BLOG/

Why Thumbnail Can Make or Break Your Channel

Starting a YouTube channel looks like it shouldn’t be that difficult–just hit record and then upload!–which is why a lot of people do it. In addition, the one-two allure of making millions the “easy way” and quitting your mundane day job makes it seem like a really good idea. Who wouldn’t want to decide their own schedule, work minimal hours, and make videos of themselves traveling the world? Isn’t that what YouTubers do?

However, any creator who has been around a second will tell you they probably got more than they bargained for when they hit that “create a new channel” button. Most have no idea how much work and patience go into creating content for a channel that likely won’t even reach sustainable-income status, let alone YouTube star status. Ever.

Sound depressing?

If that little piece of reality just felt like a gut punch, never fear, because your path to YouTube success could start with following just one nugget of advice I’m going to give you right now…

Learn how to create really good thumbnails.

That’s it (for starters).

No matter how good your content is, nobody will watch it unless they are drawn to it with a really good thumbnail. You could spend hundreds of hours shooting videos, but if you don’t put in the time to learn how to create a good thumbnail image to go with your content, you’re just shooting blanks.

To ensure we’re all on the same page, I’ll remind you that the thumbnail is the primary image that represents what the video is about, and your video’s first “impression” to viewers. It’s the internet’s version of judging a book by its cover–the first thing potential viewers see to decide whether or not they will click on it to see what the thumbnail’s video is about. You could have the greatest YouTube video ever made, but if the thumbnail image is the worst YouTube thumbnail ever made, nobody will ever see your video!

Plain and simple: you must have a good thumbnail for the algorithm to value it and for viewers to want to click on it once the algorithm values it enough to push it to the people.

A great thumbnail will tell the story of the video content with just one image. It’s tricky to learn how to do this, but with a lot of research and practice, you can become a thumbnail creating pro.

Find more information about thumbnail creating on my YouTube page www.youtube.com/derraleves, or read my follow-up articles on this topic: The #1 Way To Boost Discovery On YouTube (LINK), and Creating The Perfect Thumbnail (LINK).

Reference:

creatoracademy.youtube.com