Make GREAT THUMBNAILS on YouTube - Do thumbnails matter? @vidIQ Secret Weapon

thumbnails on youtube they're the window to the soul but how important are they i use vidiq's thumbnail comparison tool to really skyrocket my chances of a good thumbnail let's jump to the computer and i'll show you how it works one of the most important things i've found over the eight nine years that i've been on youtube is that thumbnails are paramount to the success of a youtube video my recent video as you can see here is a youtube short in which it's just taking a screenshot from the middle if you go to the analytics you will see that it's got a click-through rate of 3.3 with a high of 20 in the last hour or so now the only reason that's probably 20 is it's pushing it out towards my subscribers and my most loyal people but otherwise it bimbles around seven and zero now we're going to have a look at one of my most popular videos on my youtube channel you'll see that it initially started with next to no views and then over time exploded if we go and have a look at the start of its life you'll see that it just bimbled along until this point this point here was the making or breaking of this video what was so important now you'll see this thumbnail it looks okay you can see my face you can see make playlists on youtube so you know the premise of the video but the important thing here is you'll see the click-through rate is an average of 15 percent the most important thing is here this is where it was bumbling around getting no real views but one day youtube decided to check out the video re-rank it it got 40 click-through rate in one day and then immediately it re-ranked the video and that's where that curve comes from that you see not only impressions but in views nothing nothing nothing here's the re-ranking point and bang so how do you know that you're making a good thumbnail there is a great tool from vidiq you can install vidiq by going to vidiq.com forward slash alan spicer and you will see this little box here on the right hand side and you can search by any specific keyword that you want so in this case playlist is very relevant to this video and then i click preview in search results this will now show me anything with the word playlist and i can compare it against the others now if i want to be more specific make youtube playlist you'll see not only do i rank first anyway so i'm here at the top but i can compare it against my rivals how to make a playlist on youtube youtube playlist tutorial and you'll see that these people may have like many many more subscribers than me right but what i can see is i can compare say this video here against my thumbnail and i can see which one stands out more which one gives the clear proposition i can see it on desktop i can see it on tablet i can see it on mobile phone here you go so two years old 360 4 000 views and i can compare against the others i can also see what it looks like on the home screen of these devices there you go so now i can see if you were looking specifically for how to make a playlist on youtube which one stands out which one delivers the value proposition okay now if on the other hand your thumbnail isn't as good as these you'll then know okay so this blue background stands out a bit well and maybe you can change it or tweak it now this video is nearly two years old so maybe i want to go back and re-thumbnail it in the long run but overall it's doing well and this is the tool that really helps me go out there and grab attention and this is why your thumbnail is important you get the click-through rate perfect and your video can explode if you need more tips on thumbnails and click through rate watch this video here subscribe for regular youtube tricks and tutorials