YouTube Thumbnail size
The ideal YouTube thumbnail size and best practices (2020)
Create an eye-catching YouTube Thumbnail to increase the click through rate of your YouTube videos
YouTube Thumbnail Dimensions
The best YouTube thumbnail dimensions are 1280 x 720 pixels. You can use the images of the format .JPG , .GIF, .BMP or .PNG. File size must be under the limit of 2 MB. The ideal aspect ratio is 16:9 to gain more views.
Why is youtube thumbnail size important?
In this fast-paced era, YouTube has emerged as the most streaming video website. Every video is unique and YouTube Thumbnail is the cover of your video having resemblance with the book cover. Imagine having the millions of subscribers and millions of views by just having the perfect Youtube thumbnail for your video to attract.
According to YouTube, 90% of top-performing videos on YouTube uses custom thumbnails. When user tends to see a video in organic searches with dazzling teaser, user can never stop himself from clicking on the video for watching purpose.
Luckily, you are on the right page for getting the best practices and tips regarding YouTube thumbnail size and how to make it so that you can get millions of views on your Youtube video. So, gear up guys, as the first ride of getting millions of views on your YouTube video is going to be started!
Perfect youtube thumbnail size
Every designer that plans to create image must be very conscious about the size and resolution of the image. There is standard defined for dimensions by Google that gives attractive outlook to it. Ideal YouTube thumbnail size and resolution is 720 * 1280 pixels.
best practices of Youtube thumbnail size
Minimum resolution:
The minimum recommended width and height are 640 px and 360 px respectively. This resolution is specifically used for high quality image as low-quality image will look more zoomed in and pixelated, which in turn will not give first good impression of video.
Formats of Images used:
You can use the images of the format .JPG , .GIF, .BMP or .PNG.
File size:
File size must be under the limit of 2 MB
Recommended Aspect ratio:
Most of the YouTube players use the ratio aspect 16:9 and it is also best for you to use for gaining more views.
How to make a thumbnail for YouTube
1. Login to gotodesigno.com and select the youtube thumnail template you like
2. Customize the deign based on your requirement by changing the text, color etc.
3. Download the thumbnail and upload on YouTube video. It’s that easy!
Step by step process to create YouTube Thumbnail
This first question which can come to your mind is “How to make YouTube thumbnail?” while thinking about making a thumbnail for YouTube. This most helpful tip can also solve your curiosity for how to make YouTube thumbnail!
GoToDesigno solves this problem for you by offering you a graphic design tool as thumbnail maker for YouTube. This versatile YouTube thumbnail maker is not only an easy to use tool but also works as an editor and includes fantastic drag and drop feature.
Login to GoToDesigno
Simply login to our website gotodesigno.com.
If you do not have an account, you can create one free of cost. It will take only few seconds to create an account.
For your ease, you can also login with Facebook or Google as well.
You can use our tool to make logos online for free. You can create professional logos in minutes. No graphic design expereince required.
Choose Category
There are many categories available like social media, blog, ads, logos, flyers, info graphics etc. Let’s choose logo for this video.
For this example, choose YouTube Thumbnail Category from the given options which give you a standard size thumbnail of 1280 x 720 pixels.
Choose the design you like...
We have huge collection of Facebook templates available, designed by professional graphic designers. These free Facebook banner templates are super easy to customize with our drag and drop feature. Choose from hundreds of pre-made templates, customize it and you are good to go. You can also create a new banner from scratch by choosing ‘create from scratch’ option.
For this example, let’s select one Facebook Banner design you like and customize it.
Customize text
Simply modify the text displayed on pre-made layouts and save it.
Free vector graphics
Choose from thousdand of free vector grahpics available within the tool.
No graphic designer
Our tool is super easy to use. No graphic designer is required.
Customize your design with user friendly editor
You can change the text, color, size, text and shadow effects easily. Here you can access hundreds of fonts perfectly fit for your designs. Choose the fonts that reflects your identity.
In the graphics section – there are thousands of free vector graphics and icons available to make your logo design stunning. Simply search the relevant graphic you are looking for and just click on it. You can also upload the graphics and icons from your computer.
There is no need for Adobe Photoshop or graphic designer. Our drag and drop logo editor is super easy to use.
High resolution download
After putting all effects into thumbnail and creating it stunningly, save it by pressing the save button given above. You can download it also by clicking ‘download’ button placed with all others on top bar. Your customized YouTube thumbnail is ready to use now. Upload it on YouTube video and enjoy the millions of clicks on your video.
And that’s what GoToDesigno is for, easily create stunning graphics without Photoshop or graphic designers. So try us today at no cost and see how your business will benefit by using amazing design layouts for your social networks and other needs.
