Creating engaging videos on YouTube is an art, and the gateway to capturing viewers’ attention starts with eye-catching thumbnails. Statistics reveal that thumbnails significantly impact a video’s click-through rate (CTR), which is a critical metric for YouTube’s algorithm. In fact, YouTube reports that half of all channels and videos have an impression CTR falling between 2% and 10%. Moreover, 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube feature custom thumbnails, highlighting the importance of a well-designed thumbnail in driving engagement.

An effective thumbnail serves as a visual hook that can make or break a viewer’s decision to click on a video. With millions of content creators looking for attention, a thumbnail that stands out is not just an option—it’s a necessity. 

In the article, we’ll delve into the top design tools to create killer YouTube thumbnails and a surprise video editing tool to enhance your YouTube videos and increase your click-through rate. Let’s dive in

Table of Contents:

•  Top 7 design tools to create killer YouTube thumbnails
  • Fotor
  • MiriCanvas
  • Visme
  • Placeit
  • PosterMyWall
  • Canva
  • Creatopy
• Video editing tools to boost your YouTube click-through rate
• Summing Up – What are you waiting for?

1: Fotor

Equipped with professionally designed templates, Fotor, an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, empowers users to swiftly craft personalized thumbnails—even without prior graphic design expertise. By incorporating a variety of design elements, you can elevate your thumbnails, attract more views, and maintain consistency in click-through rates.

Additionally, Fotor’s platform encourages creative exploration, enabling tasks such as converting images into transparent thumbnails. These abundant opportunities enhance the visual appeal of your YouTube channel.

Plans and Pricing:

• Basic Plan: Available for all users.
• Pro Plan: Priced at $8.99/month.
• Pro Plus Plan: Priced at $19.99/month.

2 : MiriCanvas

MiriCanvas makes creating click-worthy YouTube thumbnails a walk in the park. Here’s what sets them apart:

• Massive Template Library: No matter your niche, browse a huge selection of high-quality templates for travel, fashion, ASMR, fitness, and more. Find the perfect starting point in seconds.
• Effortless Design: With a user-friendly interface, all the tools you need are at your fingertips in the left panel. Drag, drop, and customize with ease.
• Make Your Thumbnails Pop: MiriCanvas goes beyond basic editing. Explore trendy stickers, custom color themes, and even AI-powered drawings!

Plans to fit your needs: Choose from a free plan to get started, or upgrade to the pro plan for $11.99 per month and unlock even more features.

3 : Visme

Visme, a versatile platform, provides a variety of foundational templates that users can swiftly customize. With easy-to-use editing tools, users can personalize both text and graphics effortlessly. Additionally, Visme offers access to an extensive library of stock images and customizable text graphics.

The platform features a convenient drag-and-drop interface, streamlining the process of creating thumbnails. Users have the flexibility to modify shapes, positions, and sizes to suit their needs.

As for pricing, Visme offers three plans:

• Basic Plan: Ideal for getting started.
• Starter Plan: Priced at $29.00/month.
• Pro Plan: Available for $59.00/month.

4 : Placeit

Placeit, a platform that caters to YouTube creators, provides customizable thumbnail templates. These templates simplify the process of creating branded thumbnails, especially for users who lack design experience. While it may impose some limitations on exceptionally creative designs, it truly shines in maintaining consistency across thumbnails.

With an extensive library of hundreds of templates, Placeit ensures that creators from various niches find suitable options. Its user-friendly search system makes exploration effortless. Moreover, Placeit offers animated previews, allowing users to experiment with different color schemes and fonts, thereby encouraging creativity and customization.

Plans and Pricing: Placeit offers an unlimited subscription plan priced at $9.99 per month.

5: PosterMyWall

Create your YouTube thumbnails with PosterMyWall’s massive library of templates. These designs are a great way to kick off your creations, and with powerful masking and effects tools, you can easily make them visually impressive.

On top of that, PosterMyWall offers advanced text options, making it an even better choice for crafting eye-catching YouTube thumbnails.

Plans and Pricing: PosterMyWall has a free plan, with premium plans starting at $9.95/month and a premium plus plan for $29.95/month.

