so that you can put any other background in theback. That's going to allow you to also create more variety in your thumbnails, especially if you do sit down videos just like me.
All right, so now that you've mastered the art of showing your face and removing the background and all the different expressions that you can do, the next thing that I like to follow when it comes to creating my thumbnails is to make sure that we're not using a fancy fonts.
Now you'll notice here on my channel that when we create most of our thumbnails, we add text. And the reason why we like to add text is because I'm more of an educational channel. I'm more of a sit down and talking style type of channel and there fore it's important for me to add texts because people can clearly see what my video is all about. Not only this, personally for me, when I'm scrolling through the YouTube feed, I'm always paying attention to the thumbnails over the titles and that's why if the thumbnail actually has text on it, it gives me a clear idea of what the video is about, which will give me more inclination to actually click on it and view it.
2.2 Avoid fancy fonts
So that's the philosophy behind why I personally like to add text on to my videos. But when it comes to adding texts, we always,always avoid fancy fonts.
And I know that fancy fonts are beautiful. They look amazing on a website, for example,these funds right here or these fonts right here. But the thing that you got to realize is that even though these fonts look really great on Pinterest or your website or your blog,they convert terribly on YouTube and the reason why, especially on a small screen like mobile,these fancier fonts tend to be very, very hard to read and that's why no matter how beautiful a font is, we personally won't choose them for our thumbnails and instead we'll offer very simple, very clean and very bold fonts such as Oswald Bay, best new Montserrat,Poppins. These are personally my favorite fonts touse for my thumbnails.
That's why if you are someone who's considering to put text into your thumbnails, definitely make sure that you are avoiding fancy fontsbecause it's simply not going to convert for you. No. Once you've chosen a bold font for your thumbnails,the next thing that you want to consider if you are adding texts to your thumbnails is to keep it simple.
2.3 Less but use effective texts
I personally have a rule of thumb now that no text should be over four words.
Now obviously on my channel I've had thumbnails that have way more than four words and still performed, but now a days. I really like to keep things streamlined and I try my very best to make it less than four words and the reason for this is again, on mobile, when you're thinking about looking at thumbnails on mobile, the more texts that you have, the less you're able to stretch out that text be bigger on your thumbnails. And so when you have only four words, let's say, it's going to be a lot easier to enlarge that and to create more of an impact on to your thumbnail.
3. Title text on Thumbnail
Now before I dive into the next golden rulethat I have for you, I actually want to give you a bonus tip when it comes to adding text to your thumbnails because I know a lot of you guys might hesitate on what exactly to put in your thumbnail when it comes to the texts. Now I follow one of the following two options. Option one is I say it like it is. I literally use my text to explain exactly what my viewers are going to get from my video. If I am creating a video on my Instagram strategy for 2021 then my title is going to be Instagram strategy for 2021 I personally like being straight forward in my videos so that people can expect the exact content that they assume that they were going to get from looking at the thumbnail alone. Now on the other hand for some of my other videos and I don't do this often, is you can choose the option where you do more of a clickbaittitle and this is where you don't really give everything away and maybe you put, you knowone or two words that's really going to evoke a reaction or curiosity from your audience,for example, like this. Now, these are also really effective in orderto create an emotional response from your viewers.
Now it's just up to you to just test the following two options. There is no right or wrong and see what performs better on your channel. For me personally, I like to be straight forward,but for you, you might want to evoke a more stronger emotional reaction with your thumbnails.
4.keep everything on the righthand side
Now moving onto the fourth golden rule thatI like to follow when it comes to creating thumbnails is to keep everything on the righthand side.
And this is a tip that I've actually shared a lot of times here on my channel, but I'm saying it officially and on the record in this specific video here because this video is dedicated to them nails. And the reason why is once you've chosen your font, once you've chosen, you know what exactly you're going to write as the text in yourthumbnail and you actually have your face. I personally want to make sure that my text or whatever is the most important that I want people to read stays on the right hand side. And the reason why is because on the lefthand side, there are tons of icons from YouTube that ended up covering that side on the feed.
And so that's why for me knowing this, I makesure that the most important pieces of information that I like to have on my thumbnail stay onthe right side so that it doesn't get covered up.
5.make it big
Now on to the last golden rule when it comes to creating thumbnails and that is make it big, and this is something that I've pretty much mentioned throughout this Post, but I cannot emphasize it enough that your thumbnails gotta be big. And I'm not saying that the size it needs to be big, like the actual dimensions of the thumbnail because everyone's thumbnails dimensionsare the same, but I'm saying that the elements in your thumbnail needs to be large enoughso that someone who's standing maybe five feet away from the computer can still see it.
And I cannot emphasize this enough. I've worked with clients, I've worked with students, I've seen people, someone else before, and people still don't understand that it's so important that the elements that you're putting in your thumbnails is large enoughfor someone to actually see it on mobile or see it when they're walking by their computerand all of that.
Because the thing is that things might look big on Canva when you have it at 100% or even 50% largeness. But when you actually shrink it down intoa YouTube feed, it actually is microscopic and that's why it's so important that youactually consider this when you're creating some nails. And again this ties back to why with you'readding text, have less words or if you're showing your face, make sure you're actuallyreally showing your face in the video so that people can see you and everything like that.
Don't bother putting small microscopic textor don't bother putting tiny emojis cause it's just going to look like a speck on mobileand even oftentimes on desktop. Now to help you guys out to make sure that your thumbnail elements are large enough to be optimized for YouTube is what you can do is you can go on Canva and before you download your thumbnail, just shrink it. Just make it 10% so that you can truly see whether or not the things are standing out to you, even if your thumbnail is shrunken down to 10% so that's something that I personally like to do.
You don't have to use Canva, you can use somethingelse, but I hope that that little hack helps you.
Final thoughts
Anyways, guys, so far in this post you learned my five golden rules that my team and I follow when it comes to creating all of our thumbnails in our channel.
Make sure you comment below and let me know if you learn something new or if you have other golden rules that you like to follow.
As always, guys, I appreciate you. I hope you guys have a great day, a greatweek, and a great life, and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys. And good luck with your YouTube thumbnails.
