How to Make YouTube Thumbnails That Get Clicks (Beginner Tips)

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How to Make YouTube Thumbnails That Get Clicks (Beginner Tips)

You've poured your heart and soul into creating a great YouTube video. The script is sharp, the editing is smooth, and you're excited to share it with the world. But then... crickets. The views just aren't coming in. If this sounds familiar, you're likely experiencing a pain point common to many new YouTubers: struggling to get initial traction.

While the quality of your video content is ultimately what keeps people watching, the first hurdle is getting them to click in the first place. And on YouTube, that job falls almost entirely to your thumbnail.

Think of your thumbnail as a mini-billboard for your video in a crowded digital space. It needs to grab attention instantly and communicate why someone should stop scrolling and watch your video. A compelling thumbnail is critical for improving your click-through rate (CTR), which is the percentage of people who see your video and decide to click on it. A higher CTR tells YouTube that your video is interesting and relevant, which can lead to the algorithm showing it to more people, accelerating your channel's initial growth and discoverability, and ultimately helping you reach monetization faster.

So, how do you create thumbnails that actually get clicks? It's not as complicated as you might think, especially when you focus on a few key principles.

What Makes a Good YouTube Thumbnail?

At its core, a good YouTube thumbnail is designed for one purpose: to entice a viewer to click. Based on insights from successful creators, here are the fundamental elements that make a thumbnail effective:

1. Simplicity and Focus: In a busy feed, viewers scan quickly. Your thumbnail needs to be easy to understand in a second or two. Avoid clutter. It should center on one primary thing – the most compelling visual element or the main subject of your video.
2. Clarity and Size: Everything in your thumbnail should be big and clear, taking up most of the available space. Minimize blank areas unless they are used strategically to highlight your main subject.
3. Minimal, Readable Text: While text can add context or intrigue, keep it minimal – ideally three to five words maximum. The text needs to be big, bold, and easy to read, even on a small mobile screen. Ensure there's high contrast between your text and the background, or add a border around the text to make it pop.
4. Compelling Imagery: Use a high-quality, attention-grabbing image that accurately represents your video. For many niches, this might be a close-up of a face showing emotion, a clear shot of a product or result, or a visual teaser of the video's concept.
5. Strategic Use of Color: Feel free to use bright, contrasting colors. These can help your thumbnail stand out against YouTube's white interface. However, ensure the colors align with your channel's overall visual branding.
6. Relevance: The thumbnail must accurately reflect the video's content and align with the title and hook. Misleading thumbnails might get clicks initially, but they lead to high audience abandonment (people clicking away quickly), which hurts your channel in the long run.
7. Emotional Connection: If appropriate for your content, convey emotion through faces or scenarios. Viewers connect with emotion.

Channels focusing on visual topics like art tutorials understand the importance of clear, focused thumbnails. For example, channels like @madedrawingart (2K subscribers) or @Izamnaart (1.61K subscribers) often use simple, cartoon-style line art illustrations with bright colors against clean backgrounds. This direct, uncluttered approach makes it immediately clear what the video is about – basic drawing or coloring. Similarly, channels like @June_art77 (21.6K subscribers) use clean digital illustrations with bold text overlays to guide the viewer on the tutorial's subject.

How Do I Make My Thumbnails Stand Out?

Getting noticed among the millions of videos on YouTube requires your thumbnail to stand out from the crowd. Here’s how beginners can make their thumbnails more eye-catching:

1. Study Your Niche: The best way to stand out is to understand what's already working (and what's not) in your specific niche. Search on YouTube for your video's topic or title and analyze the thumbnails of the top-performing videos. What visual styles, colors, text overlays, or compositions do they use? Screenshot them and create a mood board for inspiration. Don't copy directly, but use them to understand the visual language that resonates with viewers in your area.
2. Use High Contrast: Contrast in color, light, and shadow helps your thumbnail pop. Bright subjects against darker backgrounds, or vice versa, draw the eye.
3. Incorporate a Face: For many types of content, including a clear, expressive image of your face (or another person's face) can significantly increase clicks. People are naturally drawn to faces and the emotions they convey.
4. Tell a Story or Create Intrigue: Your thumbnail, along with your title, should hint at the video's value or create curiosity. This could be showing a dramatic "before and after," highlighting a surprising result, or posing a visual question. For example, cooking channels often show the final, delicious dish prominently. Videos like "No Oven, No Egg and No Milk | Frying Pan | Easy and Fast" from Cozinha Elementar (16.4M views) or "Incredibly EASY! Why didn't I know this recipe before! 2 Minutes Ready! No Oven" from Qiong Cooking (1.2M views) use simple text overlays combined with appealing food imagery to promise ease and speed, directly addressing a viewer's need.
5. Develop a Consistent Brand Style: Over time, having a consistent thumbnail style helps viewers recognize your content in their feed. Think about color schemes, font choices, and layout elements that you can use across all your thumbnails. This builds visual branding for your channel.
6. Test and Iterate: You won't get it perfect every time. The most successful creators test different thumbnail designs to see which ones perform best. YouTube's A/B testing feature (Thumbnail Test) allows you to test multiple thumbnails simultaneously to see which gets a higher CTR. Use this data to refine your approach.

