how to make kickass youtube thumbnails and descriptions and stuff?

I just finished a short video.  Normally I would publish it the same day, but this time I want to work on captions, titles, descriptions and all the things that take it from publishing a video to building a youtube channel.

Thumbnails
Title
Description
Keywords

What else?

At the moment, I have two kinds of thumbnails.

The videos I've worked on alone look like this with the squiggles and the text.  I'm using a free version of CANVA to make them.  

Here are some thoughts for my next video.

Do any of these give an idea of what the video might be about?
Any more intriguing than the others?


The video is supposed to be soothing and calming.  which one fits?

r ranson wrote:I just finished a short video.  Normally I would publish it the same day, but this time I want to work on captions, titles, descriptions and all the things that take it from publishing a video to building a youtube channel.

Thumbnails
Title
Description
Keywords

What else?

Yes

Words on the thumbnail

r ranson wrote: ...
The video is supposed to be soothing and calming.  which one fits?

In that case I think #2 fits best. When I see that one I think it is about silk, with silk worms, cocoons and silk moths.

I like number two too. It has a nice space/composition with the two other elements to include text. Maybe you can flip the image so that the text goes in the left as our brains are wired to visually read the image from left to right.

I like the first image a lot, personally, but I feel the second one is better at giving context clues. If you’re putting words to it, though, not as much context is needed in the image and I would just do the first one since it has such great image composition!

an attempt

The problem with this is that it gets away from my "style"

Then again, it might not be a problem.

I'm not super-thrilled with this attempt.

It's good enough, but I bet we could do better.

1. is the text large enough to read on a small thumbnail?
The small text at the top my not be adding anything

2. is the font easy to read when small?
3. does anyone out there know what a silkmoth is?
4. does it say what it's about?
5.  what could be there instead?

I'm looking for clickbait.  

What is this video about?

silkmoths
silkworms
moths
growing silk
sericulture
lifecycle

It's also soothing, calming, peaceful, beautiful... no talking

I'm going to stick these words in https://trends.google.com/ and rank them.

But there used to be another google tool for finding similar words people are searching.  It had a fun mindmap.  Does anyone remember what that was.


And then, how do I use these words to make a click-bait title?  

Here's my first attempt: Soothing Silk Sericulture - lifecycle of a silkworm (bombyx mori)

Any thoughts?

r ranson wrote:Here's my first attempt: Soothing Silk Sericulture - lifecycle of a silkworm (bombyx mori)

Any thoughts?

In my opinion that's a too long title.

I didn't know the word 'sericulture' (probably we don't use it in Dutch). At the other side I know 'Bombyx mori' is a silkmoth/silkworm and then I think it isn't needed to mention that.
Then 'lifecycle of a silkworm' or 'lifecycle of a silkmoth' is OK to me.

1. is the text large enough to read on a small thumbnail? Don't know, not every person has the same eyes.
2. is the font easy to read when small? I like this font and find it easy to read. But again: every person is different ...
3. does anyone out there know what a silkmoth is? I know, but probably not everybody knows.
4. does it say what it's about? II think it's about the lifecycle, so the life from start (egg) to end (death), via worm and moth.
5.  what could be there instead? I don't know. I prefer 'lifecycle of a silkmoth' (I choose the moth, because that's the adult, the worm is only the baby)

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

r ranson wrote:Here's my first attempt: Soothing Silk Sericulture - lifecycle of a silkworm (bombyx mori)

Any thoughts?

In my opinion that's a too long title.

I didn't know the word 'sericulture' (probably we don't use it in Dutch). At the other side I know 'Bombyx mori' is a silkmoth/silkworm and then I think it isn't needed to mention that.
Then 'lifecycle of a silkworm' or 'lifecycle of a silkmoth' is OK to me.

