1080pMost people use 1080p of Full HD to upload to YouTube. Its easy to use, fast to render in and good for uploads. But did you know that you can make it faster to upload to YouTube and small files sizes with a few tweaks.
My YouTube export settings for Adobe Premier Pro CC to guarantee maximum quality, faster tendering times, quick uploads and smaller files.
Resolution and aspect ratio
The standard aspect ratio for YouTube on a computer is 16:9. When uploading other aspect ratios (vertical, square, etc.), the player automatically adapts itself to the size of the video, giving the best viewing experience based on the aspect ratio and device.
Content should be encoded and uploaded using the same frame rate that was used during recording.
Common frame rates include: 24, 25, 30, 48, 50 and 60 frames per second (other frame rates are also acceptable).
Interlaced content should be deinterlaced before uploading. For example, 1080i60 content should be deinterlaced to 1080p30. 60 interlaced fields per second should be deinterlaced to 30 progressive frames per second.
The bitrates below are recommendations for uploads. Audio playback bitrate is not related to video resolution.
Recommended video bitrates for SDR uploads
To view new 4K uploads in 4K, use a browser or device that supports VP9.
YouTube video timestamps now come with skippable chapters that can help you rank better in search. Learn how to add chapters to youtube videos with time stamps and why they are so useful for YouTube and Google search results.
The new time stamp video chapters for YouTube videos give you the opportunity to add relevant sub titles to sections of your videos. This means people can skip to these parts quicker, helping them get the answer they want more directly. These snippets can work well for youtube promotion as they can also be found by Google and using in the search results as video snippets or result snippets for quick answers in results.
What Are YouTube Video Timestamps?
Timestamps on YouTube videos give you the chance to skim through the video quickly and find what you are looking for using the mini sub headings.
The timestamps are normally added to the video description by the video creator. You start with 0:00 to show YouTube where the video starts and you add time stamps to important parts of the video with index marks for example “2:53 – Step By Step Tutorial”.
YouTube video chapters can help you find the important part of the video faster.
If you are a creator and you upload videos, the chapters give you the opportunity to add additional, relevant keywords to the description of the video.
Why add keywords to the description?
YouTube search and google works on relevancy and meta data. If you post a video tutorial that has 5-6 different parts to it then you can section it out. Each questions could have a time stamp. Each of those time stamps could be a search term and each could have a chance of dominating search results with google snippets.
What Are Google Snippets?
Google Snippets (featured snippets) are short selections of text or clips of YouTube videos appearing at the top of Google’s search results that are designed to answer a searcher’s query.
The content that appears inside of a Featured Snippet is automatically pulled from web pages in Google’s index or snippets from YouTube Videos with timestamps. Common types of Featured Snippets include definitions, tables, steps and lists.
How featured snippets are chosen?
Featured snippets come from web search listings. Google’s automated systems determine whether a page would make a good featured snippet to highlight for a specific search request.
How To Download A YouTube Video for a backup, maybe you want to download YouTube videos for b-roll, or you are using the youtube video download tool to save them to play later – this can help you.
I like to download my own YouTube videos to add them as overlays in new content, it’s a good way to drive traffic to older content.
So how do you download YouTube videos?
To download a YouTube video you will need to login to your YouTube dashboard. Click on videos and look for the video you want to download. Hover over the video description snippet and it will change into a tool bar. Click on the 3 dots options and you will see a Download video link.
Download YouTube Videos on Mobile with YouTube Premium
Offline downloads are one of the various perks offered to people who pay $12 per month for YouTube’s Premium subscription.
It also offers access to YouTube Music Premium and removes ads from videos. While the 720p resolution download limit may have made sense a few years ago when phone screens generally didn’t go far beyond 720p, many phones have now gone past that; the iPhone X and XS have resolutions that exceed 1080p, for instance.
Why Download YouTube Videos?
When you download YouTube videos, you can watch them without an internet connection, which is ideal for keeping yourself entertained on planes, trains, and trips to places without reliable mobile internet access.
Downloading YouTube videos on to your mobile phone can be a great way to save money on limited data allowance plans.
But if you download them to your phone using your home Wi-Fi before you travel, you can watch them on the move without risking going over your data allocation.
It’s surprisingly easy to download videos from YouTube and other video hosting sites – and you can do it free. YouTube itself provides some tools for downloading videos (on both desktop and mobile), and there are third-party tools that can do the job as well. Read on to find out how.