6: Canva

With its user-friendly interface and beginner-oriented tutorials, Canva caters to design enthusiasts of all skill levels. Beginners can dive in swiftly, while seasoned designers can take advantage of advanced features. Canva’s versatility shines through its meticulously designed templates and an extensive collection of graphic elements like photos, shapes, and icons. Users can effortlessly create custom thumbnail images tailored to their unique design needs.

As for pricing, Canva provides three plans:

• Free Plan: Access basic features at no cost.
• Pro Plan: For $9.99/month, unlock additional premium features.
• Teams Plan: Priced at $25/month, this plan caters to collaborative design efforts within teams.

7: Creatopy

Creatopy provides indispensable tools for creating eye-catching thumbnails that instantly grab viewers’ attention. Their professionally designed templates are visually impactful and can be personalized to harmonize seamlessly with your brand’s aesthetic.

No matter your experience level, Creatopy’s tools empower you to create stunning thumbnails that will boost your channel’s visual appeal.

Plans and Pricing:

• Basic Plan: $32/month
• Pro Plan: $45/month
• Plus Plan: $165/month

What is Steve AI?

Steve AI effortlessly transforms text into engaging video content. Powered by advanced AI technology, it allows users to create captivating videos by inputting text. The platform is equipped with an array of templates and personalization features, perfect for content creators, marketers, and companies aiming to boost their online visibility.

Steve AI simplifies the video production workflow, enabling users to save valuable time and generate attractive videos that engage and expand their viewer base, ultimately enhancing interaction and exposure.

Key Features

Text to Video Conversion: Steve AI excels at turning written content into high-quality videos, diversifying content formats for creators.

Rich Media Library: Access an extensive media library with stock images, videos, and music tracks to enrich your videos.

AI-Driven Templates: The platform provides a variety of AI-generated templates, simplifying the video creation process across different themes and industries.

User-Friendly Interface: Designed for users of all skill levels, from novices to professionals.

Automated Voice over: Steve AI offers an automated voice over feature, enabling users to personalize videos with customizable fonts, colors, and logos, ensuring brand consistency.

Fast Rendering and Export: Steve AI ensures quick video rendering and seamless integration into digital platforms and social media.

Customization Options: Users can personalize videos with customizable fonts, colors, and logos, ensuring brand consistency.

Steve AI Pricing:

• Basic Plan: $15/month
• Starter Plan: $45/month
• Pro Plan: $60/month

We explored the significance of YouTube thumbnails, shedding light on how to create impactful ones and highlighting essential design tools for their production. Designing thumbnails for YouTube opens up vast possibilities to improve your channel’s visual allure and boost viewer interaction. Whether you’re in search of easy-to-use platforms, expert-level templates, or extensive personalization features, you’ll find a design tool that fits your preferences.

By skillfully utilizing these instruments, video makers can forge engaging thumbnails that grab viewers’ interest, increase the likelihood of clicks, and, in turn, contribute to the growth of their YouTube channel. Embark on a journey with these design applications, try out different aesthetics, and pinpoint the perfect tool that meets your thumbnail design needs.

Video content has become a dominant form of marketing regardless of industry or niche. In the latter part of 2022, online videos were able to achieve an audience reach of 91.8%, cementing the value of video content. YouTube is one among many platforms where companies can share their video content. 

With about 71.6 billion mobile and eight billion desktop visitors in November 2022 alone, sharing content on YouTube is almost guaranteed to help you reach your audience. Even if you’re just a small one-person company or aspiring influencer, YouTube is the place to be. Of course, your content needs to hook your audience for them to stick around. 

In this YouTube video editing guide, you’ll learn how to make YouTube videos that look professional, attract your audience, and keep them interested.

Getting Started with YouTube Video Creation

With so many videos to watch on the platform, it’s up to you to ensure your videos stand out and catch the eyes of your audience. Creating high-quality videos that are effectively edited is the foundation of making videos people want to watch. 

When your videos are well-edited, you’re far more likely to have emotionally engaging content. You’ll be able to incorporate special effects and use professional sound design, enriching your content. 

You need the right tools, such as Steve.ai,  to make stunning YouTube videos that hit all your goals. You can watch the tutorials on how to use these tools and get the most out of them.