1. is the text large enough to read on a small thumbnail? Don't know, not every person has the same eyes.
2. is the font easy to read when small? I like this font and find it easy to read. But again: every person is different ...
3. does anyone out there know what a silkmoth is? I know, but probably not everybody knows.
4. does it say what it's about? II think it's about the lifecycle, so the life from start (egg) to end (death), via worm and moth.
5.  what could be there instead? I don't know. I prefer 'lifecycle of a silkmoth' (I choose the moth, because that's the adult, the worm is only the baby)

Thanks for the feedback.

These words are for the title.  The text beneath the thumbnail.
Thumbnail is going to say SILK MOTH in big like the picture above.

The title words need to be hyper-google friendly.  What words would people search?  Google says "silk" is by far the more searched for term.  Silkworm is more than twice any of the other words I could come up with.  So I want "silk" to be among the first 40 characters.  When I switched the googletrends to global, "sericulture" came up in a lot of non-English speaking countries as well as English speaking ones.  Probably because it's the technical name for it.  When I look on google, not many moth videos include this word in their title.  I want to stick that in there somewhere in the first 140 characters.  "silkmoth" and "silk moth" had the lowest score with some months of zero searches globally.  So I need to keep silk moth out of the title, but I'll cram it in the description.

Also having "silk moth" in the thumbnail is an unexpected language for many so it might act as a pattern interrupt and get their attention.

But I really like the alliteration of soothing silk.  

I don't know.  My head hurts.  SEO is hard.

Silk Seduction
The dirty little secret of Silk Production

I like the first picture, as it looks like a communication between mankind and  . . .a silk worm you say?  What's the video about?  Purpose? Who is your intended audience?  What are you wanting from what you provide?

Maybe you could post here before it goes live on You Tube and all of us can resolve the title and so forth.

Chris McCullough wrote:I like the first picture, as it looks like a communication between mankind and  . . .a silk worm you say?  What's the video about?  Purpose? Who is your intended audience?  What are you wanting from what you provide?
....

Yes, those are good questions!
Are you aiming the textile interested people (like me), the insect lovers, or people who love seeing nature documentaries in general? Or others?
Purpose: to show how a slik worm / silk moth lives? Or just some 'relaxing images from nature' (like there are with flowing streams and birds singing in the woods, etc.)

I'm hesitant to share the video yet because I want to see if I can answer those questions with the thumbnail, title, and description.

I imagine that's the goal as these are the things that help people find relevant content.

But I haven't done much research yet to know if I'm going in the right direction.  

This is right up my alley! I formerly was a web designer and did Search Engine Optimization.
1. Never say Click Bait. That implies a link to make people click that goes to an unrelated or not fully related to title or thumbnail. That tends to tick people off.
2. The Google keyword tool is a good place to start. Now take 3 or 4 of your top keywords and search various reiterations of them in variously worded sentences in your Search Engine of choice and in youtube to see what comes up.
3.  Actually review the website or videos that come back. Do they seem legit? Why should I watch yours vs theirs?
4.   Are your videos for professionals or Joe Public? Use terms accordingly. I personally know zero about silk worms. So I would use simple terms not knowing what else to search for.
   Sometimes it's frustrating to get a title that uses more than one keyword that doesn't sound like a poor attempt at a foreign language translation!
5.  And looking at your pictures I just see a gorgeous moth. Informative text is good. I like #2&3. (And never copy someone's picture unless it's open source or creative commons😉).
   All that being said, have fun with it.
KL
PS Choose your channel name carefully as well

Just a side note, you might want to consider also starting an Odysee.com channel. It's one of the new media channels that if you have enough YouTube subscribers will automatically copy your video posts to their platform. If you don't have enough followers you can always manually post to that site. The Channel is growing and there are currently fewer users so you might have a chance to build a ground-floor following with less competition (not saying don't do YouTube, just maybe look into doing both). Our channel,  TSL Homestead, is on both platforms and we actually get more traffic from Odysee at this time.

