How To Make Youtube Thumbnails To Get Views!

one of the most important aspects to whether  or not your video is going to appear in search   results or just generally in the youtube algorithm  is your ctr otherwise known as your click-through   rate which means you need a killer thumbnail  in order to get people to click your video and   boost that ctr that's why today we're going  to look at your thumbnails you submitted to   us and give you feedback about how you can make  them more clickable for your audience let's go hey i'm Eljay with streamscheme.com i'm also  a variety streamer over at twitch.tv/eljayem_   there are links to both those in the description  i'd really appreciate it if you felt like checking   me out while i'm live we're gonna go through  and give you guys feedback on your thumbnails   you submitted and at the end of this i'm gonna  completely rebuild one of your thumbnails from   scratch will it be yours stay tuned in all  seriousness though the surprising part of this   video that i didn't expect that i really don't  think you guys will expect is the fact that when   we rebuild this person's thumbnail at the end it  is so much easier and simpler to make a clickable   thumbnail than what the majority of you guys  are actually doing it seems like you guys are   really over complicating it so hopefully if you  watch to the end you'll understand what i mean   i've said the word thumbnail already too much  that it's lost all meaning so let's get into it   and by getting into it i mean get into our sponsor  of today's video skillshare i'm sure you guys know   about skillshare by now but if you don't it is  an online learning community with thousands of   classes for creators of all levels the first 1  000 of my subscribers to click the link in the   description or in the top comment will actually  get a free trial of premium membership for a whole   month not just two weeks like last time so you can  check out any of the classes you want for a whole   30 days a class i really recommend if you want to  be a youtuber is youtube success script shoot and   edit which is written by marcus brownlee it is a  massive help for me to refresh myself i literally   watch this every three four months if you don't  know marcus brownlee he is one of the biggest   youtubers on the platform and he understands  it very well skillshare is honestly a fantastic   platform focused entirely for learning which  means you can watch and study as many classes   as you want without any ads and really guys i say  it every time but it is a fantastic investment for   you as a creator to pick this up not sure what  you're waiting for because it is a free trial   as well so just jump in have a go see if it's for  you you'll find the free trial in the description   and in the top comment alongside the time codes  for this video so feel free to skip ahead to any   section you want straight out of the gate you need  to think about your audience or if you don't have   an audience set you need to think about your key  demographic now you need to also consider what   your audience or key demographic are going to want  to watch and what you can do to make them click on   your videos let me give you an example nerd or die  asked me to review one of their thumbnails when i   put these submissions out and my first thought  was oh god i can't roast a brand and then i   thought actually this is really well made they've  done a fantastic job at making this look great   and then my third thought was yeah this isn't  very good it doesn't have much intent behind it   i really like you guys but you could have done so  much better i think the thumbnail looks fantastic   but let's talk about intent first we have to ask  who is nerdodye's key demographic or who is their   audience well it's streamers much like everyone  watching this video so what do streamers want to   do what does every single streamer want they want  to grow they want to grow their brand they want to   grow their viewership and they want to grow their  socials so if everyone wants to grow we need to   use that to our advantage it just says social  pop-ups in the thumbnail but if we had it say   grow your socials in big letters with maybe an  arrow pointing down we take this phone make it a   bit bigger we point out one pop-up instead it will  tell the story of the video and explain the tool   if you click this video you're going to learn  about a tool that is going to help you grow   your social media as a streamer that is what we  want to push these people because right now it's   kind of just explaining it's a video about social  pop-ups there's no intent they're not going to get   anything out of it which means the only people  clicking it are people who already are looking   for social pop-ups my actionable tip here is  that sometimes beauty doesn't mean it's going   to be the best thumbnail a lot of my thumbnails  graphic design wise suck but because they heavily   appeal to their key demographic they work and they  perform so think about your user's intent and then   think about what you can do to boost that intent i  hope that helps and i'm sorry no that i don't mean   to be harsh but you guys asked next up a tip that  i think every single person watching this should   have heard me say before in my other videos and  that is that youtube thumbnails are much smaller   when you upload them than when you're actually  editing them on your big screen if we look at   this thumbnail by benjalin i've just butchered  your name then you can see exactly what i mean i   think the concept is really good and can become  a really solid thumbnail that intrigues people   except we need to refine it a bit but this really  hammers home my point about how any small elements   in thumbnails just become useless when you shrink  it down you see the text becomes almost impossible   to read so we grab this businessman beta let's  make him a bit bigger more prominent ditch all   this text that is impossible to read because it's  so small and then it gets even harder with the   yellow text blending into the background let's  make the stonks larger and i believe at the time   of uploading this it was the world record for the  game which is a huge hook that isn't being used   empire at war world