How To Make the Perfect YouTube Thumbnail for Your Videos

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Everyday, millions of people are flocking to YouTube searching through an endless sea of videos. They want to find information, they need a laugh, or even if they just want to be entertained they can rest assured that YouTube is the place to find just what they are looking for. Let's face it, this is why so many of us started YouTube channels in the first place. It's a huge platform with tremendous potential and opportunity for anyone trying to make a name for themselves online.

In fact over “100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute” so the real question is – how do you make your YouTube videos stand out among the crowd? What can you do to increase the likelihood that someone click on your video when it comes up in the search results alongside all the other videos?

I'm sure you already know the answer to that question.

Create an attractive YouTube Video Thumbnail.

Introducing The YouTube Slicer

Having the perfect thumbnail for your YouTube videos might be one of the single most important things you can do to get people to click on your video. This is why I'm so pleased to introduce you to this cool YouTube thumbnail maker called TubeSlicer from Joey Kissimmee. This is the same Slicer that is used by well-known YouTuber Gideon Shalwick, who has amassed millions of views on his YouTube channel.

With TubeSlicer you don't have to worry about if you have the right YouTube thumbnail size. Previously I was using this static template, which you can still download here, as a guidance for the size of YouTube thumbnails.  But when I started using TubeSlicer and the awesome background templates that come with it, both my daily and monthly YouTube view counts have increased tremendously because more and more people are noticing my videos on the search results page.

[tweet_box design=”box_08″]A Great YouTube Thumbnail Design Will Attract More Views on Your Video[/tweet_box]
In this video, I'm going to show you how easy it is to Create the Perfect Custom Thumbnail Using the YouTube Slicer

You can scroll down to read the full video transcript. Oh and here's a special offer for my YouTube course!

YouTube Course

If you have any questions about YouTube or about taking the course, just give me a shout on SpeakPipe!

TubeSlicer Fills The “Missing Template” Gap

The YouTube Slicer is truly unique. If you look around at the other popular online image editing tools like PicMonkey and Canva, surprising you'll find that they do NOT have a pre-formatted template for YouTube thumbnails. TubeSlicer is the only one that is designed specifically to accommodate the file size for the oblong video shape and format. So when you want to make an image for Pinterest – use Canva or PicMonkey. But when you upload a YouTube video, pull out the slicer (like I do)!

The first slicer that Joey created was the Facebook Timeline Slicer and I still use that one to this day. He later went on to create the YouTube and Podcast Cover Art Slicers and he's currently working on slicers for Twitter and Google+. But I don't want you to think he is doing this all by himself. Designer Ian Belanger (he's the guy who designed the custom theme for Ana Hoffman's Traffic Generation Cafe) is Joey's partner and helps him run the team. In case you didn't know, these two are responsible for the Showcase child theme I use on this blog and all the other themes from Appendipity.

Video Transcript
We all know how important it is to have an attractive thumbnail on our YouTube videos well today I'm gonna show you a tool to make those thumbnails very quickly and you can customize them any way you want with the YouTube Slicer. Before we open up the TubeSlicer I wanna show you real quick this tool called Clipping Magic that's gonna let me remove the background from this image.

Now I want to give a shoutout to Joey Kissimmee he's the one who created the TubeSlicer and he's also the one that told me about this tool called Clipping Magic. If you don't have Photoshop this is a cool way to remove the background from the image before you upload it on your thumbnail.

Okay guys here we are over at the YouTube Slicer. Now what Joey Kissimmee has done is he has shared with us some templates that we can use for backgrounds. So let's just take a look at some of those backgrounds that we get with the TubeSlicer.

You can go with the starbursts you see has them here in just about every color in you also could go with — let's take a look at the targets. Those are also very popular because they tend to draw the person's eye in so that they are focused on your thumbnail when they see it in the Youtube search results or even on the Google search results. I prefer to use a little bit more subtle background so I usually go with the extras and these are just subtle shadings so this just gives you an idea all the different backgrounds and then there's just some other logos and icons that he's included in there for us.

How to Get Started with YouTube Video MarketingSo as you can see here Joey has put together a nice collection – a variety of backgrounds that we can use on our YouTube thumbnails.

So let's make a Thumbnail! When you’re using the Slicer and bringing your images into the dashboard just remember to hold down the shift key to keep everything in proportion. Now I know I did that really quick, but let's just go over what I did.

If you noticed the Slicer kinda works in layers similar to Photoshop. So I added the background layer then I put in my picture and then usually anytime I have YouTube in the title of my video I usually grab a YouTube logo from the YouTube website then I added the different type layers.

I just wanna show you something is really unique that I love about the Slicer and that's what you get this little stroke around your font. And here's how you turn that off if you wanted to go without the stroke.You just click on that little S up at the top. But I like to have that stroke on. So I leave it on.

Now, the other thing I wanted to show you is the variety of the fonts that are in here I could use Times Roman. Or there's another nice one the Sketch Block I think that's a pretty cool one. But there's a lot of them in here for you to choose from. If you want do a Terminator if you're into gaming that might be a good one to use as well.