Is downloading YouTube videos legal?
Using third-party apps to download YouTube videos is against Youtube’s terms of service – which state that you are only able to stream videos directly from its servers.
Downloading YouTube videos also opens you up to potential copyright infringement unless you have permission from the copyright holder, it’s in the public domain, or you own the video yourself.
YouTube does offer some ways to download videos through its web service and its own apps.
How To Download YouTube Videos with YouTube Premium
The YouTube Premium service (formally YouTube Red) is the only official way you can download other peoples videos and music.
Download videos and playlists to watch offline when you aren’t connected to the Internet.
You can download videos to watch offline using the YouTube or YouTube Music apps (and watch auto-downloaded videos in the YouTube Kids app) if these apps are available in your location and you’re signed in with your YouTube Premium account.
How To Download A YouTube Video on YouTube Premium
Start watching a video on the YouTube Mobile app.
Tap Download below the video player.
Select the video quality.
The ‘Downloaded’ icon will appear below the video player when the video has finished downloading.
You can view your downloaded videos in the Library or Accounttabs.
To remove a downloaded video, tap Downloaded and select Remove.
YouTube Premium Recommends Videos to Download
YouTube Premiums recommended downloads feature will help you get ideas for videos and playlists to download.
Note that when you download a recommended playlist, all the videos contained within that playlist will be downloaded. These recommended playlists will update weekly (while you’re connected to Wi-Fi), so you always have new videos to watch.
To find your Recommended Downloads:
Open the YouTube app and make sure that you’re signed in to your YouTube Premium membership.
Tap on the Library tab .
Tap Downloads and scroll down to Recommended downloads.
Download videos and/or playlists by tapping the download icon .
Change YouTube Premium Download Settings
On certain mobile devices, videos and playlists can be downloaded only when connected to a Wi-Fi network.
To download videos over a mobile network, go to Settings and turn off Download over Wi-Fi only under ‘Background & Downloads’.
Set Video Download Quality on YouTube Premium
To change the default quality for downloading videos, go to Settings and select Download quality under‘Background & Downloads’.
Higher-quality videos may take longer to download and may use more storage space on your device.
If less than 5% of storage space is available on your device, you won’t be able to download additional videos. To free up space, try removing a downloaded video or playlist.
Things to know about videos downloaded from YouTube:
You must be signed in to your YouTube Premium account to download videos to watch offline.
Some actions, like commenting and liking, are not available while viewing videos offline.
Downloaded videos renew automatically as long as you go online in your home country/region at least once every 30 days.
Some videos may not be available offline when you reconnect to the Internet due to content restrictions from video creators.
If your device loses connectivity while downloading a video or playlist, it will automatically resume when you reconnect to a mobile or Wi-Fi network.
Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.
1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search
I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.
Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!
2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos
I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.
When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.
Big mistake!
I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.
That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.
Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.
3. Rev.com helps people read my videos
You can’t always listen to a video.
Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.
This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.
5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways
I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.
And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.
I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.
I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.
YouTube have recently updated to the new YouTube studio. There are many new features but some of us still prefer the “old” classic creator dashboard.
How To Access YouTube Studio Classic Mode?
To access the old YouTube Studio click on your avatar in the top left hand corner and goto your channel home page. Click on the big blue customise channel button. This is display the only channel design, now click on your subscriber number and it will load you into the old dashboard. Simply click all videos and enjoy the classic studio.
Old YouTube Creator Studio – YouTube Studio Beta is being rolled out and will be the default dashboard for all users in early 2020. But if you’re like me, you prefer the familiar basic look and feel of the classic mode. So this is how you can still access classic mode.
In February, YouTube devs started auto-defaulting users to new Studio, regardless of their previous choice. For the time being, Classic is going to stay, but old platform’s days are practically numbered. How can we still switch back to good old classic version and set it to be our default – at least, while it lasts and YouTube doesn’t permanently shut it down?
We still prefer Classic over new Studio version. Force of habit is probably a dominant cause in this case, let’s admit that right now. Classic still offers a lot of features which Studio doesn’t at the moment, despite the fact that it receives constant updates with ported features and analytics charts literally on a weekly basis, getting new existing and exclusive ones like impressions and click-through rates, performance comparison between videos/channels, and easing access to others, like subscribers per each video and so on.
