this is how to create a killer YouTube thumbnail now your next video might be the one that blows up your channel but that will only happen if people actually click on it so what makes a good thumbnail and what do the most successful YouTubers do to get all those Clicks in this video I'm going to be sharing a simple five-step system to making a killer thumbnail and then at the end I'll also tell you why Mr Beast has recently been saying that thumbnail is irrelevant thumbnail is irrelevant anyway welcome to the channel everyone my name
is Oscar Owen and I'm a YouTube strategist living in London now my other Channel's got over 1 million subscribers you can see the plaque thing over there and it's got over 250 million views as well so I know a fair amount about what it takes to make a really good thumbnail and I've broken everything down for you into Five Easy Steps step one is the most important part to having a killer thumbnail yet it's so often overlooked by new YouTubers I mean you could have literally the greatest most beautiful well-designed thumbnail in the world but
if that thumbnail and title are about a really uninteresting topic then no one's going to going to click on it which is why step one to having a killer thumbnail and title is to make sure that your video idea is on something super interesting now if you don't believe me then here's Mr Beast saying exactly that someone reads it do they have to watch it is it just so intrinsically interesting that it's just going to with them if they don't click on it ideally the title represents content that you would want to watch for 20
minutes so if it's a 20-minute video and the title is I stepped on a bug the click the rate is going to be much lower now even though we only mentioned the word title In that clip he's actually referring to both the title and the thumbnail as they work together but essentially your title and thumbnail represent the idea of your video and if the idea is not interesting enough then no one's going to click on it in the first place so therefore what you need to do is take the time to craft a really good
YouTube idea first and then do your title and thumbnail afterwards so your idea needs to be something that's innately interesting and people just have to watch it and it takes a long time to brainstorm a good YouTube idea but it's so worth it because that's ultimately the foundation that will make your video perform well and I'll be making a deep dive video into idea generation soon and the exact process that I used to get 1 million subscribers on my other channel so subscribe now so you don't miss that video anyway once you've got a YouTube
video idea that you think will do really well you're then ready to move on to stage two of creating a killer thumbnail and that is getting the potential viewers attention so when a potential viewer goes on YouTube your thumbnail and title is competing with all the other thumbnails and titles on the platform not only that it's also competing with everything else in your potential viewers life like what's on TV or a message that they're getting on a different platform or even their cat looking super cute and wanting to be petted it really doesn't matter there
are so many distractions in our life and therefore your thumbnail needs to grab the viewers attention as they're scrolling through their feed and successful YouTubers apply a two-step formula to do this first they use contrasting and complimentary colors on their thumbnails and second they provoke an emotion in their thumbnail such as fear surprise or curiosity so let's take a look at an examp example so check out this Mr Beast thumbnail firstly notice how the main colors are red green and pink and if we take a color wheel you'll also see that red and green are
opposites meaning they stand out from each other most and second notice how the expression on his face produces an emotion of fear and surprise which is an excellent way to grab someone's attention and as he says in this tweet people's eyes are naturally drawn to faces meaning it's far more likely to actually get their attention if you show a face on your thumbnail now most YouTubers don't actually want thumbnails as striking as Mr Beast and you don't need to have his kind of thumbnails to be successful here's Ali abdal thumbnail and this video has got
over 12 million views and is way less dramatic than the Mr Beast one however notice all the same Trends are there there's still color contrast the white icons stand out from the darker background and second you can see the graphic of $27,000 on the screen and this creates a really strong emotion of shock because you're shocked to know that he's earning that amount of money and this obviously grabs your attention so you stop scrolling so Silla thumbnails have contrasting colors and produce emotions using text Graphics or facial expressions and if you do this on your
thumbnails it will help capture your viewers attention and make them stop scrolling but just getting the viewer to stop scrolling and look at your thumbnail isn't enough because this is where step three comes in which is getting the viewer to actually click on your thumbnail and watch your video and you've only got a split second to make the viewer actually want to click on your video before they just continue scrolling so this next part is crucial to understand so what actually makes someone click on a video well all the top YouTubers know this and it
comes down to a few words creating a curiosity Gap let me say that again because it's so important the only reason someone will click on your video is because the thumbnail creates a curiosity Gap what is a curiosity Gap it's the gap between what your viewer currently knows and what your viewer would like to know and your thumbnail has to fill this void so let me explain if we go back to the Ali abdal thumbnail you're not just shocked that he's earning $227,000 a month but you also want to know how how he does it
and that's what his video Promises the thumbnail shows how much money he's making and that creates the Curiosity Gap because you want to know how how he makes all that money and then the title says that the video will fill in this Gap because he's going to explain how he earns $27,000 a month so you can see how the title and thumbnail work together to create and fill the Curiosity Gap so look at your thumbnails and ask yourself does this spark curiosity does this leave people just wanting to know more does it leave something unsaid
that the viewer just needs to know and if the answer is yes then your thumbnail is great and you're ready to move on to the next step and if the answer is no then you need to rework your thumbnail the other important thing to note is your thumbnails need to show and not tell so the Bold text in Ali abd's video shows how much money he's making sparking that Curiosity making you want to click take one of my videos from my other channel which has over 12 million views this video teaches magic tricks with cigarettes