You’ll also need the right gear to get started with your YouTube content. Although many people make YouTube videos with their phones or simple cameras and a basic setup, it’s not recommended if you want your content to stand out to your audience. Some of the basic equipment you’ll need are:

• High-quality video camera
• Tripod
• Lighting equipment
• Microphone
• Audio cables
• Headphones
• Batteries
• Memory cards

It’s highly recommended that you research the best gear in each category so you have a balance of high-quality equipment. Your video won’t appeal to your audience if you have excellent video footage with nice lighting but poor sound. Make sure to check out reviews of the tools you want to buy before you purchase them.

Mastering Video Editing Fundamentals

It can be challenging to make perfect videos, and you may not get it right on your first try. You’ll need to master all the most important video editing fundamentals to create awesome content, and doing so takes practice and lots of learning.

To begin, shoot enough content to make sure you have enough to edit well. Get more than enough footage so you have a lot to choose from and are able to keep only the best. You’ll have to film several takes to get the right sound, look, and feel.

When it comes to editing your finished videos, note that there are many ways to go about doing so. It’s unlikely that you’ll know right from the start how to edit your videos to get them just right. As you learn more, you’ll understand what kind of transition is appropriate for your content, for example.

Keep pacing in mind as well. Some scenes in your videos can benefit from fast pacing to create intense moments, while others need to be more relaxed, thoughtful, and slow. This is an important fundamental to focus on when creating YouTube videos.

No YouTube video could be complete without sound and music. This part of your creative process allows you to make something that really stands out. Viewers don’t like videos with poor sound effects and bad music, or sounds and music that doesn’t complement the video, so choose elements that suit your content well. 

A good soundtrack will enhance the immersion that your viewers feel, so give this aspect enough attention. Adding sound into your videos can be tricky, so it’s important to use the right tools. Using professional video editing software will make adding music and sounds in the best places easy and hassle-free.

If you’re unsure of how to use music and sound effects the right way, take some time to watch your favorite YouTubers’ content. Take note of the sounds they work in, the music they use, and how it pairs with the visuals.

Crafting Engaging YouTube Content

Whether you are a beginner, an expert, or a professional video creator, you can benefit greatly from using video editing software. Choosing the right software can be daunting at first—there are so many options available! You can start with Steve.ai, which is not only easy to use but also offers impressive and unique solutions to take your process to the next level.

All you have to do is simply paste your text into its Script editor. The AI automatically creates videos for you, which you can use to enhance your current video strategy. It even allows you to transform your blogs into bite-sized videos, allowing all your content to reach a wider audience.

Steve.ai can also help you choose the best assets for your videos with keywords. If you ever run out of ideas for content or need inspiration, this feature can come in very handy. There are different formats to choose from too, such as the cartoon video maker that will create a unique-looking video if you’re not keen on showing your own face on camera.

While you’re working on creating engaging video content for your YouTube channel, don’t neglect the importance of being organized. You should import and manage your video clips in a neat space to avoid confusion and frustration. It’s likely that you’ll have many hours of primary clips that need to be edited and sorting through it all can become quite overwhelming. Keep all your clips and related content organized and stored using a good naming system.

 Editing your content to ensure engagement means using different film editing techniques. This includes the standard cut, L cut, J cut, and match cut, to name a few. 

Pro-tip: Research all the techniques you find most interesting and use them to enhance the quality of your videos. Don’t forget about transitions to create a good sense of continuity in your content.

Video SEO and Optimization for YouTube

Getting your YouTube channel off the ground is challenging and it definitely won’t happen overnight. Using marketing and SEO strategies can get your channel the attention it deserves by making your content more searchable. When your videos are more searchable, more people will see them and your channel will grow.

This is where YouTube SEO comes in. This is the process of optimizing video content so it can rank higher in the platform’s search results. You’ve got several strategies and techniques at your disposal to boost your SEO, such as cleverly using titles, tags, and descriptions.

Harnessing the power of relevant keywords and phrases and working them into these components should be the foundation of your YouTube SEO campaign. To be successful, you need to understand the true search intent of your audience. That way, you can work to match your content with the intent of your ideal viewers and get more views.