Still, one feature that we really miss is the x-axis time control. We still cannot select x-axis reporting interval and set it to be weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly or pre-defined rolling range in order to more easily visualize and see cumulative growth (or regression) over time on a simplified chart. With so much data available, it is often easy to miss a forest for a single tree.
Need help ranking your videos and growing your YouTube channel – I have a whole page of tools that can help you get started!
Another, relatively recent change, that is going away with Classic design is the top-left MENU button, that allowed direct access to MAIN YouTube menu (History, My Channel, Subscriptions, Trending, Premium, YouTube TV …), which now doesn’t do that any more. Instead, it does simple Collapse Menu action. Same thing happened to main YouTube page, where it collapses the menu, instead providing access to useful shortcuts.
Tools To Get You Started on YouTube
Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.
VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search
I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.
Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!
Rev.com helps people read my videos
You can’t always listen to a video.
Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.
This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.
Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways
I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.
And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.
I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.
I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.
It’s time to work from home 2020. I work at home as freelancer working remotely from my own home. Work at home jobs are not as easy as some people think so here are my tips for people with work at home jobs 2020 and how to fine or make your own work from home jobs during this very testing time.
Working at home online has been a real life line for me over the years. Being your own boss and keeping your own time comes with its own pitfalls. Today I am going to share you wou my productivity tips for working from home as a freelancer entrepreneur or while on lockdown.
It’s time learn how to go live on facebook! Facebook Live is great for livestreaming on facebook with Webcam lessons, remote learning, talking with family members or vlogging. Live stream to facebook from your pc, add polls, screen share and more in this how to use facebook live tutorial.
How To Livestream on Facebook Tutorial
0:15 – Start of How To Facebook live stream tutorial
0:24 – Facebook livestream dashboard
1:03 – How To Live Steam from a Facebook Page
1:27 – How To Crosspost Facebook Livestream
2:03 – How To Screen Share on Facebook Live
Download Music for YouTube videos – Looking to use chart music in your YouTube videos without getting stung with copyright issues? Asking yourself – How to Use Copyrighted Music on Youtube Legally? Then LICKD might a a solution for you. LICKD helps you license popular songs that maybe in the charts of trending and put then into your videos for a small fee without any major issues from the YouTube Bots.
Lickd is a digital platform helping YouTube content creators legally use the music they love. We provide commercial music from real labels for licensing in YouTube videos without the fear of a Creator losing their ad revenue to a Copyright Claim.
How can I legally use copyrighted music on YouTube? – When you get a third party content claim YouTube suggest you do one of the following:
Acknowledge it. If you don’t mind the ads, you don’t have to do anything.
Remove or swap the music. *
Share revenue. If you’re a partner you can share revenues for song covers.
Dispute the claim if you believe you have the right to use the music.
* In 2019, YouTube added new features to make it easier for creators to resolve the claims. In particular, YouTube configured their post claim tools – Add or Replace a Song, Remove a Song, and Trimming – to automatically release claims on some of the cases.
The best option is to secure the permission of the copyright owner to use their music on YouTube and to have the owner retract the claim. This may be free (as with Creative Commons or Public Domain music) or you may need to pay a licensing fee.
Getting the permission (or the license) may be easy or hard depending on what kind of music you’d like to use.
If you are after a popular commercial song this usually involves getting in touch with the publisher and working out a deal. As you can imagine, the licensing fees in this case may be quite substantial.
SECRET YouTube Debug Mode Feature for Frame rates, codecs, dropped frames, streaming quality all useful youtube stats for nerds that are hidden in plain view.
What is YouTube Stats for Nerds?
Stats for nerds is an inbuilt feature of YouTube app desktop and mobile including detailed statistics for video stats, audio and video formats, video ID, your current bandwidth, viewport, dropped frames, etc. It can help you find important info and troubleshoot your Internet (mobile data) issues.
On any YouTube video, if you right-click or control-click on the video, you will be presented with a contextual menu. In this menu, you will find a few options, such as the ability to set the video to loop, copy the URL of the video, copy a timestamped URL to share the specific location in the video, and few others.
Need some help in understanding what each of these options means then check out my YouTube Stats for Nerds EXPLAINED deep dive article where I look into these youtube stats for nerds, what they mean, how they impact your video and how you can use them to boost your luck in the youtube algorithm game.
Why Use YouTube Stats For Nerds?
This is a handy little tool if you love the fine details of YouTube and content creation.
These hidden gems can help you see what codec you are using, how well your video is performing from a technical standpoint and if you are a tech junkie its a little hidden extra look behind the scenes.
