With about 63.8 million creators on YouTube, making your content stand out takes hard work. While you should focus on the quality of your videos and their overall relevance to your target audience if you want to attract attention, one important thing you shouldn't overlook is your thumbnails.
The best thumbnails for YouTube can help you pique your audience's interest, encourage clicks, and boost brand recognition. But what exactly makes for a top YouTube thumbnail? Let's find out.
In this article
10 Best YouTube Thumbnail Ideas to Boost Your Clicks
Your thumbnail is probably the first thing prospective subscribers will see on your YouTube channel. So, you'd better make it count! The specifics may differ from one video to the next, but the following ideas will make for a fantastic YouTube thumbnail.
1. Create a Before and After Comparison
Whether you're sharing videos of your weight loss journey, your DIY project, dog grooming, or anything in between, a good before-and-after will always grab the attention of your audience. YouTube users love watching a good progress or transformation video, so you're bound to see an increase in your view count.
All you need for these thumbnails are high-quality images and perhaps your logo. You don't need much text or other elements, and it will only serve as a distraction.
- Generate thumbnails in seconds with AI.
- Choose from 200+ thumbnail templates.
- Powerful AI for effortless content creation.
- Intuitive, professional yet beginner-friendly.
- Works on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
2. Big Emotions, Big Faces
Perhaps the most popular type of thumbnail on YouTube is the one with exaggerated facial expressions. Be it a close-up of your shocked face, a snapshot from your video where you're laughing or crying, or having any kind of big emotion could work wonders.
Your audience can't help but have an emotional reaction to thumbnails with emotional expressions. While there are some viewers who would find it offputting, many more find it amusing, charming, or even exciting. It's a great way to spark your audience's curiosity and get them to click through!
You only have to make sure that the facial expression you're making in the thumbnail is relevant to the overall video in question.
3. Ask Engaging Questions
Some of the best-performing thumbnails have one thing in common – they pose intriguing questions.
"How do I refinance a mortgage?" "How to get started with furniture restoration?" "What PC do I need to play Minecraft?"
Whether humorous, insightful, viewer-provided, or anything in between, a burning question will certainly get you those clicks – as long as you provide an actual answer in your video.
Remember that this kind of thumbnail requires you to know your target audience pretty well. You need to know precisely what they're interested in and what they want to learn from your content.
4. Add Catchy Quotes
If you have no inspiration for a creative thumbnail for YouTube, one tried and true method always works – adding a quote.
You can approach this one of two ways. Primarily, you can simply use a quote from the video itself. It can be a glimpse into the video and become highly effective if you've said something memorable, funny, or outrageous. Bonus points if you include the image of the video frame when you said it.
Secondly, you can simply include a relevant quote from someone else. You don't have to have used the quote in your video. You just have to ensure it makes sense for the topic.
5. State Facts in Your Thumbnails
The best YouTube thumbnail will be brief, eye-catching, and exciting. The easiest way to achieve this is by stating facts that will make your target audience look twice.
Facts, statistics, and data that might be unexpected, shocking, or even downright controversial can work wonders for your view count.
However, you need to know when to use them. Facts and stats might appear strange if your video is a prom makeup tutorial. If you're a beauty guru who makes videos about makeup ingredients or the ecological impact of the beauty industry, adding facts to your thumbnails might work.
As a rule, these thumbnails are best reserved for videos dealing with science, finances, history, IT, etc.
6. Highlight Firsthand Experiences
One of the main reasons why users follow specific channels on YouTube is because they feel connected to them. They want to know more about the creator and trust their judgment. Moreover, they trust that the creator will be honest about the unique experiences that many subscribers wouldn't be able to enjoy.
So, including firsthand experiences in your thumbnails could be the key to attracting more viewers to your channel.
Whether you've had a positive or a negative impression of an experience, a product, a service, or anything in between, you can use your thumbnail to give viewers a short glimpse into it. It could be enough to entice them to look at your video.
7. Bright Colors and Contrasting Backgrounds
If you want to grab the attention of a wider audience, the easiest way to do it is by including pops of color in your thumbnails. All of us are wired to respond to bright, contrasting colors, regardless of where we see them – on a platform like YouTube or even in real life. Our eyes will always naturally focus on bright, eye-catching elements that can't but stand out from the environment.
Use this simple fact to your advantage. Include lots of fun colors in your thumbnails to grab attention, hook your audience in with a short text, and then astound them with fantastic content!
Even if your channel is more serious rather than entertaining, bright colors can still help you attract attention and keep in line with your brand persona.
8. Text with Numbers
Although the best YouTube thumbnails should focus primarily on the imagery, including text and numbers can spark curiosity among your viewers more easily.