and as you can see in the thumbnail there's a floating cigarette which is one of the tricks that I'm teaching inside the video here I'm showing people a magic trick I'm sh showing them the cigarette floating in my hand and this creates a curiosity Gap because people want to know how that illusion works I could have just easily made a thumbnail that looks like this but as you can see it doesn't show the magic to really build that Curiosity so think of ways you can show the most interesting and most captivating parts of your video
and this can be through using text using Graphics uh faces and obviously relevant images but here's the Golden Rule the viewer should be able to look at the thumbnail and know mostly what the video is about without even seeing the title and speaking of titles let's move on to step four which is crafting the perfect title because the thumbnail and title work really closely together as we've just mentioned so you need to get them both right now there are three golden rules you need to follow when it comes to titles first it should be under
50 characters or the dot dot dot will appear because it's just too long and as Mr Beast famously says this is the worst thing because viewers don't even know what they're clicking on second it should confirm to the viewer that they need to watch your video so here's a good example this is a Pete McKinnon thumbnail and as you can see the thumbnail has a crazy before after transformation and obviously everyone watching this wants to know how that transformation works it really builds curiosity how did he turn this image to this image and then what
the title does is it confirms that if the viewer watches the video they will learn how that transformation actually works because in this case the video is called how to make your photos look better fast so this promises the viewer that if they watch his video they'll understand how to do this transformation so the viewer is much more likely to actually click on the video so make sure your titles actually confirm what the viewer sees in the thumbnail finally you want to use trigger words in your title and these are just excellent words that build
a sense of excitement and urgency in the viewers making them want to click so the title of this video is how to make a killer YouTube thumbnail killer is the trigger word I could have said amazing but killer is just a much stronger word that will make people want to click so here's a list of 50 amazing trigger words that all the top YouTubers use in their video titles and you can download this along with everything else in this video for free by clicking the first link in the description but even if you do everything
I've just told you you have the perfect thumbnail the perfect title you still might not be getting the highest clickthrough rate and that's where step five comes in because in a recent interview Mr Beast said thumbnails are irrelevant and this is why you see I've been on YouTube now for about 7 years and since the Inception of YouTube thumbnails and titles have been the primary way that people decide whether or not they actually want to click on a video to watch it but recently YouTube introduced a new feature which is making thumbnails far less relevant
and that feature is called autoplay so have you ever gone on YouTube and just seen how the video starts to automatically start playing well that's autop playay in action and it just means in many cases viewers will not even see your thumbnail for very long they'll just see the first 5 Seconds of your video and use that to sample your content and decide whether or not they want to watch your video so the first 5 Seconds of your video is just as important if not more important than your thumbnail and this is something that so
many new YouTubers don't even know about so the first 5 Seconds of your video basically is the new thumbnail and and if it's boring people won't click meaning you'll have a low click-through rate so how do we make the first 5 Seconds of our video really interesting well the most successful YouTubers apply a three-step formula to the first 5 Seconds of their YouTube videos tip one is the first sentence they say in the video matches their title tip number two is the first shots of the video also match the thumbnail and tip number three is
that there's lots of action going on be it through text or Graphics or just lots of scene cards so here's a really good example look at the title and thumbnail from this Mark Rober video and as you can see there's a person in a white suit running away from a dog and the title is called how to escape a police sniffing dog now let's look at the first five seconds of the video This Is Me running for my life in a forest as I'm being hunted by an animal specifically trained to find humans notice how
the first few shots clearly match the thumbnail and Mark's first sentence is this is me running for my life in a forest as I'm being hunted by an animal specifically trained to find human and this perfectly matches his title and fin there's a bunch of different clips making the video fast-paced and exciting so Mark Rover isn't the only YouTuber to do this lots of the top YouTubers like Mr Beast Mr who's the boss Peter McKinnon and even my other channel as well do this so just think of it as a mini 5-second trailer to the
rest of your video and it just needs to be so irresistible that the viewer has no choice but to watch it you just need to show the most exciting and epic parts of your video just to clarify your first 5 Seconds don't need to match your title and thumbnail word for word and pixel for Pixel but they need to be Clos enough so that when your viewer actually clicks on the video they realize that it's not clickbait the other thing to clarify is thumbnails still are relevant because they show up on the desktop they show
up in playlists and in lots of other places as well so you still need to create really good thumbnails but it's worth being aware about this 5-second autoplay feature because that also impacts whether or not people watch your videos so if there's anything you should take away from this video on how to make a killer YouTube thumbnail it's this number one have a great video idea first number two is to stop the viewer from scrolling by grabbing their attention using color and emotions number three is to create a curiosity Gap and make them want to
click on the video and then number four is to make sure your title and thumbnail work together and that your title is the appropriate length and number five is to focus on the first 5 Seconds of the video too now if you enjoyed this video please subscribe to the channel and you can download all five points and all those trigger words for free just by clicking the first link in the description anyway I'll see you in the next video
