People are easily attracted to click on content that is promoted by a real human face. The reason for this is because you give them an authentic emotion or vibe that they will see in the video. You can also Photoshop the face of a person in the video, and apply it to a different scene or background. Make sure they’re high quality and add more details, like the video’s title (just make sure it’s not clickbait), graphics, or other. You can do this by taking screenshots of your video and upload them instead of using whatever still YouTube chooses for you. Here are a few approaches for making a good custom thumbnail: Screenshot of your videoĪ good way to lure viewers in is to** give them a peek of what’s about to come** if they click your video.
For inspiration, you can check out our list of 19 of the best YouTube thumbnails. There are a lot of YouTube thumbnail templates that you can find online, but authenticity is advised. Now that we’ve gone through the YouTube thumbnail best practices, let’s delve deeper into the actual creation of custom thumbnails.
That will bring you to the pop up you see on the image below, where you’ll need to click on the “Select Files Button” next.Īfter selecting the file you need to upload, you’ll see this.Īfter setting up the video title and description of your video, scroll down a bit and you’ll notice an “upload thumbnail” button before the automatically generated looks that YouTube will offer.Ĭlick on the button, select the image file and that’s it! Click “Next” and make sure to apply all the information YouTube will need for your video to be uploaded, and with the right custom thumbnail, you can expect clicks coming in quickly. When you open your channel, select the “Upload Video” button to get started. Among other analytics, comment search filters, and other things, they also improved the experience with uploading videos (together with channel art and thumbnails). YouTube improved and added some changes to the Creator Studio in November 2019, and created this useful video on all the changes. Also, some search results might be inappropriate for different viewers because of age or location, so make sure to follow the rules and stay informed about all the reasons and rules. However, there are certain reasons why YouTube might disable your channel art, so make sure to research the YouTube Community Guidelines. Step 6: With your verified YouTube account you should be able to upload custom thumbnails to your video content, by accessing your YouTube studio. Click Submit and your account is now verified! Go through all the steps, like setting up two-step verification, choosing your country and phone number. Step 4: Click the “Channel status and features” option. Step 3: After a drop-down menu shows up, choose the “Settings” option. Step 2: Click on your profile icon in the upper right corner.
We’ll assume that you already registered a YouTube account, and move straight onto how to turn the option on.
Here’s how to make it possible to upload custom thumbnails on your YouTube channel. So your video’s thumbnail deserves more attention and effort.
And if you have it in a different format, don’t worry, there’s plenty of free online resizing and design tools available for this job.Īuto-generated thumbnails are often bland, unauthentic, and sometimes even blurry. If your image is in any other format than these four file types, you won’t be able to upload it. YouTube supports four image file formats: PNG, JPG, BMP, and GIF.
Also, when you post a video on social media, that’s the aspect ratio it’s shown in on the feed. This ratio allows all apps, web players, and devices (computers, smartphones, tablets) to display the video optimally. Aspect ratioĪs we already mentioned, the aspect ratio ideally should be 16:9 (16 units wide and 9 units tall). The reason for that is because this way images will load faster, whether on a desktop or mobile device. When it comes to image size, YouTube allows uploading a maximum file size of 2MB per image. However, if you decide to resize from a bigger size to 1280 px width in order to make sure the image loads faster, make sure you keep the same aspect ratio. Don’t resize it from a smaller size to 1280, cause that will destroy your quality and pixelate the image. If your thumbnail has less than 1280 pixels in width, make sure it’s not less than the recommended minimum width of 640. The best dimensions for a YouTube thumbnail image that will ensure optimal performance on any device or ratio is 1280 x 720 px.