Page 6 - The Ultilmate Youtube SEO Cheat Sheet

4. Make Your Thumbnail Pop - Looks DO Matter

Don’t judge a book by its cover. That’s what your parents probably told you as a child
right…?

Well, the sad fact is that people WILL judge your video at first sight. And that usually
means your video thumbnail. So don’t leave it to chance.

Your thumbnail will most often determine the success or failure of your video before
anyone has ever watched it. So under no circumstances leave your thumbnail in the hands
of YouTube's automatic thumbnail generator. Make your own, and make it good.

Here are some general guidelines for creating irresistible thumbnails:

• Make it stand out
Your video is competing for people's attention and there is a lot of noise out there.
Make them interesting, use bright vibrant colours, make the foreground high-contrast to
the background, include close-ups of faces if possible (or other visually compelling
imagery) and above all make sure it’s clear and in-focus. Canva is a great tool that
makes creating eye-popping thumbnails drag and drop easy.

Here are some examples:

• Include Text
Remember, as time goes by your video will get shared and embedded more and more
around the internet (well that’s the goal at least). However, many of the places it will end
up won’t display the video title in the post.

In this case your thumbnail will need to pick up the slack. So it’s a good idea to add
some text when appropriate to your thumbnail to summarise your videos primary
benefit and further entice the click. Aim for less than 4 words.

6