record in big letters is  enough to hit the key demographic of people   interested i think one of the big problems  for this thumbnail is also the background has   a lot going on which makes it hard to focus on  the elements which are also too small we need   to simplify a lot of this down because not only  will it be hard to see when it's shrunk but just   in general there's too much going on let's move on  to our next tip about simplicity so you understand   that thumbnails need intent and they need to be  quite large because when you shrink them down   it's really hard to see when you put all these  things together it also means you need to really   simplify what you're doing with your thumbnails  and that brings me to my three rules of thumbnail   simplification one you need a clear background  if your background has too much going on it'll be   very hard for people to engage and understand what  is going on two i want you to try and limit your   designs to three major elements visuals face text  don't put too much more in and three remove any   visuals that do not help you to tell the story if  the visuals don't help you sell what your intent   is don't help you sell what the video is ditch  them if they make it confusing ditch them if they   generally take up too much space and detract from  your main concept ditch them i made this mistake   a lot starting out and in my thumbnails today i  still do it but i've worked on it i've made a few   iterations of it and i'm trying to make it more  simple an example of too much being done though   is this thumbnail by zeisskuoh i've butchered your  name as well i'm sorry it seems like zai has put   a lot of time and energy into making this good  they've put a lot of thought into it and they've   really considered it and that's kind of why it's  gone wrong because you've got so much going on   some positive words before i say everything  though is that i actually love your pitch   like this play this it is simple it is clear  the only problem is the rest of your thumbnail   is detracting from that intent i want to ditch  the entire background for something more simple   and just pick two shows with the like this next  them with an arrow and then just pick two games   that match the shows play this with an arrow  next to them if you simplify it down it'll be   a lot clearer we could move zai up to the left and  honestly i'd really like to see you putting more   of an excited or interested or just engaging  face on i know it's embarrassing to go full   youtuber thumbnail and full youtuber face but it  works for a reason also can i just say this video   was great i got intrigued and wanted to see what  exactly it was about so i went and checked it out   it's kind of like you're walking around the park  and you find a really cool stick as a kid that's   what this video reminded me of it was just this  really nice diamond in the rough situation so zai   if you keep making content like this focus on this  style don't get distracted you'll do really well   so simplicity is a really common problem that  a lot of creators have we try and make things   as engaging as possible and we tend to get carried  away and add too many elements and when we add too   many elements it makes it hard for viewers to  understand exactly what the video is about in   a split second when they glance over it amongst  all the other thumbnails but then we can also have   the opposite problem such as this thumbnail by  equals null where you've gone far too simple the   first thing i want to say is you need to grab  one of the most common ghost models that is   used all the time and throw it in your thumbnail  because the truth is going back to intent as well   most of the time when people add their own face  to a thumbnail they're doing it because they're   trying to mimic larger creators but the reason why  these people put their face as such a main focus   in thumbnails is because their brand is known  and their face is known which means people are   more likely to click on it so for phasmaphobia we  need to throw our scary ghost in there on the left   we're gonna move equals over to the right since  he is looking right to left we want him looking   at the ghost so people's eyes follow where his  eyes are we're gonna ditch the words because   they don't make a reason to click and stop them  for letters saying something like that can happen   or first time scares i find text to be one of the  hardest elements to incorporate into a thumbnail   so let's cover exactly how i go about trying to  incorporate it and then we'll completely rebuild   someone's thumbnail in about two minutes but first  i want to throw it out there if this video helps   you out at all please consider subscribing to the  channel throwing us a like if you're looking to   connect with thousands of other creators all  trying to grow all doing amazing things all   trying to download free overlays then all three of  those things are in our discord which is linked in   the description feel free to go check that out  it is entirely free it's a really great place   even if you choose to leave right after you  should at least check it out right finally text   text is incredibly difficult because it's also  subjective about whether or not you should even   add it there are good and bad ways to add it and  there are certain videos where you just shouldn't   put text on it at all i do education content  which usually needs a little bit of text to help   round out what the story of the video is however  there are other videos out there where adding text   is really detrimental for example the thumbnail  at the end of this video we're not going to use   any text whatsoever to try and sell the story  it just didn't match and i'll explain why in   a second either way there are rules you should  always follow if you decide to push forward and   use text in your thumbnail let's take a look at  devil rain and yes i've butchered another username   and his thumbnail while i go through these  rules you're going to want to use large words   that stand out from your background easily don't  use thin fonts use thick easily readable fonts   i recommend using four words or less as  well so it isn't hard to read at a glance   make sure these four words are