The Importance of Glanceability

Imagine you’re on the interstate and you pass a car. In just a fraction of a second, you notice that whoever was in the passenger seat was extremely good-looking. Maybe they threw you a quick smile that is left with you the rest of the day.

You’ll see a million more cars, and yet, the moment sticks with you.

We want to do the same thing with your thumbnails and titles for your travel vlog. Within just a fraction of a second, we want potential viewers to comprehend your packaging and be left wanting more.

In this newsletter, we’ll be focusing on thumbnails only.

Thumbnail

The thumbnail is the first thing a viewer sees on YouTube. If they like what they see, then they will go to the title for more details.

There are two main rules to thumbnails, plus a bunch of mini tips.

MAIN RULE 1: Focus on the Story

Firstly, a thumbnail should visually tell a story that doesn’t finish. You want to leave something for viewers to be curious about so they have a reason to watch your travel vlog.

For example, imagine you are sailing to a new island in the South Pacific Ocean where there is a rare beach where you can swim with Manta Rays. Instead of showing the Manta Rays in the thumbnail, you can show you in the water with what looks like a shark fin and your face looking semi-concerned. Sailing La Vagabond actually made this thumbnail.

As an audience, we’re left wondering, “Was it a shark? Was it safe? What happened?” Those unanswered questions are what get us clicking through to the video.

The “Essence”

One thing that often trips up my students in my course, though, is they attempt to tell the ENTIRE story in the thumbnail, when really you should be targeting the overarching “essence”.

For example, my friend John and I did a milestone sail to Great Barrier Island, which was his longest sail to date and my longest sail as the most experienced person on board. On the way, our engine died, we got becalmed, and we almost grounded as we tried to avoid an oncoming Navy boat in the main entrance to the Island.

The essence of this travel vlog is “We sailed to Great Barrier Island”. The details of the sail are the engine, the wind and the narrow channel.

When choosing the thumbnail for this travel vlog, it needs to visually represent the actual sail to the island, not the individual occurrences within the story.

For example, I had a circumstance where a seal jumped on my boat in one travel vlog. I was so excited by this that I made it my thumbnail. Surely if I think it’s exciting, it will attract viewers!

While it is true that this one element did bring in viewers, I found my retention rate was horrible. I’d promised a seal, but the video wasn’t about the seal, nor was it highly featured in any scene. This would be a circumstance of only focusing on one element.

A Caveat

However, sometimes focusing on one element of your travel vlog is the right thing to do. For example, Breaking Waves recently released a heart-wrenching video where the thumbnail just showed their boat on a reef. In this case, the entire story was framed around their boat getting thrown up on the reef. So, while technically the actual grounding is one element of the story, it is ALSO the essence of the story and what all scenes are leading towards.

Rule: If the one element is also the focus of the overarching story, THEN you can make it the focus of the thumbnail.

Main Rule 2: Keep it Simple

Along the same lines, you want to keep your thumbnail incredibly simple. The rule of thumb is no more than three focal points, but less is always better.

Going back to the example of my friend John and I, it is tempting to want to show the broken engine alongside the sailing and then finally the navy ship. But that’s way too many visual elements for our brains to be able to comprehend what’s going on at a glance. That’s why we focus on the essence.

If you are leaving an island you’ve been staying at, all you need is a hand waving goodbye to the island in the background. If you are buying a new catamaran after being on a monohull for a long time, all you need is a picture of the catamaran with the word “traitor?”. 😀 If you are going on a long hike across New Zealand, all you need is you with your hiking gear on.

Try to make your thumbnails as SIMPLE as possible.

Extra Tips

Tip 1: Focus on Beauty

The human eye is biologically attracted to beauty, whether it’s human beauty, the surroundings, or simply a magnificent human creation. Whatever it is, pay attention to including the most beautiful aspects of your travel vlog in the thumbnail. For example, using the sailing example above, I would try to get beautiful blue skies, the full beautiful sailboat, and maybe one of us smiling as the wind blows through our hair.

Tip 2: Keep it Natural

I listened to an interview with Mr. Beast once where he said his contribution to YouTube he regrets the most is people’s obsession with extreme reaction faces. It was a phase of his career where he was experimenting, and yet people took it as gospel as to what works. Worse, they assumed it worked across sectors.

In the travel vlogging world, natural is best. Yes, the emotion on your face can help tell the story and get across the emotion you want to portray. But if you use unnatural and exaggerated facial expressions and body language, viewers interpret this as low quality.

Tip 3: High Quality Photos

Your thumbnail is the first thing people see. If it’s low quality, very few people will give you a chance because they will assume your videos are the same quality.

Clean your lens, pay attention to having a straight horizon, note where the light is, and learn the rule of thirds. These 4 simple things can have a MASSIVE impact on the quality of your thumbnails.

Tip 4: Blur the Background

Blurring your background is one of the easiest ways to make your thumbnails SIMPLE and also high-quality. You can do this manually on any phone using portrait mode, or you can do it on your fancy camera by lowering your aperture.

If you don’t have either of those, you can easily get the background blurred by making distance between your main subject and anything in the background.

About to take a picture with that cool “I went to XYZ place” sign? Have your subject step towards the camera so there is distance between the sign and them, and that gives it a lovely blur.

Tip 5: Highlight the Subject

Whatever you want viewers to see first should be the brightest thing on your thumbnail. Simple as that.

Tip 6: Bright Colors & Contrast

Color and contrast are the must under-utilised elements of a thumbnail. They help bring attention to certain objects or make your thumbnail stand out. Here is an example: If you are sailing in a moody gray channel, your sails are white, and your boat is white, then don’t wear white or gray. This will make your entire thumbnail the same color – aka boring. Put on a bright orange shirt and get some different colors in there. The contrast between the whites and orange will help bring attention to whatever action you are taking within the shot.

Action

When I first started YouTube, my thumbnail was an after-thought that typically involved taking a screenshot of one of the video clips I had. I averaged a 2-3% Click Through Rate (CTR).

Now, I actively take photos and think through each thumbnail. My CTR consistently starts out at 15-25% in the first 24 hours and never goes below 7%.

Paying attention to this makes a MASSIVE difference to your travel vlog’s success. Don’t make it an afterthought.

Happy Creating & Stay Curious!