbnails.
Let’s make it rectangular.
Change the colour to yellow.
You’ll find yourself going back and forth between the text size and placement until
you have it right.
There, that looks good.
Reuse will save you a lot of time.
Let’s copy what I just did, paste, and move in to position.
Change the background to green.
Change the text.
Adjust the text box size, and placement.
Simple.
Now for the last text box.
Same as before.
Copy.
Paste.
You can see that it does not take long to get used to using Canva.
Line everything up nicely.
Looks pretty good, but something is missing.
I’ve got an idea.
Just a second.
That looks good.
There that looks much better.
Now to download th thumbnail.
The download icon is in the top right.
I suggest downloading jpeg.
Youtube has a limit of two megabytes.
PNG files are often over this size.
Good, that’s done, but we are not finished.
Look at my thumbnail, my description, and my title for this video.
I have given you what I said I would give you in this video.
I’ve earned your time with me, you’re like or subscribe.
But what is the real reason you are here?
What results are you expecting from creating a professional looking thumbnail?
I don’t believe you are here because you want to produce professional thumbnails.
I mean you are, but that’s not the end result you expect is it?
The real reason WHY you are here is to get people to watch your video, to increase your
views, average view duration, watch time, subscriber count, and likes.
Your thumbnail is a promise as to what viewers will see.
I grabbed their attention with the thumbnail art, but you likely need to carefully think
about the title and description.
A great thumbnail, but poor title or description and you won’t get as many views.
I pulled you in with a promise to help you build video thumbnails quickly, easily and
without any cost.
But to be truly effective, the caption you add here needs to align with the video title,
which needs to align with the video description, and the caption, title and description need
to be included in your tags.
Give me a few more minutes, I’ll break it down and show you another great free tool
I use when I come up with my title, description, caption and tags.
My caption for this video is Quick Free Custom Thumbnails.
My title gives you more, and lets you know it is a tutorial.
My title is, How to Make a YouTube Custom Thumbnail Tutorial Easily for Free.
But people like to read the description.
This is where I need push them over the edge, and get them to click the video.
It is in the description that you first realize that there is more to the video than just
creating a thumbnail.
The description is the first introduction to why I am producing this video, and the
result you can expect if you watch the video.
The description is to Create your Custom Youtube Thumbnail Video.
Plus learn how to write title, description, and tags to get more views, and more subscribers,
to make more money.
I have structured the thumbnail, title and description to attract and pull in the viewer.
However, YouTube has no idea what the video is about.
YouTube learns about what your video was about through the tags.
When you upload your video, at the bottom, there is a link called other options.
Click on that and you’ll see tags.
If you don’t have your tags set up properly, you are not going to get noticed.
It’s just that plain and simple
I use VidIQ to help me come up with tags, and to refine my title and description.
VidIQ helps me understand what to include through the use of a scoring system.
Any score over 40 is considered good.
These are the tags I came up with using VidIQ.
It’s very important to have the title and description represented in the tags.
Don’t be afraid to use phrases of three or more words.
Then break up the tags into individual words.
I use keyword Inspector to help me understand which phrases are popular.
Don’t just focus on phrases that are popular.
Consider lower search volume phrases with a low competition.
Go back to review your tags, title and description again.
Check your score.
See what is not represented, then go back into Keyword inspector.
You have up to 500 characters to dedicate to your tags.
Use every possible character.
It tells YouTube what your video is about.
Only have a few tags, and your video won’t get surfaced much.
Creating the thumbnail is easy and quick, but developing the thumbnail, coming up with
the title, description and tags take effort and some thought.
It takes time and isn’t easy.
As you have probably already learned from starting your own channel, the rabbit hole
is very deep.
There is so much to learn.
Having a great thumbnail is only one piece of the puzzle.
The best way to explain the level of effort in starting and growing a channel, look at
the credits for a twenty minute TV show.
Look at the roles.
See how many people are required for a single 20 minute show.
No realize you are responsible for all of these roles.
In this video, I talk about the importance of having a vision, goals and objectives for
your channel.
This provides your channel focus.
Thumbnails attracts potential viewers, the title and description pulls them in.
The next fifteen seconds determines if they will stay or click out of your video, but
for them to even see your video, ensure that your tags are set up correctly along with
your title, and description.