YouTube titles and thumbnails: how to raise your click-through rate

Title and thumbnail are a pair

The most common mistake is that title and thumbnail say the same thing. If the title reads "Servicing a heat pump in 5 steps" and the thumbnail says "Servicing a heat pump" again, half the space is wasted. Better: the title answers what it is about, the thumbnail shows why it is worth watching. So the title "Servicing a heat pump in 5 steps" and, in the thumbnail, a picture of an iced-up unit with the word "Avoid".

What makes a good title

• Search term first: the words people search for belong at the beginning, because YouTube truncates long titles.
• Under 60 characters: otherwise the important words are no longer visible on a phone.
• A clear promise: What does the viewer know or can do after the video? Numbers and concrete results help, exaggerations hurt, because disappointed viewers leave early and that lowers watch time.
• No channel names, no episode numbers: "Episode 27" means nothing to anyone who does not know the channel.
• Spoken language: phrase the title the way someone would ask the question.

What makes a good thumbnail

• Check at phone size: most views come from phones, where the thumbnail is the size of a postage stamp. Anything that is not legible at that size has to go.
• Three words at most: and they complement the title instead of repeating it.
• One subject, one eye-catcher: a face with expression, an object, a before and after. Not three things at once.
• Contrast: light background, dark text or the other way round, and a frame or colour style that people associate with your channel.
• Not the same red as everyone else: if you sit next to ten red thumbnails in the feed, a calm colour stands out more.

Fixing existing videos in one hour

1. Open Analytics in YouTube Studio and sort the videos of the last twelve months by impressions.
2. Look for videos with many impressions and a click-through rate well below the channel average. YouTube shows you that average itself.
3. Give these videos a new title following the rules above and a thumbnail that complements the title.
4. Wait two to three weeks and compare the click-through rate. Do not change both several times at once, otherwise you will not know what worked.

Exactly this analysis is part of the channel audit. If you would rather not do the re-optimisation yourself, YouTube SEO explains how I take it on.

How you know it is working

By two numbers in YouTube Studio: the click-through rate of impressions and the average view duration. If the click-through rate rises but view duration falls, the title promises more than the video delivers. If both rise, you did it right, and YouTube will show the video to more people.

Frequently asked questions