This could also be interesting for starting a YouTube gaming channel as you can see what video encoding service youtube is using for your videos. YouTube has different formats for footage depending on 4k, 1080p and even footage frame-rates which might effect your end product.
Why Does The YouTube Video File Format Matter?
Different types of video file formats exist for a reason: each one has slightly different methods of organizing the content within them, so it can affect playback, even if only slightly.
The YouTube stats for nerds can identify file formats for you. Different types of file formats and file containers may or may not be compatible with certain types of players.
Some file formats can take a single video and create a larger file size than others, which can impact the ability to upload it to certain platforms, too.
Since YouTube is all about video, it’s of course important to choose the video file format that will benefit you most. I have even done a video to show you the best 1080p HD Adobe Premier Pro Settings for YouTube or 4K videos below.
What Is The Difference Between File Containers and File Codecs?
One thing that we want to look at really quickly is the different between video file containers and video file codecs, because this will be relevant in a few minutes.
Video file containers will include how the video content is organized, and will include options that most people are familiar with, like .MP4 or .MOV which are used for Facebook video and Instagram file formats. Most file formats are ultimately named after their container.
Need help ranking your videos and growing your YouTube channel – I have a whole page of tools that can help you get started!
File codecs, on the other hand, is what’s used to compress and then decompress the file.
Certain, low-quality codecs can result in poor compression and decompression; though they can create smaller video files in many cases, the video quality is also much poorer.
As long as your video file is under YouTube’s maximum limit, always opt for the lossless codecs that yield the highest quality of video, even if it takes a little longer for it to upload.
Almost all video editors and creators will give you the option to choose what file format you’d like to save your content in, and the majority at least over .MOV, .MPEG4, and/or .MP4 file formats.
What’s the Best YouTube Video Format?
The best YouTube video format based on the platform’s recommendations is the .MP4 file type. Additionally, YouTube also recommends opting for the following in order to be able to create high quality 1080p HD content:
264 codec(which is one of the most efficient options out there, allowing for a small file size without sacrificing video quality)
15-20 mbps
A standard aspect ratio of 16:9(this is particularly important for mobile)
An audio codec of AAC-LC
That being said, if you absolutely can’t upload .MP4 files for whatever reason, .MOV files can work well, too. However, try to keep the H.264 codecs and aspect ratios consistent for ideal video quality on the platform.
YouTube accepts a number of different video formats, but they have recommendations for what can generate the best results and most high quality video on their platform.
States for Nerds – More Technical Requirements
When you’re creating your YouTube video and getting it ready for upload, there are a few more technical requirements and general best practices that you’ll want to be aware of in order to 1) be able to even upload your video on YouTube and 2) ensure that it looks great and is most likely to be well received by your audience.
Here are the other technical requirements that you should be keeping in mind to help your channel skyrocket to success:
The maximum file size that you can upload is either 128GB or 12 hours, whichever is less. Some older videos may be longer than 12 hours, but that cut off has been reduced. (Although really, that’s for the best; you’re going to lose people like crazy if you’re going more than 12 hours and it sounds like a nightmare to edit).
Stick to that 16:9 aspect ratio. You really want your videos to show up well when users are watching, whether they’re watching on desktop or mobile. It’s particularly important on mobile– especially with 70% of views coming from mobile— so that the video can scale properly to full screen, making it easier for users to see and engage with.
Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube
Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.
1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search
I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.
Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!
2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos
I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.
When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.
Big mistake!
I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.
That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.
Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.
3. Rev.com helps people read my videos
You can’t always listen to a video.
Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.
This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.
5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways
I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.
And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.
I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.
I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.
There are many tweaks you can make to your YouTube videos to increase your YouTube CPM.
When looking to increase your YouTube CPM consider the niche you are in. Some industries will pay a premium for advertising and attention. Avoid swearing. Videos that are over 10 minutes in length can have mid roll adverts to boosts its earning potential. Most importantly consider your video’s SEO.
YouTube adverts can earn you a little extra money on the side, but did you know it can be affected by what you talk about, how many adverts you show and what niche you are in?!
Evaluate your existing videos
Dive into your channel analytics and look at what currently gets you your best CPM (cost per thousand views). This will help you understand what topics on youtube channel make you the best money and attract the best adverts. You can then double down on those topics, making more of them to boost overall CPM income.
