How to Create High CTR Thumbnails

What is CTR?

The number of times the viewer clicks on the video after seeing the thumbnail. 

CTR = ClicksImpressions100

CTR Stand For

CTR stands for Click-Through Rate

How to Create High CTR Thumbnails

The design of your video thumbnail has a direct relation with CTR. A good thumbnail convinces the scrolling viewer to stop and click on your video. Good CTR means more clicks and views. 

But it doesn’t mean that CTR only depends on Thumbnail. Everything needs to be perfect. But the thumbnail is slightly more important because it describes the summary of your video.

How to Increase CTR through thumbnails

Repeated Design & Colors

It is considered a best practice to follow the same design and color combination for every video thumbnail. This will help the viewer to recognize your video in the feed.

Avoid Brand Colors

Try to avoid Youtube brand colors that are White & Red. We have analyzed 1 Million thumbnails on the basis of color combination and concluded that those thumbnails which used white and red colors had the lowest CTR.

Use of Person’s Face

Adding your own or similar to your niche person’s face increases CTR.

Best Practices To Increase CTR Except Thumbnail

Title Optimization

Optimized titles help in increasing CTR. But how to optimize? Here are a few tips

  1. Adding Brackets in Title
  2. Inlcude number like Date or 7 Best XXXXXX XX XXX
  3. Title Not More than 40-50 Characters

Description Power

The description does not help in CTR but helps in ranking your video. Remember CTR is the next step after ranking. And Powerful description is the key to ranking.

Thumbnail Image Optimization

There are a few best practices for image file optimization.

  1. Rename file as your main keyword.
  2. Also put your main and relevant keywords in Alt Name & Tags.

How To Know About CTR

  1. Go to Youtube Studio by Clicking on Right-Top Corner
  2. Click on Analytics
  3. Now click on the REACH tab.
  4. Now here you can see full analytics including
    1. Views
    2. Unique Views
    3. Impressions
    4. CTR

All these results are based on research. We have downloaded (Using YTD) and analyzed millions of thumbnails and then conclude the result that is present here in the summarized form.