Hey, I'd better go back to the Impact font that I was using. And now what I need to do is, I'd better make sure I save this. So all you have to do is click to download and then make sure you change the name on your file and save it.

One last thing, that I wanted to show you here on the Slicer. If you want your thumbnails to be 1280 by 720 you just click on the 1280 YTSL button. And that will take you over to a different dashboard.

Now what's different about this is whenever you add an element like an image or a new font, or background always just hit this reset canvas button. Other than that it works the same as the Slicer that just showed you guys. But I just wanted you to see that we do have a 1280 by 720 YouTube Slicer. So go ahead guys – it’s real important to get those custom thumbnails out there so that your videos get clicked on in search – for YouTube and for Google!

Thanks for joining me today and once again I'm Ileane Smith. If you have any ideas, any questions or request for future videos please leave me a comment and don't forget to subscribe. Talk to you soon.

Peace!
Recommended reading and additional resources:

 

48 thoughts on “How To Make the Perfect YouTube Thumbnail for Your Videos”

  1. Ravi Chahar

    Hi Ileane,

    You are right there are millions of people who visit to YouTube and we all know appearance matters a lot. Thumbnails for our video should be attractive and user friendly. It is always recommended to drive a fortune with quality.
    Thanks for sharing this informative post.
    I will surely try when it will come to upload any video.

    ~Ravi

    1. Ileane

      Hi Ravi,
      Have you thought about what kind of YouTube videos you plan to create? You might want to start off doing some screencasting to get into the flow of doing videos. That’s how I got started and I’m still doing them 5 years later.

      Good luck Ravi and thanks for the comment.

  2. Jam Plumbers

    Thanks for this post Ileane!

    I’ve also found that a good thumbnail can increase the click through rate of a YouTube video.

  3. Ryan Biddulph

    Cool Ileane! Presentation counts big in the video creation game, and getting down the right thumbnail for your presentation is important. People like eye candy way too much to ignore the thumbnail or preview. Get it right and you’ll boost page views pronto. I found this on kingged(dot)com and will give it a thumbs up 🙂

    1. Ileane

      Hi Ryan,

      That is so true. I’m sure those custom thumbnails will stand out on Pinterest as well.

      Thanks for the share and the vote Ryan.

  4. Ryan Percy

    This is amazing article. I boost my CTR by 30% after changing my thumbnail. According to me using contrast color thumbnails like Red boosts CTR like never before.

    Keep sharing such useful tips Ileane.

  5. Kirsten Rutherford

    Never heard of Tube Slicer before Ileane. I have been using the little intros but this looks more professional and looks as if it will make the videos stand out also. Thanks for posting about this 🙂

  6. Princewill

    Get it right with the right thumbnail and have people click on your videos, I plan on starting a Vlog series where I will be discussing alot of topics, it is child of mine I have been nursing for some time now.. I am sure going to apply what you have laid out here to get eyes on it..

    Social media is where I am going to also leverage on to get the desired on it… People love what they can watch and not just read, read and read….Thanks for sharing on kingged

  7. Zabi Khan

    Thanks a lot for all the tips and specially for the file ….I’ve downloaded it and now it is the time to enjoy some new features

  8. Sunday

    It a cool presentation I must remark. They YouTube Slicer for creating the perfect Thumbnails seems to be a must have tool for content and social marketing. I guess it would be okay to try it and see how it goes along to change our content marketing statistics.

    This comment was shared in kingged

    1. Ileane

      Hi Sunday,

      Thanks for letting me know about the post being on Kingged.

      However, I don’t let visitors include links in their comments so please don’t try to include them. It’s really a pain for me to edit your comments.

      Thanks.

  9. swati

    nice article
    Great tips for making videos more attractive and eye-catching! That simple custom thumbnail does open up a lot more opportunities for video marketing. thanks for sharing.

  11. Dominik

    Thank you, I’ll try to use them, because it looks pretty good! I really appreciate your tip and looked for something like that.

  12. wajid khan

    Wow, learning something new everyday! Although I am having trouble with creating videos but this article will definitely be helpful in the future. However, I have a question regarding to the importance of having a good thumbnail. Getting more views is definitely good but will it really increase in ranking if it gets more view?

  13. Tyson Blake

    Thumbnail is like the first impression we have of a person when or before we meet them. CTR can drastically increase or decrease based on thumbnail. Thanks for this helpful post. : )

  14. Kevin Ocasio

    Hi Ileane,

    I’ve never heard of TubeSlicer before… thanks for the share!

    So basically you want your thumbnail to have a lot of impact like a headline for a blog post or an ad so that it generates the click 😉

    1. Ileane

      Hi Kevin,

      Yes that’s a great comparison. You also can reinforce your branding if you use a specific layout and colors.
      Thanks for stopping by Kevin.

  15. Dr.Spencer Jones

    Hello Ileane, Nice tutorial. That’s a winning combination for a perfect YT thumbnail. I use photoshop for designing my YT thumbnails. But the themes that come with YouTube slicer looks very professional. By the way I’ve also used clippingmagic before, I used it on my system where I don’t have photoshop. I actually found clippingmagic by searching on Google.