In this example, even videos that are relatively old can still get views because they’ve got relevant keywords for the search that was made:

Effective storytelling is also an important element to always keep in mind. Even if you plan to sell products or promote a business, good storytelling will help your audience connect with your content on a much deeper level. Create compelling narratives and share real-life stories that tap into viewers’ emotions to hook your audience. 

For example, if you are a mattress supplier, incorporate storytelling by sharing the journey of a couple who faced sleep issues affecting their mental and physical well-being, causing irritability and difficulty concentrating during the day, until they found your mattress. Showcase the positive impact of your product and how it transformed their sleepless nights to dreamy comfort. This example effectively illustrates the practical advantages of your products through relatable narratives.

Also, if you’re immersed in the realm of health and wellness, weave storytelling into your content by narrating the experience of someone grappling with stress and anxiety. Highlight their journey towards finding solace through holistic solutions such as Delta 9 tincture. Emphasize how these natural remedies have positively impacted their overall health, fostering a balanced state of mind and body.

Keep viewers interested by editing your videos so they look and feel like a unique experience. Music and sound effects can do wonders! Strategic video marketing can compel even those outside your target audience to give your content a chance, so invest as much time and effort as needed.

Audience engagement and retention are also essential metrics to focus on when you edit your videos. You need to make sure the videos will be able to keep viewers’ eyes on the screen even after watching for five to ten minutes. Not only does this mean your viewers will want to watch more of your videos, but YouTube will be happy too—putting you higher in search results. 

You should use YouTube Analytics to monitor audience retention and learn what editing techniques and content work best for your channel.

Here’s an example of how you’d be able to keep an eye on your channel’s growth with YouTube Analytics:

Source: Single Grain

Using Steve.ai’s analytics tools can also help you understand how your channel is performing. You’ll be able to determine which videos get a lot of views and which ones don’t attract anyone. The AI video algorithm is able to analyze and optimize your videos for a better viewing experience, boosting your views.

Engaging content is crucial if you want to increase your channel’s visibility and subscriber base. A good thumbnail and brief, punchy intros are good for standing out from the crowd and hooking your audience. 

Well-chosen music, high-quality images, transitions, and other editing techniques will keep your audience interested while ensuring that the overall message and quality are exceptional and will have your audience coming back for more.

Another great way to get your YouTube videos in front of more eyes is by doing live streams. YouTube likes to promote live streams so getting your content featured can be a little easier if you regularly have live streams. 

These streams can also help you to connect with your audience through interactive games, Q&A’s, and simply by talking to them. You don’t have to make flawless live streams; viewers enjoy these live events that are a little bit chaotic and have a ‘misadventure’ feel to them.

Leveraging AI-Powered Video Editing Tools

AI tools for marketing aren’t anything new, it’s been around for ages. Using AI to help you with your editing is a bit more novel but a good idea.  Steve.ai can be the perfect tool to edit your YouTube videos. It can turn your creative ideas into captivating videos and animations in just seconds. 

With Steve.ai, you can tap into the incredible power of artificial intelligence to effortlessly transform text into visually stunning videos within minutes, freeing up valuable time for you to focus on what you do best: unleashing your creativity.

Steve.ai comes equipped with a treasure trove of features to supercharge your video creation process. With over 1000 customizable video templates, AI-generated scripts, a wealth of rich graphics, video clips, and a vast library of music assets, your possibilities are limitless. Plus, the seamless collaboration tools ensure that you can work effortlessly across various devices, making the creative process a breeze.

Steve.ai also allows you to breathe life into your personal photos by seamlessly integrating them into your video content. You can even add descriptive text to enhance the storytelling aspect of your photos and videos, captivating your audience like never before. 

If you’re trying to grow your business on YouTube, using tools like Steve.ai can help you ensure everything is done professionally. You may also want to consider using other tools like Customers.ai for extras such as customer services as well.

Streamline Your Video Editing With Steve.ai

Creating stunning videos is easy and less complicated if you’re using the right equipment and tools. Steve.ai is designed to help YouTube creators create wow-worthy videos that can hold a candle to the most popular videos with millions of views. 

Thanks to more than a thousand YouTube video templates, AI-powered auto-generated scripts, and easy access to graphics, videos, and music assets, crafting the kind of content you dream of is simplified. 

Start crafting your YouTube masterpiece with Steve.ai’s video editing solutions today!