Whenever you upload a video to YouTube, the service automatically pulls three options for you to choose as a thumbnail image. The thumbnail is the image people see when scrolling through YouTube videos listings. In my experience, YouTube pulls the most unflattering thumbnails for your video. Like so:

Have no fear! There is a way around this and it’s fairly simple to accomplish!

The fix:
Create and then upload a custom thumbnail image for your YouTube Video.

Things to Know:

YouTube Custom Thumbnail Image Specifications:1280 x 720
Custom thumbnails don’t have to be painstakingly hard to create. I promise! Use something like Canva.com to create a super easy and eye-pleasing thumbnail.

I’ve created a short video tutorial to show you how to create and update your thumbnail image. Click the image below to watch!