How to Create a YouTube Thumbnail that Gets More Clicks

What’s the most important part of a YouTube video? The content? The editing? No, it’s actually the thumbnail. It’s what grabs attention, sparks curiosity, and convinces people to click.

So, how do you create something that actually works? Let’s break it down step by step.

How to Get Professional Help with Thumbnails?

1. Explore a Few Tools

We’ll tackle the hard part first and find the right design tool. If you’re a pro editing your own videos in Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, you can stick to them and streamline your whole content creation process.

There’s also an in-built editor by YouTube, but it’s only ideal for quick and simple edits.

If you want to explore an online YouTube thumbnail maker, there’s also no shortage of options here. You can explore Pixlr, Picsart, Canva, and other alternatives. They all offer drag-and-drop interfaces, customizable templates, and easy export settings.

2. Get Inspired

Look at some trending/viral videos overall and in your niche. You have to analyze what kind of thumbnails are getting clicks. Are they using bold text? Close-up facial expressions? High contrast colors? Take notes on what stands out in a crowded feed.

Don’t worry, we aren’t going to copy. Instead, we use these insights to understand what works and adapt the best elements to match your own style and content.

3. Find the Right Visuals

The right visuals for a YouTube thumbnail evoke an emotion. They make the viewer curious, excited, or intrigued to find out more. In some cases, it can also stir a negative emotion like shock or confusion. It doesn’t matter the kind of response you trigger; the goal is to draw attention and compel someone to click just to understand what’s going on.

If your video features people, go for close-up facial expressions as they tend to perform well. You can also use a posed photo of yourself or other people to add a personal touch and create a stronger connection with viewers.

But if you have a product or tutorial based video, you should opt for clear visuals that highlight the result or main subject. For example, the final dish for a recipe video or a finished graphic for a Photoshop walkthrough.

4. Understand the Dimensions

The thumbnail size for YouTube images is 1280 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall. It’s a 16:9 aspect ratio that ensures the image looks sharp across all devices. Also, remember that apart from size, your files shouldn’t exceed 2MB in size.

5. Incorporate Text (if required)

Text is optional when it comes to the YouTube thumbnail. It does help add more context and highlights a key hook that grabs attention. But it can also cause clutter and distract the viewer from the actual visual.

We recommend experimenting! Use text in some videos, and upload some without it. Then compare how they perform by checking click-through rates (CTR) in your YouTube Analytics.

Also, when adding text, keep these best practices in mind:

Stick to 4–5 words to keep it short and punchy
Research on the best font for YouTube thumbnails and pick something that remains legible even at smaller sizes.
Make the text color pop against your background image.
Place the text wisely to avoid busy areas and keep everything visually balanced.

6. Use Your Branding Elements

It can be tricky to add branding elements to a thumbnail. That’s why most people don’t recommend using them, especially when the video focuses on real people. In these cases, your face (or the face of people in the video) becomes the brand itself. Viewers start connecting with your personality rather than with logos or brand colors.

However, if you have animated style videos, you can incorporate some branding elements. For example, we use our brand fonts and color palette in our thumbnail design to keep things consistent and recognizable:

You’ll notice we still don’t rely on heavy branding like logos and taglines. This avoids cluttering the thumbnail and distracting from the main visual or message.

7. Do Some Testing

There are some tools available online to help you preview how your thumbnails will appear in front of the audience. For example, Thumbnail Preview lets you see how your design will look on YouTube’s homepage and search results across laptop, tablet, and mobile views.

You can also use Test My Thumbnails to do the same testing. It will help you judge if the text is readable, the visuals pop, and whether it stands out next to other thumbnails.

Apart from these tools, you can even test thumbnails organically by asking your teammates, friends, or colleagues which version they’d click on first.

8. Upload & Monitor

Now you just need to upload your thumbnail to YouTube Studio. But the job doesn’t end here! Once the video goes live, you need to monitor its performance. If you think the CTR is low despite a strong title and topic, your thumbnail may not be pulling its weight.

In that case, don’t be afraid to make changes like swapping the image, adjusting the text, or even trying a completely new design.

How to Get Professional Help with Thumbnails?

If your videos aren’t getting the views they deserve, your thumbnails might be holding you back. This is when you should consider delegating this task to professionals like us! We can help you create custom, scroll-stopping thumbnails from scratch – no generic templates, no boring formats.

And that’s just the beginning because our unlimited graphic design subscription includes everything. We can also edit your videos, design promotional assets, and take care of all the visuals. You would only have to focus on what matters most – shooting great content.

Summing Up: How to Create a YouTube Thumbnail Online

Creating a thumbnail for YouTube isn’t just about making something that looks good; it’s about making something that works. It starts from choosing the right visuals and dimensions to adding strategic text, and finally testing it to see what actually drives clicks.

And of course, if you want to skip the stress, then let experts handle it all. Just sign up for our unlimited graphic design services and get everything from custom thumbnails to full video edits and promotional assets.

How to Create a YouTube Thumbnail that Gets More Clicks