Also you don't mention what platform you are editing on (or maybe I missed it) but I'm currently learning an easy-to-use but very powerful Open Source video editor called OpenShot.  OpenShot is available for Windows, Linux and Mac and allows for editing very professional videos in a short time with a ton of features available so you might check that out if you are looking to overlay audio, merge videos, insert transitions, etc.

Best of luck!

Hi there!  I don't think anyone realizes the amount of work that goes into a short video until they've done it. We've all seen enough bad vids to know what NOT to do.  Anyway, I agree with KI Johcar, especially about the use of the word Clickbait.  Wikipedia defines it as "Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, with a defining characteristic of being deceptive, typically sensationalized or misleading."

I like thumbnail #2 because there is contrast between the background and the visual, the visual takes up about half the screen, and it includes two easily understandable elements - moth and case (or whatever it's called). I immediately thought silkworm. I don't like #1 because your finger in the picture reminds me that the moth is dead. That's not a good mental image for a story. #3 looks like the moth has fainted and #4 you can probably sell to Stephen King for a cover to his latest scary story. #2 is your best bet for soothing and calming.

Thumb 2 with text: As for your title, I think you did a good job of keeping it short. If you're going to use two font sizes, try to keep the smaller size just smaller enough so people can see that it's smaller than the main. Alternatively, you can use an old newspaper trick and use italics for the sub-text. And yes, if your want to attract a general audience stay away from the scientific name or other scholarly names for the moth. You can define and describe those in the copy if you want to.  Also, consider the title slide as two separate elements -- photo and words. Rather than right justify LIFECYCLE OF A to the left margin of SILK MOTH, try centering them over the words Silk Moth.  This way you have two distinct elements that are more rectangle-ish. The eye likes that better.  If you're looking to entice your audience into the story, try ahhh, kind of begging a question in the title.  Like this: "Silk Moth: how it enriches lives in only six months" Although that's a lame example, I hope it shows you my point.  Give your audience a little taste of what they might learn by watching your video.

You said that at the moment you have two kinds of thumbnails and give an example of one. If you have a lot of videos or are trying to "brand" (I'm using the term loosely here) your site or other online comms by maintaining a look and feel to your visuals then yeah, stick with that style.  But if you only have a few videos, say, under 10 or so, then I might consider a different style. For examples of what I mean go to Joshua Weissman's YouTube Channel.  You can see his standard use of a typeface for titles and it'll only take watching the opening shot (the one where he opens a kitchen cabinet to talk to the audience) to see how the visual effect he's used kinda brands his videos. The technique is simple and widely available, but it's his use of it that is uniquely his. The opening, the fonts and the visual effects, are used in every video. Permies.com does the same thing by using a particular cartoonist to make caricatures of the main players and using them to explain the story.  

I can't help ya with keywords or Google trends, or things like that. Except to say that if Google says that Silkworm (one word) is better than Silk Worm and Silk Moth, then go with their strength. You can talk about why it's really a moth but everyone calls it a worm in a later part of the video. I know you like the alliteration of Soothing Silk, but soothing and calming are what you want people to emote so you've got to have that feeling come across in the photos, music (if you have it) and copy without bashing them over the head with it.  I also like Greg McIver's Silk Seduction The dirty little secret of Silk Production but it sounds more like an exposé of the industry -- not so soothing and calming. With some tweaks, you could make it soothing and calming. And if the vid is about silk production it's a candidate for the title.

I want to encourage you to share what you have with us, now. Chris McCullough makes some good points (What's the video about?  Purpose? Who is your intended audience?  What are you wanting from what you provide?) And, no, you can't answer those questions in one thumbnail, one title and one description. If you could, you'd make one slide, not a video.  And we can't help you make every second of your video count without hearing your answers to those questions.

Do a generic Google search on Video software.  There may be something out there that's better than what you are currently using. PC Mag and some others have just come out with some roundups of the "best" depending on what you want to do.  Best of luck!

Thanks for the feedback.  Here's the other thumbnail style I use for collaborative efforts.  



I'll be changing this when I have time to make the Flax to Linen big and "the movie" small.  But it got a few thousand views so it must not be that terrible.