additive meaning  they don't just repeat the title they add more   reason to click if we look at my slobs  versus obs video i could have just written   slobs versus obs like everyone else who made  these videos but i went for time to switch in big   letters with a hard black drop shadow behind it  and i also made the switch red to help catch the   eye of potential viewers i'll show you guys how to  do these two things when i rebuild someone else's   thumbnail in a second then the arrow from text to  obs draws the eye and sells the story of oh hey   he's switching to obs whatever you choose for text  make sure it is very direct i make this mistake   all the time where i try and add something for the  text but it isn't direct or precise enough so now   we need to look at devil rain's thumbnail properly  with all this in mind and we can kind of see where   he goes wrong all of the text is too small there  are too many words and because the font is a thin   font when you add this white stroke and the drop  shadow to stand out it actually makes it harder   to read which is interesting because normally drop  shadows and strokes actually help things stand out   but everything i've talked about today in this  video all of the feedback i've given you guys   is very easily fixed and the fact is a lot of  you guys are beginners we all start somewhere   i'm not going to show you the thumbnails i  made before this youtube channel because i'm   trying to be an authority in the subject so  let's put everything into action and rebuild   another one of benja's thumbnails the reason  i chose this one was because i think it really   incorporated every mistake that i've talked about  in this video i'm sorry ben and i think i had a   really good concept about how i could improve  it and simplify it avengers new video was about   how he'd built a bot for twitch chat to control  captain quark inside ratchet and clank so that   was the story we needed to tell if we look at this  thumbnail you can really tell that everything i've   covered in today's video has gone wrong there are  too many elements they're all too small the text   in twitch chat is unreadable because of that  and the story is confusing as to what is going   on so let's simplify it and yes i'll be using  photoshop but any photo editing software will have   everything i do in this video available for you to  use so let's switch over to photoshop and get into   simplifying this down first we need to pick three  elements we want to use our intent is to tell the   story of chat controlled quark aka chat controlled  game so we need twitch chat and it needs to be   visibly sending commands or controls that look  like a gamepad controls let's grab the chat and   drop it on the left hand side over here and let's  zoom in so people can see the control commands   if we think about our key demographic they should  be familiar with chat controlled games ever since   twitch played pokemon and everything like that  happened now we need quark or something from   ratchet and clank let's get a high res image that  won't look bad in 1920x1080 thumbnail just because   you guys are using a ps2 emulator doesn't mean  you should use a ps2 emulator in your thumbnail   go high res it'll be better for clicks and it  isn't lying don't worry we're going to scale   up our new high-res quark and then we're going to  use this quick select mask to make a cutout of him   essentially we're just selecting him and removing  the background but because i actually like the   background what i'm going to do is i'm going to  right click duplicate layer so it stays in the   exact same spot and then i'm going to remove the  mask from the lower layer to add the background   back in this gives us a quark on top and it  also gives us a background and quark below him   i then put the duplicated layer underneath the  chat layer and because we've now duplicated it   it means the cutout is still above chat which  means his fingers are also above chat this adds   depth to the image to help add further depth i'm  going to add an outer glow just to his cutout   it'll make his fingers stand out well against the  black background of the chat another tough part is   connecting the two story elements we have the chat  here that has controls and we have the character   we're going to be controlling i tried using text  but couldn't find a nice hook i tried things like   chat controlled or this controls this but at the  end of the day i really liked the current design   and any text seemed to distract from it so i  went with an arrow with a hard drop shadow and   some red to point from chat controls to quark it  also helps add a little bit more eye catching to   this section in the middle here that said it just  wasn't popping enough for me yet so i go down here   and i add a brightness and contrast layer for  the entire comp and then i up the brightness   and contrast just slightly not too much because  it'll become gross but just enough to help the   entire image pop and stand out the final step  and the most important step of this entire thing   shrink it down and see how it looks when it's  much smaller bosh i am very happy with this and   i really think it sells the story now in fact benj  is now using this exact thumbnail that i made for   him so clearly he's happy with it too and now the  most important part of this video that you guys   always forget to do i need you to comment down  below kapow because that is our 100 crew code word   go confuse everyone else and i'll make sure to  give you guys your 100 crew badge i appreciate   you watching this i hope it helped you out  thank you so much for everyone who submitted   their thumbnails anyway i will see you guys  next week thank you so much for watching bye

Channel: Stream Scheme

Views: 9,449

Keywords: how to create thumbnails for youtube, how to create thumbnails that gets more views, how to create thumbnails on youtube that get views, how to make better youtube thumbnails, how to make custom thumbnails on youtube, how to make really good thumbnails on youtube, how to make thumbnails that get more subscribers, how to make thumbnails that get views, how to get more views with thumbnails

Id: Rbt19POj88c

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 28 2021