Table of Contents
Increase Click Through Rate To Gain Views
You are working really hard on creating video content but your videos are not getting expected views. The simple reason for this is poor click through rate. In this video you will find some interesting and helpful information to increase click through rate. Please read the article till very end because each point that we have mentioned is equally important for improving the CTR of the video. so let’s get started.
What is CTR and how it is measured?
CTR or click-through rate, is the ratio of how many people click on your YouTube thumbnail compared to the number of impressions it gets.
Impression is every time your YouTube thumbnail is seen, whether on the home page, a subscription list or even on suggested videos.
- If the CTR is between 0-5% then it is considered as Poor
- If the CTR is between 5-10% the it is considered as Average to Good
- If the CTR is above 11% then it is considered as Great.
The percentage of CTR in the first week after publishing the video helps YouTube to decide whether to suggest the video or not. So it is very important to get CTR more than at least 7% so as to get good amount of views on the video.
Why video thumbnail is so important to increase click through rate?
Thumbnail plays very important role in deciding success of the video.
Thumbnail design decides whether a person will click on your video and in turn the number of views you will get for that video.
“First impression is last impression”. So if your thumbnail is of high quality then no one can stop you to get more and more views on your video. A YouTube thumbnail is just like a book cover for your video. It is the first thing that people notice before deciding whether they will click on your video or just scroll over without noticing it.
Is Thumbnail the only factor for high ctr?
The factors like thumbnail, title, description, tags and topic competition decides the ranking of the video but thumbnail and title, specially thumbnail decides the click through rate.
When you upload the video and publish it as public, YouTube starts showing your video on user’s YouTube homepage depending upon user’s viewing history and interests. The first thing user notices is the thumbnail and the title. If the thumbnail is eye catching, attractive and provides information about the video then user will click the video. so thumbnail is very important if you want to achieve good amount of views on your video.
Thumbnail – Main Goal To Increase Click Through Rate
The main goal for our thumbnails is to get our audience, and new audiences, to view our content and then go on to watch more of our content.
We should always consider 3 Main Points while creating a Thumbnail –
- Thumbnail should give an idea about video topic. for example if your are creating a video on top 5 haunted places, then there should be an scary image or haunted house on the thumbnail. so that the viewer will get clear idea about the video content.
- Thumbnail should be clear, attractive – If the thumbnail is blurry or of bad quality then even if the video content is top notch, viewer will never click on video thumbnail.
- Thumbnail should create some sort of emotion (Curiosity, sad, happy, angry) – In above example of haunted places, if you use scary image on thumbnail then it creates emotion of curiosity and viewer will click on the thumbnail to watch the video.
Important elements while designing the thumbnail:
Thumbnail with close-up human face with expressions
You might have noticed that many thumbnails have human faces with weird expressions. Do you know the reason for this? well, Humans have evolved to detect eye contact, making thumbnails with eye contact more eye-catching, especially if the white part of the eyes are visible. In addition to this, humans communicate in large part by reading emotions on the face. These types of thumbnails make people curious about the reason behind the expression and hence they click the thumbnail to watch the video.
Bright background
YouTube background is generally white if dark mode is not enabled. So thumbnail with bright background stand out easily and also stand out in relation to other thumbnails without a bright background. Many youtubers use pinwheel or sunburst images as a background of the thumbnail. This helps to draw viewer’s attention. One tip that we would like to recommend is to use yellow color as background. The reason for this is that humans only perceive the color yellow when both the Green and Red are stimulated. This causes more receptors in our eyes to trigger, making yellow stand out more. Moreover Yellow is a powerful color, but it is also the most dangerous hue. Yellow color command your audience’s attention, and let them know you’re confident in your abilities.
Color selection
When choosing colors for the thumbnails, try to use complementary colors. Complementary colors are colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel. The reason for using complementary colors is that these colors stand out against one another. For example if the color of the subject in the thumbnail is yellow, then you should use purple, or dark blue as a background. This will help the main object to pop out.
Text on the thumbnail
There is no need to add text on the thumbnail. Your thumbnail should be self explanatory and should able to represent the content of the video.
I certain scenario, if you wish to put the text on the thumbnail, then the text should not be lengthy. Text should be maximum 3 to 4 words. for example if you are creating video about How to get more views on YouTube then your text should Get more views.
Text should be big enough to read and should be properly highlighted to grab attention of the viewer.
Thumbnail should be simple and easy to understand.
Your thumbnails should be easy to see and understand to the casual viewer. This means that your thumbnails should visually tell the story of what your video is about. for example, you are making video about how to make pizza. Then instead of showing the image of pizza preparation, you can add the image of final product that is pizza in the thumbnail.
Do not place important details in lower right corner.
YouTube often covers the lower right hand corner with either a timestamp or a watch later button. The lower right hand corner is also the last place a western viewer will look due to the way that audience reads. Therefore, avoid placing copy or images in the lower right hand corner.
Thumbnail size
You might aware of this but the thumbnail should be 1280 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall, with a minimum width of 640 pixels. A ratio of 16:9 is ideal as it’s used most often in YouTube players and previews. The thumbnail size should not exceed 2 MB.
So those were some of the tips for improving quality of thumbnails and in turn increase click through rate. If you are working hard when preparing video content then you should put same efforts while creating your thumbnails as well. You should also try A/B test to check which thumbnail works great for your video. We hope you like the article. If you find the article helpful, then please share the article. Please subscribe to Technosalad for interesting tips and tricks.