Why aren’t you getting more views on your YouTube channel? A huge reason can be your videos’ thumbnails.

Thumbnails are one of the most important factors that determine if someone clicks on your video or not.

In today’s post, you are going to learn the value of YouTube thumbnails and how they affect your CTR. With a few easy changes, your view count can skyrocket!

Keep reading to know how to multiplicate your YouTube channel’s growth.

The Value of Thumbnails for YouTubers

You have done your homework.

You have a solid content strategy in place and have already researched your target audience and the topics you can cover for your specific niche.

You are uploading videos consistently and you are making sure that they are high-quality and provide a huge amount of value for your viewers.

Why is nobody watching your videos then?

Shouldn’t your views be higher?

Well, a huge culprit of this stagnation could be your thumbnails.

When someone doesn’t know you or your channel, thumbnails and titles are basically the first impressions they get from you.

If that first impression isn’t good, chances are that people decide to watch another video instead.

When Should You Change The Thumbnail of a YouTube Video?

You should change your videos’ thumbnails when you know you have valuable content but aren’t getting as many views as you want.

Say we are searching for a specific topic on YouTube’s search bar.

While we are looking at the list of videos, the only elements we have to judge if a video from someone we don’t know is worth watching are the thumbnail and the title.

And some people don’t even read the title and only look at the thumbnail.

So if your thumbnail game is off, you may be losing some valuable views and clicks.

It doesn’t matter how amazing your content is, if people don’t click on it, they won’t know.

Therefore, we can assert that thumbnails are one of the most important factors to determine if people click on your videos, watch them, and potentially subscribe to your YouTube channel.

If your thumbnails aren’t clickable, your channel won’t grow!

YouTube Thumbnails and CTR

CTR is a marketing term that stands for Click-Through-Rate.

It simply indicates the ratio of clicks to impressions on a campaign or platform.

On YouTube Studio (where you can view analytics) CTR is the percentage of people that saw a video of yours and clicked to watch it.

It’s extremely important to keep an eye on your CTR because it will determine the success of your channel.

Simply put, if no one clicks on your videos, you won’t get views, nor subscribers… aka your growth will stagnate.

How Do I Know If My Thumbnails Are Converting Properly?

Thumbnails serve a crucial function: to communicate what a video is about and to persuade people to click it.

The golden rule of clickable thumbnails is to deliver, with strong emotions or a controversial statement, the challenges or the actions that the video conveys.

High-converting thumbnails have an essential storytelling element to them, that draws viewers’ attention and makes it a no-brainer for them to click on the video.

Awesome thumbnails serve to evoke curiosity and a need to watch the video to get what the thumbnail promises.

At the same time, good thumbnails help to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the channel.

That way, returning visitors can know exactly that a video belongs to your channel by only looking at the thumbnails’ design.

These are some of the best practices professional designers follow when crafting custom thumbnails for YouTube channels.

A strong red flag regarding thumbnails is a messy and confusing design.

If there are too many elements, it simply won’t convey properly what your video is about.

A viewer that can’t understand a thumbnail won’t click on it, because they won’t understand what’s in the video for them.

Think about your own experience when choosing what video to watch: if we don’t know what we will get from a video we don’t feel compelled to click, right?

A Simple Change in Thumbnails Can Go a Long Way

Being thumbnails so important, it’s crucial that you pay attention to them and make sure that their design is clickable and optimized for a high CTR.

The design also has to be appealing to your target audience and communicate clearly the value they will get after watching the video.

But how do you know that if you aren’t a graphic designer?

At least you commit to learn graphic design and know the ins and outs of thumbnail design, maybe the best option will be to outsource your thumbnails to a team of professionals

A simple change in thumbnails can make a huge difference.

According to a case study of VidIQ, VEVO (one of the largest musical YouTube channels) saw “a 4000% increase in views over a two-week period” when they changed the thumbnail of a video.

A 4000% increase in views! That’s huge!

After that dramatic improvement, they changed the thumbnails of over 4000 videos and these were the results:

Conclusion

Thumbnails are one of the most decisive elements someone has to judge if they click on a video or not.

And if your thumbnails are messy and confusing or have an unappealing design, chances are they won’t convert very well.

To increase your views and CTR, a simple change in thumbnails can work wonders, bringing you extreme growth to your YouTube channel.

If you decide to outsource this vital aspect of your channel to professional designers, here at EazySMM we have a dedicated team specialized in thumbnails.

The thumbnails we provide follow best practices to ensure high-clickability and conversions.

Ready to improve your YouTube game and start receiving the views you deserve?

Check our thumbnails design service here.

Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments section: did you know how thumbnails affect your YouTube channel’s views and CTR? Have you changed thumbnails before? What were the results?