{"id":35265,"date":"2020-11-21T16:08:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T21:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/venngage.com\/blog\/?p=35265"},"modified":"2025-12-23T07:51:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T12:51:33","slug":"how-to-optimize-thumbnails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/venngage.com\/blog\/how-to-optimize-thumbnails\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Optimize Thumbnails to Boost Your Search Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"How<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Updated: May 6, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Google’s search is becoming more visual, image optimization is becoming more and more important.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image thumbnails appearing in organic search results impact click-through, build anticipation and may transform the user’s expectation of what the target URL is about.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s how to optimize thumbnails to increase your Google organic click-through and improve on-page engagement:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Do Thumbnails Matter for Organic Visibility?<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Google Mobile Search<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Google is now showing an increasing number of thumbnails within mobile search result pages.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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Images are well-known for attracting an eye and stealing clicks. This means that your visual assets may directly impact your organic click-through. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Google pretty much owns the search industry with 90% of market share and mobile devices send more than half of global traffic (Source of both the numbers: <\/span>Industry Statistics<\/span><\/a> by Oberlo), organic mobile click-through has to be taken really seriously:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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With mobile SERPs (search engine result pages) becoming more visual and fast adoption of mobile devices globally (with website speed becoming a ranking factor<\/a>), creating optimized image thumbnails has become key to building traffic from Google.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a good idea to set up some sort of monitoring to get alerted when your important SERPs have added new images or become more visual. Visualping<\/a> is a great tool to see these up: Just copy-paste Google search URL, set tracking to a mobile device and choose your frequency:<\/p>\n\n\n

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The tool also has a Google Chrome extension<\/a> to make tracking easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to optimize YouTube thumbnails<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

YouTube video thumbnails<\/span><\/a> let viewers see a quick snapshot of your video as they’re browsing YouTube. According to Youtube itself, the overwhelming majority (90%) of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails so they do impact video success.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

YouTube Academy calls<\/span><\/a> video thumbnails “billboards to help viewers decide to watch your videos”. Obviously, thumbnails help boost video discoverability and click-through. When creating custom thumbnails, it\u2019s important to consider the YouTube thumbnail size<\/a> to ensure they display correctly across different devices.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

YouTube thumbnails<\/span> show up in different sizes across different platform sections, including suggested and related videos, Youtube search and Google’s organic results.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few examples of different sizes YouTube thumbnails can show up…<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youtube search:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Youtube suggested videos:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Google search (video carousel):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Video and image thumbnails dominating SERPs:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Both video and image thumbnails in Google’s mobile organic search:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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1. Create Clear Images that Look Good as Thumbnails<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Take specific image recommendations into account<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

How to optimize thumbnails for Google SERPs:<\/b><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I couldn’t find any solid research into this but from browsing dozens of SERPs, all of the organic thumbnails were <\/span>square<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The optimized image must not follow the aspect ratio (Google will resize the image to make it square). But you may up with a messy thumbnail with essential parts of it lost:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"How<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

(Keep your featured image square or make sure it still makes sense if made square)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to optimize thumbnails for Youtube:<\/b><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Youtube has very specific video thumbnail requirements:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n