How To Make A Thumbnail For YouTube?

Creating a custom YouTube thumbnail is crucial as it gives your viewers more clarity of your video content. Suppose you want to upload a video. Now essentially there are only two ways to tell your audience what your video is primarily about. The video title and the video thumbnail.

Given that all the word vomit has now become a part of your title and description, it is imperative to create an eye-catching YouTube thumbnail. One that gives your viewers a fair depiction of your video content – as well as intrigues them to watch it even though the subject is out of their interest.

If your YouTube insights are significantly lower than your expectations, your video thumbnails could be one of the leading concerns. In this article, we will clear some popular misconceptions around how to create a good YouTube Thumbnail and share tips on how to make a thumbnail for YouTube.

Misconceptions Around How To Make Good YouTube Thumbnails

The biggest misconception among YouTubers is that you need to be using software like photoshop to create good YouTube thumbnails. If you have Photoshop and you know how to use it, by all means, go for it. But it’s definitely not a limitation if you don’t have it.

And yes, you can still create attractive YouTube thumbnails using elementary software like Keynote, PowerPoint and Canva. They can do the job for you just right.

Below we will jot down a few ways you can make thumbnails for YouTube fast, easy and free:

 

Make YouTube Thumbnails Fast, Easy, And Free

We are going to be using Canva for this quick guide. Canva makes it ridiculously simple to create quick and snappy YouTube thumbnails. It is fast, simple and you don’t have to pay a penny.

• To begin with, open up the video content that you’re about to upload on your YouTube channel.
• Go somewhere at the end of your video where you can be seen smiling at the camera, pointing your finger somewhere (this will come in handy when we will edit your thumbnail on Canva.)
• Take a screenshot of it and save the image to your desktop.
• Go to Canva and create a custom design keeping the thumbnail size to 1920px x 1080px.

• Click “Upload” and upload the screenshot you just captured from your video to Canva.

• Drag and drop your uploaded screenshot to the blank canvas.
• Scale your image in a way that it occupies the entire canvas.

• Make sure you fill the canvas with the image also but leave some room on either side of the canvas. You will be using this space to add text and illustrations.
• The next thing you need is to add text on the canvas.
• Generally, to make the text pop out in a thumbnail like this you’d need a shape behind it.
• Canva allows you to pick any random shape of your choice. Go to elements and search for your favorite shape.

• Drag and drop it onto the canvas.
• Scale it to the size of your text, ensuring there’s ample space for your image and text both to grab attention.

• You can change the colour of the shape as per your brand colours or the one of your choice.
• Go to “Text” and grab one of the fonts that match your brand profile/your choice.

• Once you add the text, you can scale, rotate, recolour and resize it depending on how you want it.
• You can duplicate the text layer as well as the shape and add as much information you want in your YouTube thumbnail. Though we recommend keeping it short and crisp for better viewing.

• Canva allows you to add your brand logos or images of your choice.
• In case you have a custom logo that you’d like to go with your thumbnail, you can upload it. Click on the “Upload” button on the screen and drag and drop the file from your computer.
• Once added, you can add a filter to your image and even flip it to match the orientation you want.

• You have to ensure that your YouTube thumbnail looks best in all formats and across the platforms. (smartphones, desktops and tablets.) So keep the size of your illustrations and text accordingly.
• Once you’re done editing your YouTube thumbnail, click Download > choose File type as JPG and hit download once again.

That’s it. In a few simple steps, you have created a custom YouTube thumbnail for your video.

Conclusion:

YouTube thumbnails are an incredibly important element of video optimization. An eye-catching YouTube thumbnail increases your channel’s click-through rate which galvanizes the YouTube algorithm and helps you gain more views.

According to several YouTube benchmarks, a YouTube video will likely receive more views if it’s got an attractive and visually compelling thumbnail. To say the least, YouTube thumbnails decide the fate of your YouTube video. So ensure you put time and effort into creating a fascinating YouTube thumbnail.

Following this guide, you can create as many thumbnails for YouTube videos. We hope this guide was helpful. For any queries feel free to drop your comments below.