Videos over 10 minutes long on YouTube can have adverts at the start, the end and as many as you want in the middle called “mid-rolls”.
These can help multiply the money you can make from a single video. Imagine you get $5 per 1000 views for 1 advert and you add 4 more, that is 5x$5 so $25 per 1000 views, a huge jump in CPM rate.
Difference Niches Have Different CPM Rates
This is a lesson I learnt myself the hard way.
You could have an entertainment channel with a broad audience getting millions of views but if your niche is not advertiser friendly, or is too broad it might have a hugely negative effect on the overall CPM of your content.
However, if you target set niches you can boost your income.
Business, Money, Entrepreneurship, Real Estate and other “high end” niches attract higher paid adverts and therefore higher CPMs. Kids content, pranks, jokes, etc offer a wider reach but normally means easier to buy ads against as there are so many people making that content and less valuable transactions connected to it.
So consider the niche you are in if you want to increase YouTube CPM and boost your Adsense income.
Stop Swearing! – Yes this myth is true!
YouTube will listen and transcribe your content and there is statistics that show your channel and video income can and will be negatively affected by cussing/swearing.
When advertisers select what channel “buckets” they want to spend money on, you swearing might make you “less desirable” vs someone who has identical content with more family friendly language in their videos.
Make Money Blogging
If you have your content why not blog those videos onto a website and link that to adsense to maximize the income.
I have 500ish videos on my channel and over time I have been slowly adding them to my website blog.
This can help build search traffic, drive more people to the video and your channel but also gives you a chance to serve more adverts to the viewers. This means not only can you get in-video adverts but banner ads as well.
Passive Income Tips that helped me make over $5000 in “passive income” with affiliate links, marketing, advertising and more in the last 12 months.
Easy money and passive income is a lie – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSC1Dp6Qrfk – I even made a video to rant about how the idea of relaxing on the beach with a martini and your ipad is complete BS, BUT hard work and laying the foundations and build up an automated income that make residual income and helps you earn while you sleep.
Passive Income in 2020, Passive Income meaning lazy money does not exists yet it is a holy grail for some people. Make money online, passive income from youtube, and passive income from investments are the great get rich quick schemes of the internet generation but I am here to tell you honestly that PASSIVE INCOME IS A LIE.
Make A Passive Income Online in 2020 – With HARD WORK!
The only true “passive income business” has been seeded by hard work for years as you build up a client base or a product back catalogue. The true passive income has a foundation of 10-25 years solid graft, investing in businesses, skills, services and customer care.
There is no silver bullet out there that will take you from your living room sofa to a villa in the maldives within 28 days.
How To Play Youtube In Background for FREE without YouTube Premium (iPhone and Android) – Listen to youtube videos with your screen off without draining your battery. The YouTube Premium App allows you to lock your phone and listen to videos and music without any interruption. Now in todays video I am going to teach you how you can do the same thing without spending a penny, all through your smartphones browser.
Play YouTube In The Background for FREE on iPhone and Android
STEP 1 – Open your internet browser on your smartphone (I found this works on Chrome and Google for the iPhone and Android), then goto YouTube
STEP 2 – Search for your desired video.
STEP 3 – Click play and then lock your phone screen – it will stop playing.
STEP 4 – Goto your notifications screen / lock screen and you will see your media player. Click PLAY and the media will play from the BROWSER without the need to use the YouTube App.
STEP 5 – ENJOY!!!
FREE YouTube Thumbnail Templates – How To Make A YouTube Thumbnail is a question i get all the time. To get some great ideas for my clients I use PlaceIT for YouTube thumbnail template ideas and best of all is some are free!
Wondering how to make the best YouTube thumbnails?
Thumbnails that grab potential viewers and make them click to watch? When you’re creating videos for YouTube, the thumbnail might not seem important.
You might be thinking – as long as the content is good, the thumbnail doesn’t really matter.
YouTube will offer you a choice of frames from your uploaded video to serve as this preview image, but rarely will this freeze-frame serve you well.
You need something that grabs the eye and communicates what your video is about at a glance. You want it to grab your target audience and make them think, I need to watch this!
The thumbnail is typically the first impression of your video, and essentially determines whether or not people will click through.
The YouTube thumbnail is one category included in the great YouTube cover, along with YouTube banners, icons, and watermarks. While a personalized banner can tell viewers about your Vlog’s content and who you are, the thumbnail will encourage them to watch your posted videos.