I really need to keep these collaborative projects looking different enough from my regular ones... for reasons too complex to go into here.  


It's still a young enough channel I can change my thumbnail style.  I've noticed that most moderate to large channels tend to change their youtube style every couple of years.  What I'm looking for is something good enough last about a year past 1000 subscribers.

Here's the channel so you can see the style of content.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLSQmfBOvV2KoK0l2POeFTA

I would take down the paint drying videos but these still seem to get views.  

Thank you so much for the feedback.

Alas, I cannot share the video yet.  It's due to publish early October.  I suffered a serious injury last spring that meant I couldn't keep going with my youtube growth.  Now I'm slowly trying to get back into the swing of things and publish once a month starting with yet another big group project in September.  

This was just a short video to prove to myself I can still do this.  It turned out really nice, so I'll publish it as something of a teaser for the big film the footage was taken for.

Here's my first draft of the description.  

Raising silkmoths (bombyx mori) at home from egg to adult moth.  

There is mindfulness tending to their tiny needs and It's easy to do - just add mulberry leaves.  Here's a video capturing some of the most calming moments as these little silkworms travel through their various stages of life and create one of nature's most decadent fibres - silk!

Music: Tis the Season by Nate Blaze

Crowing Hen Farm homepage: https://www.crowinghen.ca/
Shop homegrown fibres on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/crowinghenfarm

#sericulture #silkworm #homegrown-clothing

I tried to get the keywords in without keyword stuffing.

Not sure about making it longer.  I notice most mid-sized and larger channels don't include much that is actually relevant to the video.  It annoys me.  I want at least two lines about the video before going into the affiliate or whatever links.  

Video editors.  Right now I'm using DaVinci Pro and Filmora Wondershare.  Davinci is the better program and it's free.  But it is a bit much for my current skill set and I'm very happy with Wondershare for the grunt work.  

It's well known by YouTubers that a video thumbnail with someone's face in it (usually making an odd expression) gets more views.

I was going to suggest essentially what Eric Tolbert said.  In addition to YouTube it seems highly worth doing Odysee as well.  I was suspecting just what he was saying and confirming.  That it's growing fast and there is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor now to build a following before it is flooded with other content providers.

Right now I'm just focusing on improving my SEO and maybe getting a new thumbnail style.  

I have a thread for my overall journey learning youtube.  https://permies.com/t/148857/art/learns-youtube

That's my learning style - break down the big thing into smaller components, then spend a few days/weeks/months/years learning how to get that exactly the way I want.  

Odysee is interesting, but it looks like it works with a cryptocurrency which my brain translates to, "extra steps I have to learn to get money in the bank account.  Maybe look into it with more detail in about 6 months"  

OpenShot is also free (open source) and you can learn the basic features in 10-15 minutes. There are tons of instructional videos out on how to do transitions, audio voiceovers, etc. It will also split your video and audio tracks out for you if you want. Might want to take a look, like all newbies I'm pretty excited to be using something that I can actually understand without wading through tons of documentation. It took me years to learn Photoshop and I finally quit using it because it was just too labor intensive for what I wanted.

How about your favourite thumbnail editing software?

Canava is an online one.  

What other ones have you tried?

We have a great thread on on video editing software here.

Hummm.  I hate to let go of a perfectly good thing that is challenging to plan out.
 
How about putting your video on a web page and invite specific responders to it before it goes live.  It's much easier to make appropriate comments on something tangible rather than guessing where your ideas want to end up.

I worry about focusing on one video.  
What I'm looking for is overall improving my thumbnails, titles, and descriptions.

Let's try a different approch.  This video did the worst so far

https://youtu.be/ftM4J3ubmZM

How would you improve the titles, thumbnails, descriptions?  

Oh, we're talking about weaving and not silk and not moths.  

Are you wanting to be a resource for all things fiber?  
For all weaving?  
For repairing handmade treasures?  
Going to textile shows?
Offering courses for the arts?
Being the online guru that all craft persons need to know?