Subscribr's Channel Intelligence and Video Performance features can help you analyze what's working in your niche by looking at top-performing videos and channels. While Subscribr doesn't create thumbnails for you, using the platform to research popular content and understand audience preferences can provide valuable insights for your thumbnail design strategy. Analyzing the Outlier Score of videos can also point you towards content that performed unexpectedly well, and often, an effective thumbnail is a key factor in that success.

What Size Should YouTube Thumbnails Be?

Getting the technical aspects right is also important. For the best display quality across different devices, YouTube recommends that your custom thumbnail image be:

• Resolution: 1280x720 pixels, with a minimum width of 640 pixels.
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9. This is the standard aspect ratio for YouTube players and previews.
• Image Format: JPG, GIF, or PNG.
• Size Limit: Under 2MB.

Using these dimensions ensures your thumbnail looks crisp and professional whether someone is browsing on a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile phone. Creating your thumbnail before you finish editing your video is a smart strategy. This ensures your thumbnail is a priority and gives you time to design something truly compelling that aligns perfectly with your video concept.

Designing Your Thumbnail: Practical Tips

Now that you know the principles and technical requirements, let's look at some practical steps for designing your first effective thumbnails:

1. Start with a Clear Concept: Before you even open a design tool, know the main point or most exciting moment of your video that you want to highlight. What is the single most important visual? What is the core promise of the video?
2. Choose Your Background Image: Select a high-quality image from your video footage or create a custom graphic. This should be the foundation of your thumbnail. Ensure it's clear and visually interesting.
3. Add Text (Sparingly): If you add text, make it count. Use a strong, easy-to-read font. Consider using a text outline or background box to improve readability against a busy image. The text should add context or create curiosity that the image alone doesn't provide.
4. Incorporate Branding Elements: Add your channel logo or a consistent color scheme if you have one. This helps build recognition as viewers see more of your content.
5. Use a Simple Layout: Don't try to cram too much in. A common effective layout is a main image on one side and text on the other, or text overlaid strategically on the image.
6. Check Readability at Different Sizes: Before you upload, look at your thumbnail at the size it will appear on a mobile phone, in the sidebar of recommended videos, and in search results. Can you still easily understand it? Is the text readable?
7. Get Feedback: If possible, show your thumbnail design to a few friends or fellow creators and ask for their honest feedback. Do they understand what the video is about? Would they click on it?

Remember the advice from successful creators: plan your thumbnail first, before you even start filming or editing. This forces you to think about how you will visually sell your video from the very beginning.

Connecting Thumbnails to Growth and Monetization

For new YouTubers, getting those first views and subscribers is the biggest challenge. Your thumbnail is your primary tool for initial discoverability. By creating thumbnails that entice viewers to click, you directly improve your click-through rate.

A higher CTR signals to the YouTube algorithm that your content is appealing to viewers when they see it. This positive signal can lead to your video being shown to a wider audience, increasing views, watch time, and ultimately, subscribers. As your subscriber count and watch time grow, you move closer to meeting the requirements for monetization through the YouTube Partner Program.

Improving your thumbnail strategy is one of the most impactful steps you can take early on to accelerate your channel's growth and put you on the path to earning revenue from your content. It's a fundamental skill in visual branding and content strategy that directly impacts your initial traction and discoverability on the platform.

Tools & Resources

While you can design thumbnails using various graphic design software, focusing on the strategic principles is key. For planning your content strategy, researching successful videos, and understanding your audience, platforms like Subscribr offer tools to help you analyze performance patterns and develop a visual brand that resonates with viewers. Subscribr's research capabilities can help you gather inspiration by analyzing existing successful content, and its planning tools can help ensure your thumbnail concept is aligned with your video's overall goals and target audience.

Conclusion

Creating effective YouTube thumbnails is a crucial skill for any beginner looking to grow their channel and get more views. By focusing on simplicity, clarity, compelling imagery, and strategic text, you can design thumbnails that stand out and convince viewers to click. Study what works in your niche, don't be afraid to use bright colors and expressive faces, and always check how your thumbnail looks at a small size.

Improving your thumbnail CTR is a direct path to increasing your views, attracting subscribers, and accelerating your journey towards monetization. Start implementing these tips today, test different designs, and watch how a strong visual first impression can transform your channel's performance.