A thumbnail is a small picture representing your videos in a row of YouTube’s search results. Making unique thumbnails can actually encourage higher video view rates. There are many things you can do with your YouTube thumbnail design that will enhance the chance of it being got clicked on.
1. Only Use Relevant Pictures
One crucial rule to always remember when creating thumbnail is to never use a picture that has nothing to do with your channel or video. You see, branding is essential for the continuing visual marketing on social media webs like YouTube. If people feel cheated when they can’t find the relevant content in the video advertised by your thumbnail, they will leave at once (and may never return to your channel). So you need to keep the style of your thumbnail consistent across your YouTube channel.
There are 3 ways to ensure that your selected picture will never be off topic:
Take a still-shot from the clip and to use it as a thumbnail. In these cases, some users still employ graphics tools to put their logo or text to the picture.
Take photographs from the video (or take stills from the staged for the video), then apply them to what looks more like graphic pictures. This option is quite favored when it comes to YouTube thumbnail pictures, pictures of people included.
Use a custom-made picture featuring simple graphics as well as the video’s title. Many of these images also show the business’s logo or name in either bottom corners so that it may look discrete, but still present.
2. Technique Details
About the format: It must be in .JPG, .PNG, .GIF, or .BMP
About file limitation: must be less than 2MB
3. YouTube Thumbnail Size
As a rule, too busy thumbnail won’t show up clearly and properly. So here’s what you need to know:
Take into account the photo’s own size
The original size: 1280 x 720px is the recommended dimension, since it may be used for the embedded player as a preview photo
Think of how you can best take advantage of the space (while still remaining clear)
4. Color of Choice
As you have to compete in a long line with many other suggested videos, choosing the right colors for your thumbnail will go a long way in boosting your content’s views and clicks. Take these points into account when developing your thumbnail design:
Contrasting colors: ensure that the graphics and text will be read, as they immediately draw the eye in. This is especially true in the case of text and graphics on your pictures.
Bright or saturated colors: draw viewers’ gaze naturally. So they also help your video posts get more attention.
Dark shades might not show up very well in the video list’s sidebar that shown in other videos.
5. Take Advantage of White Spaces
Take advantage of this negative space if you want to use a designed or graphic picture. Your thumbnail will look clean and more organized thanks to the resulted high-quality appearance possessed by any professional photo out there.
Meanwhile, your rivalries will be edged out as your video post has drawn the viewers’ eye a split second faster because they’ve registered what your vlog is about in just a flash.
6. Using Title
Adding titles to your thumbnails helps viewers identify the videos quicker in searches. If your title style is unchanged, the titles will also let your followers identify your videos besides capturing the attention of those looking for one of your specific topics.
Don’t add too much text though. Just some texts are enough to heighten your video’s view rate. Never put more than one concise title. If needs arise, you can add a crisp subtitle beneath it in smaller text to get your point across, and that’s it.
7. Readable Text
By default, thumbnails are inherently not large when you’re editing them on YouTube. The finished work will appear smaller still when they’re looked via a mobile device. So if the details contained are too clustered, it’ll be hard to see.
The best way if you must have texts in your image is to make sure they are huge enough that viewers can make out the characters even when the picture is shrunken down.
8. YouTube Thumbnail Resolution
The resolution suggested by YouTube is of 1280px x 720px at the minimum. If this dimension is too low, the picture will appear pixilated.
It might be a bit hard to maintain a high-resolution picture so that it can be responsive to different platforms, sizes, and devices through YouTube alone. So, the advice is to try testing your YouTube thumbnail design in several sizes to make sure that it’ll come out well.
9. YouTube Thumbnail Template
For each of your vlog, YouTube chooses a thumbnail which is always a still image from said video. However, you can select which frame you want to apply. This is good enough for people who prefer simple styles. Other YouTubers prefer a custom thumbnail because they will get to choose the image as well as the title.
There are online sites like PlaceIT that allow you to edit available images and use them for your YouTube banners. You can also edit your thumbnails with the help of these YouTube cover maker, as they’ll let you import photos from your PC or other social media accounts. You can then edit them and finally use them to your preference.
Learning How to Tag YouTube Videos can be hard but I have a little technique to Tag youtube videos for search and more videos. In this video I am going to teach you how I tag my youtube videos and how you can use google, youtube search and tubebuddy to tag yours.
Tags help users find your video when they search the site. When users type keywords related to your tags your video will appear in their search results.