I need to think it over.  Be back tomorrow.

My brand is homegrown textiles.

Target ...
Homesteader
Gardener
Textiles crafter
and combinations of the three.  

I'm focusing on advanced beginners.

I started with tutorials,  but I'm moving towards bigger project videos with a scattering of tutorials and the very occasional silly shorter video because they make me happy to create.   Like the laundry video on my channel.   But all within the sustainable lifestyle with a textiles focus theme.

r ranson wrote:My brand is homegrown textiles.

Target ...
Homesteader
Gardener
Textiles crafter
and combinations of the three.  

I'm focusing on advanced beginners.

I started with tutorials,  but I'm moving towards bigger project videos with a scattering of tutorials and the very occasional silly shorter video because they make me happy to create.   Like the laundry video on my channel.   But all within the sustainable lifestyle with a textiles focus theme.

Hi R. Your target group is very specific. Possibly all of those people are on Permies. But maybe not all of them watch Youtube videos ...

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

r ranson wrote:My brand is homegrown textiles.

Target ...
Homesteader
Gardener
Textiles crafter
and combinations of the three.  

I'm focusing on advanced beginners.

I started with tutorials,  but I'm moving towards bigger project videos with a scattering of tutorials and the very occasional silly shorter video because they make me happy to create.   Like the laundry video on my channel.   But all within the sustainable lifestyle with a textiles focus theme.

Hi R. Your target group is very specific. Possibly all of those people are on Permies. But maybe not all of them watch Youtube videos ...

Branding advice says to be as specific as possible.  Most classes I've taken teach us to create a fictional person and fill in as many details of their life like what kind of food they buy their fictional dog.  Then make every product for that person.  I'm a rebel and don't like getting that specific with my branding.

I do like the consistency in content.  Branding helps keep me within the area of expectation.

Looking at one of my favourite youtube channels and her focus is on hand sewing reproduction garments mostly from 1890 to 1910.  She has over a million subscribers.  I would love to get to 10,000 subscribers in five years.  I've been worried my niche is too large, but I don't think I would be happy creating within too narrow a focus.  

All the advice on this page is really worth reading over a few times and the videos are terrific!
So for a thumbnail splash image, I enclosed an idea, below.  I don't think that a picture of a silk moth is capturing the essence of what you're video is about, but it'd make a wonderful logo icon.  Since you are Crowing Hen, why not get a hen sitting on the sheep's head or something?  Who can resist animals???

Since everything is fine the way it is (it is), I'm guessing that what you need is to put your logo onto all the fiber and weaving and spinning sites.  Then those who already have a similar interest will be most likely to click on your logo!  Try homesteading sites too.  Also include more how-tos for making things.  "In this online workshop we'll be weaving roller blinds in the traditional Scandinavian way with a scalable size pattern downloadable HERE!"  Then you could advance to PayPal lessons or whatnot.

If you look at the links in my signature, you can see a lot of my branding.  

One of the things I love about the laundry and the future moth video is that it's extremely open to an audience that is less involved in textiles.  I got quite a few subscribers through the laundry vid.  

I can see youtube as being a powerful tool for building my brand.  But it's only one tiny step in a bigger plan.  I just need to spend the time to polish the branding for that platform.  

I needed to do something silly today, so I made a short video using some b-roll I had kicking about.

But it was also a great opportunity to play with my new thumbnail look to see if I like it.



I'm not sure if I do or not.  
I'm not liking the all-cap look.  

I also played with some new fonts inside the film, which again, I'm not convinced this is where I want to go.  But it's good to experiment.

Thoughts?  

The image wouldn't "take" before, but it looks like a go . . now.

I thought your video would be well received by all those who like to put down their foot.  The little sprig of leaves were a nice touch; the font was engaging.  Space that font out a little wider, though, (kerning or whatever it's called).  Maybe each video has its own look?  All different but similar?