What is YouTube Cover Image Thumbnail, How To Do It?

When you open YouTube, the world’s most popular video platform, you first watch the videos of the channels you already know and subscribe to. However, when watching a new video, you look at the cover image, called the thumbnail, rather than the title or description. Thumbnail, which means thumbnail, is the area that many viewers pay the most attention to when choosing a video.

Just as a good thumbnail draws viewers to the video; a bad thumbnail may also prevent a great video from being watched. Because these days, when we are already saturated with content, we take a few seconds at most to select videos, and the first thing that draws our attention during this time is the cover images. Let’s answer the question of what is a thumbnail, how to do it, and see the websites where you can create thumbnails for your YouTube videos.

What is Thumbnail?

To translate directly, thumbnail means thumbnail. Thumbnail, also known as cover art, is the first image that defines many content, especially videos. The thumbnail is extremely important, especially on platforms like YouTube, where there are countless videos. A similar importance applies to all content, especially Instagram shares, because the first area where a content promotes itself is its thumbnail image.

How should the thumbnail for YouTube be?

Let’s come to the YouTube thumbnail issue, which is the main subject of our article. The optimal thumbnail for YouTube should be 1280 x 720 pixels and a maximum size of 2 MB. Let’s say it didn’t happen, make sure the image width is at least 640 MB. The thumbnail you will prepare will be the main promotional material of your video.

When we put aside the technical details, a thumbnail image must be interesting. It is extremely important that he fully describes the YouTube video he is the cover of. The texts on the thumbnail should be legible and interesting fonts and colors should be used. In short, the thumbnail is the sign for your video, and every sign should be prepared in a way that best promotes the content.

How to add thumbnail to YouTube video?

• Step #1: Open the YouTube website here.
• Step #2: Click the Create button.
• Step #3: Specify the video details and start the upload process.
• Step #4: Expand the Thumbnails tab.
• Step #5: Click Upload Thumbnails.
• Step #6: Upload your thumbnail image.
  • or
• Step #7: Open YouTube Studio from here.
• Step #8: Click Content.
• Step #9: Open the video you want to add a thumbnail to.
• Step #10: Expand the Thumbnails tab.
• Step #11: Click Upload Thumbnails.
• Step #12: Upload your thumbnail image.
• Step #13: Click the Save button.

To add a thumbnail to a YouTube video, simply follow the steps above. You can follow the first steps to add a thumbnail to a video you upload for the first time, and the other steps to add a thumbnail to an already uploaded video. You can also follow the first steps to add thumbnails to your live broadcasts.

How to make Thumbnails?

You can create the necessary thumbnail image for your content by using Adobe Photoshop and similar image processing software. Thumbnail sizes may vary by platform. However, since our topic is YouTube, our dimensions are certain. Fortunately, even those who do not know Photoshop have websites where they can create thumbnails very easily.

Some website suggestions where you can thumbnail:

• Canva
• Vista Create
• Adobe Creative Cloud Express
• Visme

Even those who don’t know will be masters: Canva

Canva is one of the platforms that has made a name for itself in visual editing and graphic design. You can create your own YouTube thumbnail image on Canva. Moreover, you do not even need to create an account. Just open the website and launch the thumbnail design tool. Thanks to the tool guides, even those who say I don’t understand these things can design a thumbnail in a few minutes. You can find the Canva website here.

Thousands of ready-made design layouts: Vista Create

As we said, even those who don’t know create thumbnails, the most obvious example of this is the Vista Create website. The site’s design tool is so successful that it offers its users more than 40,000 still design layouts and over 50,000 premium layouts. All you have to do is run the design tool. You can create a unique thumbnail in minutes by following the tool’s directions. You can access the Vista Create website here.

Create unique designs: Adobe Creative Cloud Express

For those who say Adobe is life, the rest is excitement, here is Adobe Creative Cloud Express. You can create thumbnails for your YouTube videos for free through this tool developed by Adobe. After creating a free Adobe account, you can create your own thumbnail image by making the customizations you want over thousands of different design drafts on the site. You can access the Adobe Creative Cloud Express website here.

One of the most popular: Visme

Free for your YouTube videos on Visme, a platform preferred by more than 10 million people in over 120 countries You can create unique thumbnail images. After choosing the most suitable template for your video content, you can customize it as you wish. Even those who have never designed before can create a YouTube thumbnail in minutes. You can access the Visme website here.

Why is Thumbnail important?

The cover of a book, the poster of a movie, our hair, beard, make-up, and clothing are important for the same reason a thumbnail is important for content. Whether we admit it or not, we all form our first thoughts based on outward appearance. The skin of a content is the title and the thumbnail image it has.

You did a YouTube search on a topic that you have never consumed before, and you came across countless options. Of course, you look at the title first and make sure it’s relevant. The second place to look is the thumbnail image of that video. No user will open a video with a bad cover image. Why are you open anyway?

In today’s world, we have countless content options on every subject and we take a few seconds at most to choose which of these content. It has to be something that catches our eye and catches our attention in those few seconds. This is where the thumbnail comes into play and tells viewers they won’t regret watching the video in question. Of course, we all know that even the thumbnail image can be misleading.

As it turns out, thumbnail is one of the most effective methods of attracting attention you can use when making content reach the user. Of course, you should avoid making misleading cover images, but think of it like an advertisement. With a good advertisement, you can make even a product that does not have much features become the favorite of millions. The important thing is to prepare the most remarkable visual with the right content.

We answered the frequently asked questions such as what is thumbnail, which means the cover image and thumbnail of YouTube videos, and how to do it, and we talked about the details you need to know about this image. If you have different methods that you use while preparing the Thumbnail image, you can share it in the comments.