YouTube does consider user engagement as well (like number of views, views in common and user “retention”) but tagging is the *first* step to ranking your video in YouTube search results (and thus getting a good chance to get ranked in Universal Results as well).
How To Tag YouTube Videos
A most scientific (but still useful to start brainstorming) approach to classifying YouTube tags (pdf) groups all the tags as follows:
Generic relationship between tag and video content:
Tag identifies what the video is of at its most primary and objective level – no subject specific knowledge is needed to make this distinction (e.g. a video of a cat, tagged as ‘cat’ or ‘animal’)
General YouTube defined Category or Genre (e.g. Comedy, Entertainment, Music)
Specific relationship between tag and video content:
Tag identifies what video is of. Familiarity or some existing knowledge is needed to make this connection (this may be about names, locations, venues, etc).
Tag only useful to a minority of users, specific individual or group
Refining tag (Tag which cannot stand alone – only useful when looked at as part of the larger tag set (e.g., episodes of a series of videos specified by a number)
Self-reference tagging (e.g. “my dog”),
Irrelevant/Non Useful Tags (those may vary from attention-grabbing and misspelled tags to conjunctions and prepositions).
Obviously, the top three classes of tags should all be considered for ranking for various types of search queries (navigational search queries, generic search, category search, etc).
Win the click, get the views! Want to improve your click through rate, get more views and grow your channel? You need to work on your titles and winning that click using the CURIOSITY GAP! Make people intrigued, and they will fall into your videos and follow you through to the end of your story content.
As soon as you have uploaded a video, YouTube starts surfacing it to relevant audiences. Based on hundreds of signals, our systems determine which viewers are most likely to watch your video and continue to surface the video to audiences as long as it remains on YouTube.
You can do some keyword research using TubeBuddy to find the perfect tags and keyphrases to target.
Higher click-through rate alone isn’t a strong indicator of success. To get a full picture of what attracts and engages viewers on your channel or videos, follow our tips on using impressions and click-through rate data. In general, the best way to get more impressions is to consistently make great quality content that viewers love.
Why are my impressions and CTR really low?
If it seems like your impressions are lower than they should be, here are some things to keep in mind when looking at your impressions data:
Not every instance in which a viewer sees a video thumbnail will count as an impression, and not all views come from thumbnail impressions. Learn what counts as a registered impression.
Older videos may have more impressions, as they’ll continue to be surfaced to audiences as long as they’re on YouTube. To get a more defined view of how your videos are currently doing, look at the first 7 days after uploading to compare impressions data for different videos.
As your videos become more popular, they may be shown to a wider audience beyond your core viewers. This can result in a lower click-through rate (even if you see an increase in overall views and watch time).
Use the traffic sources report to see click-through rate by traffic source. This can give you an indication of how your thumbnails and titles are doing in converting impressions to views in different contexts.
Avoid trying to increase your CTR by using thumbnails or titles that are clickbait. YouTube will recommend a video to viewers if the video is relevant to the viewer and if other viewers find the video interesting, as reflected by the video’s average view duration. Clickbait videos tend to have low average view duration and therefore are less likely to get recommended by YouTube. You can tell if your thumbnail is clickbait if it is getting high CTR but low average view duration and lower than expected impressions.
What things do you need to start a YouTube channel? Many people ask me how do i get started on YouTube? How do I start a YouTube channel in 2020? And I always tell them it’s not about the expensive cameras and silly music or drones, it’s all about the heart, passion and sometimes just a mobile phone.
5 MISTAKES In Business I Wish I’d Learnt From Sooner // Starting and growing a business has its up and downs I have learnt a lot from my business mistakes. In today’s video I want to share with you the 5 lessons i learnt from my biggest mistakes over the years.
Going full time on YouTube is the dream of many creators. Some see YouTube as a goldmine, a get rich quick scheme that anyone can easily jump on and build a brand or business. But sensible people understand that is takes time, effort, luck and A LOT of hard work to make YouTube a Full Time job. In today’s video I share with you the last 3-4 years and tell you the steps I took to go from 0 subscribers to being Full Time YouTuber and business owner in 2020.
After 3 years on YouTube I have finally cracked the secret to growing on YouTube and the secret to being a successful YouTuber like the big channels. If you want to grow on youtube in 2019-2020 then you need to learn who you are, how to make YOU unique and the only way you can do that is with your first 100 videos.
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