6 min

The #1 YouTube Thumbnail Design Mistake

A lot of people use YouTube thumbnails to sell their brand, but few consider the important role that the lower right-hand corner of the screen plays in a YouTube thumbnail.

This is the area that is covered up by the timestamp on any video, and it can have a massive effect on the design of your thumbnail.

If you want to know how to fix this design issue, you can read this article or watch our video live here.

If you put any content in this area that is relevant to generating curiosity and getting people to click on your video, you can kiss any views goodbye because they will be covered up by the timestamp.

How to Fix This Thumbnail Design Issue

The fix for this is to design in other areas of the thumbnail, and then finally if you have to put any content in that bottom corner, make sure it doesn't matter that it's cut off.

For example, if you have a landscape at the bottom of your thumbnail, it doesn't matter that the corner is cut off because people still get the overarching value of that landscape.

However, if you put text in that bottom corner, it will be covered up and people won't be able to read it.

By keeping all of your design aspects away from that corner and in the other three corners of your thumbnail, you can avoid this mistake and generate click-through rates of anywhere between 10 to 30%.

This is the goal because if your click-through rates are getting anywhere above 10%, that means your video is generating a lot of audience traction and YouTube will reward you for it.

By following these simple design principles, you can ensure that your YouTube thumbnail will be effective in generating curiosity and getting people to click on your video.

This is something that is essential for growing your channel and ensuring that your videos get the views they deserve.

Watch the Solution Live

I'm going to be telling you about the number one design mistake you can make when you're making YouTube thumbnails. Now, this mistake is going to keep your videos from going viral. It is going to absolutely ruin your click-through rate.

So this is a massive thing you want to avoid and we're gonna get into that today before we do that, go ahead and subscribe if you haven't already because I'm gonna be posting content, talking about YouTube design principles for your thumbnails as well as just YouTube in general.

So go ahead and subscribe if you want to get that content.

Now let's go ahead and get right into the video. Before we delve into the number one mistake you can make when you're designing a YouTube thumbnail in terms of the design principles that are very consistent.

I want to go ahead and take you through a few things about YouTube thumbnails in general and why they're so important. There are a lot of people who use YouTube thumbnails for their content in general, I would say most YouTube creators, whether you're a hobbyist or a large YouTuber, you are using a thumbnail to promote your content.

You are using YouTube thumbnails to essentially sell your brand. These thumbnails obviously display in place of your video for anyone who's interested in clicking on your content. But I want to take a second to go ahead and reinforce really how important these thumbnails are to your brand and how important they are to growing.

Now a YouTube thumbnail is essentially one of the two most important things for growing your channel that is actually visual to the viewer. There are three very important aspects to growing in a YouTube video that you need to be thinking about at any time.

The number one is obviously the YouTube thumbnail. Number two is going to be the title and number three is going to be the SEO or the description of the YouTube video.

Now, I'll get into all of those later on in another video. But for now what you need to know is that these are the three parts which you need to be thinking about when you're selling your video. Now obviously everyone says that a picture is worth 1000 words, but because of that it makes sense that a video would be worth way more than that.

And in that sense it is very hard to display your entire video as just a YouTube title. If you're trying to summarize your video into just a YouTube title, it can be incredibly hard to do that. And while that is something that you do have to do the YouTube thumbnail is there to help you with that. And this is why YouTube thumbnails are so incredibly important.

Every pixel in your YouTube thumbnail matters when it comes to getting conversions and getting that click-through rate when you have people who see your channel or who see one of your videos recommended on their feed.

You have to capture their attention and you have to convince them that your video is actually worth clicking on, You have to basically show them why they should be watching your video as opposed to any of the other videos on their feed.

And when they're on something like their home feed or even the suggested videos, that is a lot of competition. You have at least 10 to 20 suggested videos on any of your content which is suggesting on the sidebar and you've got even more videos you have to compete with on your home page because of that.

The design of your YouTube thumbnail is incredibly important and obviously the space which you are designing in matters as well.

If you only design half of your YouTube thumbnail and left the other half completely blank unless that was an integral part of your video, that would not be an effective design to go ahead and sell your video and get more content.

You want to use up your YouTube thumbnail space at least insofar as it is effective in generating curiosity of the viewer. And this gets into the thumbnail design principle and the big mistake which I think people are making when they are designing YouTube thumbnails.

The mistake is that the lower right-hand corner of the screen in any YouTube thumbnail. The lower right-hand portion is actually covered up by the timestamp, which YouTube has on any video, whether it's on the sidebar, whether it's on the homepage, whether it's on the suggested no matter where it is, YouTube puts essentially a timestamp in the lower right-hand corner of the video display.

Now, this timestamp might not seem like a big of a deal because on the homepage on your channel, it's not very intrusive with that being said, it becomes a lot more intrusive when it shows up on your sidebar when it shows up other places that can have a massive effect on the design of your thumbnail.

This is a massive issue and this is something which a lot of people don't think about when they're actually designing YouTube thumbnails when your design a YouTube thumbnail. And if you put any content which is relevant to generating the curiosity and getting people to click on your video, convincing them that this is something they need to know more about because that is the goal of any YouTube thumbnail.

If you have that content that essentially elevator pitch of your thumbnail, which is definitely something you need to consider because there is going to be a main focal point of attention in any thumbnail.

And if that focal point is in the bottom right hand corner of your thumbnail, you can essentially kiss any of your views that you could get goodbye because you're not going to be getting those views anymore, it's going to be covered up by the time stamp on your thumbnail.

Now, essentially the fix for this is to design in other areas of the thumbnail and then finally, if you have to put any of the remaining design in that bottom corner. Now, obviously if there's a part of your design that doesn't really go to selling the overall aspect of the thumbnail, that doesn't really matter.

Like if I have a landscape at the very bottom of my thumbnail, it doesn't matter that that corner is cut off because people still get the overarching value of that landscape if however, let's say for example, I put text at the bottom of my thumbnail unless it's just a bunch of exclamation marks on the right hand side of the screen.

We have an issue because that text is going to be covered up by that time stamp and oftentimes that timestamp will be covering up a large part portion of your text and if this is the case, well, you can expect that people aren't going to be able to read all of that text and while that can be okay in some cases, in other cases, that can be the reason why people don't find your video as curiosity generating as interesting as they should.

A thumbnails goal is to essentially generate curiosity for your video. It's to tell people about your video and show them about your video without actually giving away every single thing you put in your video. Now, obviously if you do this effectively, you can generate click through rates of anywhere between 10-30 and even upwards of 30%. And this is the goal because if your click through rates are getting anywhere above 10%, that means your video is generating a lot of audience traction.

That means people are seeing your video and they're saying I am interested in this content and they are clicking on it, they are interested and this is something which happens with a lot of big channels like Mr Beast, for example, these channels are able to generate these incredible click through rates and YouTube sees that and they reward it.

Now, this is essentially what your channels goals should be with thumbnails, but with thumbnails, as I mentioned, remember that bottom right hand corner of the screen is going to be the one thing that stops your video from getting that click through rate.

If everything else is successful. And obviously I'll go into these principles later on, so go ahead and subscribe if you haven't already, but if everything else is successful, if everything else is successful, the one thing which will lower your click through rate is at bottom right hand corner, that is the corner that's covered up.

And if that is the corner where you put anything interesting or anything notable for the viewer in, they're not gonna be able to see it, that is going to pretty much wrap it up for this video though. Keep all of your design aspects, all of your core aspects away from that corner and keep them in the other three corners of your design.