How to upload YouTube thumbnail?
It is very easy to upload thumbnail on YouTube video.
- In YouTube channel when your video finishes uploading, YouTube automatically select the Thumbnails from your videos and gives you option to select any one out of three.
- This video cover may be blurred as it is taken from the video and text on it may or may not be matching with your choice. So, if your channel is verified then you have open option of Custom Thumbnail.
How to change YouTube thumbnail?
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Follow next pretty easy steps to change YouTube thumbnail and uploading according to your requirement.
1. Login to your YouTube channel
2. Open the video for which you want to change the thumbnail.
3. Click on button “Edit Video” to change the thumbnail on YouTube.
Click on “Details” tab, then select whether you want to add custom thumbnail or change image from your PC. Once you upload the image then you can see the YouTube thumbnail in your video after some time. By following these easy steps, you can easily change youtube thumbnail
Importance of Custom YouTube thumbnails
- Custom YouTube thumbnails has a massive impact on your viewers and audience.
- They develop the brand image and helps it in gaining popularity.
- This is a great mind-blowing technique of marketing your video and its clicks along with viewership.
- They predict your whole video and evokes interest of audience to view it.
- While working with Custom YouTube Thumbnail, you can periodically change your professional image as it is the best habit to use dynamic YouTube Thumbnail.
- You can use text and logo at lower bottom of video cover for better view and introduction of business.
Best Practices for YouTube Thumbnail
Done with the above steps, even though you have given your best effort to design the best of the best YouTube thumbnail, but still below we have compiled some of the best practices for you by designing best YouTube thumbnails which in turn can help you to boost your video viewership.
Create a Collage of your video snapshots:
YouTube thumbnail is the preview of your video basically in a collective and still image.
Tip:
- If you have learnt about How to make YouTube thumbnail of best design then you can apply a rocking tip of taking various snapshots of your video screens and various frames by knotting them with each other beautifully in a collective image/collage form.
- Try to add the important frames and adding them in a thumbnail. Many famous channels on YouTube use this tip to enhance the curiosity for viewers by providing them little bits of their interesting video. Check out the one attached below.
Example – Video Collage
In the above interestingly created thumbnail, GoToDesigno has introduced:
- the important key points in thumbnail to let the viewer see that there is value adding content explained in the video.
- This will definitely level up the interest of viewer. White color with contrast is used along with impressionable collage.
Use Bright Colors
Many studies have introduced the concept of bright colors usage in pictures or images as they look impressive as compared to dull and light colors. Same goes in the case of thumbnail used in YouTube video. This will also pop-up the image automatically and will look pleasant. Many of the YouTube thumbnail makers have introduced this concept in their impressive looking thumbnails.
Use Contrast Colors
Contrast Colors are also effective and instantly divert the attention of the visitors and its effects on eyes and brain are long lasting. This verified technique gives more clicks to your videos and increases the viewership of the YouTube videos. Always keep this checklist in your mind:
- Always use great contrast colors with background and foreground to pop up the text.
- Never choose too similar colors like blacks and greys, oranges and reds or purples and violets.
- Hue and saturation of colors must be set relative to each other like 40 and 50 percent.
- Use consistent colors on your videos or channel
- Avoid YouTube color scheme like reds and whites in your videos.
Use Natural images
Human being is closer to nature and it is scientifically proven also. So, try to keep this in mind while creating thumbnail of YouTube video. Keep your image natural as un-natural image will distract the views and they will not watch the whole video. As a result, bounce rate will be higher that will slowly decrease the ranking of the video. This will definitely have a negative impact on your ranking.
In this thumbnail, natural image is used for sports. This is an impressive tactic for increasing viewership. Graphics are added to attract viewer attention. Bold and contrast text is used.
Use Bold and pop up text in your thumbnail
Let me tell you one thing straight. By using this technique your text can be bright and clear to the viewers. This will clearly intimate the user with your Video purpose and will entice him to watch it till end. This tactic is used in several thumbnails now a days to increase viewership. Introduce your viewers with bold and pop-up text of your video then sit back and watch every minute increasing views on your video.
Attached thumbnail is just the best example of this.
- Text written in pop-up words is clearly indicating the purpose of thumbnail with a perfect number of white spaces.
- Bold and contrast colors are used.
- Consistent color scheme is introduced in graphic and text like pink and blue.
Use relevant thumbnail
In internet marketing content is KING and relative content is the sole focusing area of the audience. YouTube Thumbnail is the visual and attention driving content for your brand. Relevancy evokes and impacts the viewers to become a subscriber that helps greatly in promotion of a YouTube Video. You can say that noteworthy YouTube Thumbnail can make visibility of your video in YouTube searches as well as Google organic searches.