    1. Ileane

      Hi Spencer,

      Are you using the Adobe Creative Cloud or do you have the stand-alone version of Photoshop?

      ClippingMagic is free for now, but they are moving to a paid model next month. I think it will be worth the price though, let’s wait and see what they come up with.

  17. Kevin

    Hello Ileane,
    Nice Tutorial and many many thanks for sharing it with us, i am surely going to use your tips for my youtube channel, keep sharing this kind of informative tutorials, helpful for newbies as well as professional.

  18. Ashley

    Hey Ileane
    I saw you share this on pinterest recently and wanted to check it out.
    Although I use Canva for my Youtube cover images mostly, this is an interesting one. I am doing more videos lately so might use this and see how it goes
    thanks
    ashley

  19. satpreet singh

    this post mentioned awesome information.thumbnail our video makes video attractive.there are so many people watching videos daily in youtube.this post helps how to upload our video that everyone watch that.

  20. Chris flynn

    Hey Ileane if you are using any tool to make these video i personally like the Layout and graphic. Please tell me how to edit you videos.

  21. Adrienne

    Hey Ileane,

    I guess I never commented on this one, shame on me.

    I do make my own images for my videos too through other free programs but I have to say that I love the ones you’ve been making lately and I could always use a change so I’ll just have to check out Joey’s program. I have no doubt it’s a good one.

    Awesome stuff girl, thanks so much.

    ~Adrienne

    1. Ileane

      Hey Adrienne!
      You do a wonderful job creating video thumbnails and I’m really excited to see you making more videos these days. It’s such a fantastic way to connect to your audience and in your case, I’m sure your finding that people spend more time on your blog.

      Thanks for stopping by my dear! (btw – We need to do another HOA soon.)

  22. Sayantan Mahato

    Hi Ileane,

    Thanks for another informative and amazing post. I have always wondered how folks made youtube thumbnails. Though, I haven’t been into vlogging, I guess it will help me a lot; when I will get into it some months later.

    Haven’t had heard about TubeSlicer till yet. I wonder how did I missed this tool. Anyway, this is the best way to get visitors, given if you have a dashing headline 🙂

    Thanks,
    Sayantan

  23. Christian

    What is the closest tool you have come across that you think will handle the various image making requirements for the main social media platforms? We have found this to be one of the more tedious and time consuming tasks we handle for clients. It would be great to streamline this process somewhat.

  24. Peter

    Hi Ileane,
    that are some good tips how to create a nice looking thumbnail.
    I certainly can improve my thumbnails, maybe with your tutorial I can get some more views. Thanks for the tutorial!

  25. Kerrie Peacock

    Great tutorial! I’ve been trying to figure out how people do those thumbnails for quite some time now. This is a big help, thanks!

  26. Nithesh Chakravarthi

    Nice post. Thanks for the youtube thumbnail size cheat banner. Downloaded it !!

  27. Ileane

    Nicholas, Great to know that I introduced you to a new way of creating custom thumbnails for your videos. This tool will make your videos look more polished and professional.

  28. Anu K

    Hi Ileane,
    Really simple as well as important post. Our thumbnail give a face to our post among others. Thanks for the post.

    1. Sumaira

      Hi Hi Ileane,
      I have learned today about YouTube Thumbnail template.
      Thanks for sharing the tutorial.

  29. Sushain

    Thousands of people keep watching or mostly prefer watching videos over YouTube.So, uploading of any video should be done in such a way that everyone gets attracted to it and watch it.
    This post help me alot by giving me the information on how to make the thumbnail of the video so that it becomes more attractive and because of which most people watch it.
    Thanks for sharing.

  30. Ammar Zeb

    Thanks for this awesome guide. Really learnt the art for making perfect thumbnails for Youtube videos.

    Keep writing the rocking stuff 🙂

    1. Mandy Loreh

      Hello Ileane,

      i just start my youtube blogging journey, this is so helpful thank you so much.

  31. Muhammad Touqeer

    its absolutely right, the thumbnails are the most important factor to rank any youtube video, and attractive thumbnails can generate alot of traffic and visitors are directed to click on the thumbnail.

  32. Manohar

    Hi Ileane, your blog is really awesome. I knew you from two years. You have shared many helpful posts on this blog. Thanks for sharing such great posts. I would like to get more exclusive posts from you in the upcoming days. Please share tips to increase blog traffic in your next post. Thanks!!

  33. Nashu

    Hello Ileane,
    Nice article Nice post. Thanks for the youtube thumbnail size cheat banner. Downloaded it !!

  34. Anamikasharma

    Hello lleane,
    It’s such an amazing post about how to make perfect Youtube thumbnail for videos,I really appreciate your efforts,Thanks for sharing such a useful info with us.

  35. Luna Williams

    Using the right thumbnails effects the viewer and subscribers. Thanks for a nice tutorial Ileane

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