Create Amazing Eye-Catching Thumbnails for You Tube

What’s the single most important element of your video in order to get more Clicks?

For experienced You Tubers the answer should seem obvious, but I betcha many newbies to You Tube do not realize this.

Well, I already gave it away in my title, that’s right….

You better create Amazing Eye-Catching Thumbnails for your You Tube videos to get your viewers clicking!

Get More Clicks on Your Videos

Do you want more clicks on your You Tube videos?

Of course you do!

Just as what a great featured image can do for a blog post, a Great Thumbnail is essential to increase your CTR’s on your You Tube videos.

You know perfectly well that more clicks will lead to more Views, which lead to more Likes, which lead to more Watch Time, and which lead to more Subscribers.

And ultimately the Holy Grail of You Tube engagement is for all of these elements to lead to more SHARES.

SHARES are the most important single component that will make a video go viral, amassing thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of views!

Yeah, that’s what you want. I know it.

Well, listen up Ladies and Gents, because what I am about to say is really important.

Not only is this important, this should make really simple sense to you.

Use an Eye-Catching Thumbnail

You should never use the recommended default thumbnail by You Tube after uploading your video.

Always create your own custom eye-catching thumbnail.

The problem is that people get lazy. I’ve seen even experienced You Tubers fall into this trap. Rather than taking the extra-time to produce their own eye-catching custom thumbnails, they simple choose one of the 3 thumbnails You Tube suggests

That’s a big mistake.

What thumbnail would you be more likely to click on?

Let's Do an A/B Test

So to back up my own intuition, I did an A/B test.

Check out this original thumbnail I used that was recommended by You Tube. I uploaded this default thumbnail (Specimen A) and used this for the first 6 days after my video was published

.

I tested then tested the above original (A) vs my own custom thumbnail (B) to see what version produced the most clicks.

Now check out my own custom thumbnail that I later created (Specimen B)

For the first 6 days after publishing it on You Tube for Specimen A, here were the results.

On the 7th day, I uploaded and swapped out the old thumbnail for my new eye-catching custom thumbnail Specimen B that I created, and over the next 6 days now check out these results.

It wasn’t even close.

Specimen B annihilated the original You Tube default recommended thumbnail by a total of 333 clicks and 7.6 hours of Watch Time!

Now that's radical!

The answer should have been obvious, it’s B.

The clear winner was version B, which was my own eye-catching custom thumbnail that I created.

And this was verified by You Tube analytics.

The Verdict: Eye-catching thumbnails clearly make a big difference in CTR.

There is simply no doubt.

I hope this post has been an "eye-opener" and has helped you realize the importance of creating custom thumbnails that are eye-catching for your You Tube videos.

Cheers,

Kaju