Follow YouTube Community Guidelines
So, you have created the stunning thumbnail but the next most important thing you must take care of is to follow and read full YouTube community guidelines here (https://www.YouTube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-guidelines) which are applicable for all users. That also include videos, channels and videos’ thumbnails too. They are quite basic and fair and if you will follow them you will never be the one whose account is deleted/terminated by YouTube.
Sign in->Go to Settings->YouTube community guidelines
You are allowed to post the content which is violence-free and contains no harm/nudity. But no illegal content is allowed so if you will violate the guidelines there can be critical consequences of this. You may not be able to upload videos, thumbnails or even your channel can be deleted, in turn draining your long hours of hard work into vain losing all of your viewers and subscribers.
Important Role of White space
In simple words, an interactive design structure is combination of many elements and out of these neglected one is whitespace that is also called negative space. You may have often seen space around and inside stunning graphics that is called white space. Because of whitespace you can balance the image look and also enhance the visual communication experience.
Whitespaces on YouTube Thumbnail focus your eyes on the content and make your message prominent and clear to the audience. Always leave a white space around your image as it has similarity with the book title that has space below and above. In short you can say that white space gives high quality and professional look to YouTube Thumbnail that it deserves.
Still Images for Outstanding outlook
In a YouTube Thumbnail, you are greatly advised to use the still pictures in stylish mode of high quality captured by a camera of high resolution. Screenshots taken from the video are not proven good for the thumbnails as most of the time people in image appear with dull and odd expression when the video is paused. This appearance in the image is completely different than the gesture in the video. It happens rarely that your video is paused with natural expression for image that is used for video cover.
So, it is highly important to use high quality still image instead of capturing it from your video.
Impressive picture is the viewer winner
High quality pictures with precise and relative text on image always draw the attention of the viewers. This greatly multiplies the audience views and its sharing along with subscribers. In short, this is the key for getting more and great many views on your video. For this purpose, we will highly recommend you to use GoToDesigno tool that contains rich gallery of hundreds of free stock images having high quality and resolution. Try to search a relative picture for your business from our versatile gallery. Hopefully you will find it and take forward step for further optimization.
Example:
- This image is surely of high quality and clearly defining the concept of video with impressive icon and image used.
- Pop up color with huge and bold text along with graphics are indicating content of video in perfect manner.
Text with short and huge title is the key
Video without any text is quite difficult to understand as compared to videos including meaningful and bold text which is clearly defining what the video is about. If you are asked to write the meaning of whole paragraph in a sentence, you must acquire such a skill to fulfill the requirement. For this purpose, if you are lacking of such skill, you should consult or hire some skilled person but the title must be concise with bold text which must be giving a clear idea about the video. Give a unique look to the title by giving white spaces between the characters.
Example:
Instead of “Top Ten White Hat SEO Techniques Recommended by Webmaster to Score Business Leads” you should write “10 Lead Generation SEO Techniques “. Viewer’s eyes will capture this title at once surely as this is concise, bold and huge.
- This image is clearly defining the concept of mobile apps aptly by concise title.
- This YouTube thumbnail template is perfectly designed with care of white spaces, contrast colors, bold text and short title along with small icons.
Try logos in thumbnail by adjusting size according to screen
Logos are sometimes are quite effective for companies’ official videos and if users are searching for your videos, these logos attract attention of users immediately by viewing them in your thumbnails.
Another important point is to adjust them according to screen size like how will it be viewed in mobile, laptops and tablets. You must remember to adjust its size accordingly. This will draw attention of viewers. Click through rate (CTR) will be increased if logos are used in a correct way with good color scheme.
some extra cares about YouTube Thumbnail
- Always avoid using irrelevant images and text as they will give a bad introduction to your whole channel and will ruin your reputation before it is even built.
- Never use the blur image as this will prevent the viewers from watching your video
- Avoid using too much text on the images as each category images have their own introduction.
As we have already established this fact that GoToDesigno is definitely best thumbnail maker for YouTube.
summary
- As we have already established this fact that GoToDesigno is definitely best thumbnail maker for YouTube.
- In short, we have explained you all important key points and instructions by doing some valuable research on YouTube thumbnail size, so try to implement it and you will definitely get the best thumbnail designed with great response and results on your YouTube video. You can get millions of views to your video by using above mentioned tactics and if you remain consistent, then you can gain millions of subscribers in short period of time.
Author: Bisma Farrukh
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Nice blog to explain the YouTube thumbnail size