Kickstart Your YouTube Channel Growth with Effective Title and Thumbnail Combo
Your thumbnail and title are the first things potential viewers see. Combined, they need to evoke emotions like curiosity, excitement, fear of missing out, nostalgia, shock, peacefulness, and so on. This is the only thing that can make someone stop scrolling and click to watch.
For example, have you ever experienced a situation when you open the YouTube Home page and accidentally fall into the rabbit hole, clicking on videos you wouldn’t normally search for or deliberately open to watch, but something in them intrigued you? You most definitely have! We all do this all the time! But how?
When this happens again (as it most certainly will) and you click on a video from a creator you've never watched before or on a video that covers a topic you shouldn't be interested in, stop, just freeze, and ask yourself, “Why?” “Was it the color I liked?” “Was it a specific phrase or word in the title?” “What kind of emotion do I feel when looking at this?” “Why am I so drawn to this?” Analyze, analyze, analyze!
Then do the same for your specific niche. Go to YouTube search, look at the successful videos on similar topics, and ask, “Why? Why? Why?”
Titles and thumbnails are your video’s first impression. They are the frontier of your video's success. They give your video a chance to be seen. The Click-Through Rate (CTR) gate, which tells YouTube your content is worth promoting, and off we go to fight for retention (but that’s a different story ??).
Some Tips on Thumbnails
Every channel is different, and every niche thumbnail is different; there is no such thing as one approach fits all when it comes to thumbnails. However, using bright colors, high contrast, and drop-shadowed text to stand out will help in most cases. Don’t forget that thumbnails will actually look tiny on your audience's screen. Zoom out and think, “Can I see what’s happening on the thumbnail well?” Therefore, make sure that your thumbnail is not too busy. Don’t overcomplicate it by literally putting your whole title on your thumbnail; that's a big no-no. Simplicity is key here.
Consistency is important too. Maintaining a consistent style that reflects your brand helps build recognition and trust with your audience. Finally, your thumbnail should accurately represent your content. Misleading thumbnails can lead to high bounce rates and hurt your channel’s credibility. DON’T CLICKBAIT YOUR AUDIENCE!
Now, every Wednesday, Mr. John Scott from vidIQ goes live on our YouTube channel at 12 pm (PST) to review your thumbnails. Make sure to check it out! Even if your thumbnail is not picked, you can learn from other people's experiences, see what’s not working, and what is working! Highly recommended.
Also, here are some videos from the vidIQ channel that can help you figure out the uneasy craft of creating thumbnails:
Finally, we at vidIQ have got you covered. We created a tool that analyzes your thumbnail by the most common parameters and suggests what can be improved. It can be very helpful if you need an external look at your thumbnail.
The tool is called “Optimize.”
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Tips on Titles
When it comes to titles, before actually putting your hands on them, you need to figure out what kind of title you will be focusing on. Is it going to be browse-based, where you need to push into that emotional call to intrigue your potential viewer (something we mentioned at the beginning of this article)? Or will it be search-based? In that case, incorporating relevant keywords is essential, as these are what your audience is likely searching for.
Your title should be clear and concise, clearly conveying what your video offers without resorting to clickbait. Also, please don't use #HASHTAGS in your title!
vidIQ has got you covered with the Keyword tool that can help you find keywords, and the tool is FREE. Additionally, the Optimize tool mentioned above works for titles as well.
Another thing, titles are tricky, but we have a whole playlist dedicated to title writing only! Make sure to check it out; we have literally accumulated all the knowledge we have on this topic there:
To sum it up, let me show you an example of the perfect execution of both titles and thumbnails from our Discord community member Lars?.
Lars has a gaming channel. He’s been experimenting a lot, but lately, he switched to a style where he uses little to no text on his thumbnails, and all his titles genuinely make me want to say, “What????” (in a good way). As a non-gamer, I was actually intrigued to click and check out some of his videos.
He uses the template of showing his character's emotions or the surrounding NPCs' emotions. It instantly conveys what the video will be about, and then he spices up these emotions with some clues in the title that build the full picture of what kind of experience we are about to get!
Beautiful! Well done!!!
Now it’s time to unleash your creativity and go craft those titles and thumbnails!
Let us know if you have any questions ??