A short text that's easily skimmable can quickly tell your viewers what the video is about, which would prompt them to read the video title and click through. Adding to it a number – be it a ranking, a date, a numerical fact, or anything in between – can make your thumbnails even more noticeable and inviting.
9. Try Different Design Approaches
Even if you're inspired by other creators in your niche and use similar thumbnails, it doesn't mean they'll work for you and your channel.
That's why it's in your best interest to try different design approaches and find out what suits you best. It might take you some trial and error to find out what you and your audience enjoy the most, so don't be afraid of testing out different approaches until you've pinpointed the best option.
10. Tutorials and How-Tos
Tutorials and how-to guides are always a hit on YouTube. They can be both entertaining and educational, making them exceptionally appealing to a large audience pool. So, whether you're in the makeup niche, DIY, IT, gaming, fitness, or anything in between, creating a tutorial-related thumbnail is bound to get your click-through rates through the roof.
Ideally, your thumbnail should contain both a short text indicating that the video is a tutorial and an image. Depending on the specific video in question, your best bet would be to use a high-quality frame as the thumbnail. However, you might also include a relevant image or stock media for it.
How to Create the Best Thumbnails for YouTube?
If you want to perfect the art of creating high-quality and best YouTube thumbnails, all you need is a good editor. Wondershare Filmora will have you covered. An advanced video editing software suite, it's the ideal tool both for creating thumbnails and enhancing your video content as a whole.
To create the best YouTube thumbnail with Filmora, it will automatically capture the best 3 shots in your video and you can simply decide which one to use, then you can apply 200+ YouTube thumbnail templates to the image shot you liked.
It has dozens of editing features spanning from basic to highly sophisticated. So, whether you just need to make a few cuts and trim your video or color-correct your footage and use AI to remove objects, create the green screen effect, and more, you'll have all the features you need in one comprehensive tool.
Here is how to create the best Thumbnails for YouTube:
- Install Filmora on your device, then log into your Wondershare account;
- In the main menu, set Aspect Ratio to 16:9 and click New Project;
- Import your media by clicking the Import button and then dragging it to the timeline;
- In the preview panel, click Snapshot and select Set Snapshot as a thumbnail;
- Drag the snapshot to the timeline to edit it;
- You can use AI portrait cutout to cut out the people automatically and apply video effects, adding texts and stickers according to your preference.
- When you're done editing, click the Snapshot icon in the preview window;
- Click Export to save your video and custom-made thumbnail.
Alternatively, you can use Filmora's AI thumbnail creator to automatically create thumbnails from your videos, it will automatically extract the 3 best shots in your video, and then give you a lot of customizing options, such as adding texts, adjusting the borders, shades and applying thumbnail templates, and more. Here is a video for your reference.
- Create thumbnail images with AI.
- Choose from 200+ built-in thumbnail templates.
- 1000+ video and audio editing features.
- Intuitive, professional yet beginner-friendly.
- Works on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
Best Features for Creating Best Thumbnails for YouTube
With Wondershare Filmora, you'll have access to dozens of fantastic features that help you easily create and enhance your YouTube thumbnails. Some of the best options include:
- AI portrait – with AI portrait, you can automatically outline your face and body in any frame of your video and remove the background to create a thumbnail;
- Smart Cutout – smart cutout allows you to automatically outline any object from your background and remove it.
- AI Mask – use AI masking to hide specific parts of your videos and frames, automatically recognize objects, add multi-layer overlays, create freeze frames, and more;
- Advanced Text Editing – add fully customizable text to your thumbnails using any font, style, size, and color. Alternatively, select text templates to simplify the process.
Creating unique thumbnails for YouTube has never been easier. Play around with different features and design memorable thumbnails to boost your clicks.
Conclusion
Most of your viewers will make a split-second decision of whether to watch your new YouTube video simply based on your thumbnail. If your thumbnail is generic and boring, you'll have to settle for low view counts.
If you want to increase your views and attract new subscribers, use tools like Wondershare Filmora to perfect your thumbnails and leave a lasting impression on your audience.
FAQs
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What is the most attractive color for YouTube thumbnails?
The best YouTube thumbnail colors depend entirely on your niche, branding, and audience. Generally, you should use complementary colors on opposite sides of the color wheel such as bright colors like red, and yellow. Moreover, you should pay attention to contrast and ensure all elements are legible. -
What file type is best for YouTube thumbnails?
JPG is generally considered the best file type. It has a small file size but keeps image quality high, thus reducing loading times without impacting clarity. -
What thumbnail gets the most clicks?
Personalized thumbnails where your face is visible generally perform better than those without people.
