How to Find The Perfect Thumbnail (Complete Guide)
You are doing it the wrong way.
When your story appears on the home page of a Medium user, the first thing that will attract her attention is the thumbnail. If it is catchy, she will read the title, the subtitle, then will decide if it is worth reading.
People love pictures; we love taking them, we love watching them, and we love clicking on them. It is human nature. Images are desired, communicative, and make life way easier.
As a content creator, you must take advantage of this feature. Alas, many writers spend much effort in the writing process and neglect devoting enough time to choosing a perfect thumbnail.
The power of thumbnails
I have been enough years on YouTube to understand the power of thumbnails. You may create a great video, but the wrong thumbnail will waste all the hard-working.
Think about it that way; if your story appeared to 100 users, that means, according to Medium’s algorithm, those users are more expected to like your story. In other words, they only need a trigger that will persuade them to click.
The trigger is the thumbnail. It should be sufficiently attractive to drive as much traffic as possible to your story.
In this article; you will learn how to choose a winning thumbnail that will optimize your earnings.
1. Depend on a variety of stock images resources.
One of the biggest mistakes, which medium writers commit, is the absolute dependency on Unsplash’s stock. There are plenty of free websites that provide better images.
Yes! It requires additional actions to bring the photo to your article, but it is worth it.
Unsplash has limited stock. Most of the time, we can not find suitable photos for our stories. After clicking next thousands of times, we lose hope and go with a general random image of a cute dog.
Also, it is overused by the creators of Medium and Vocal. The same image can be used in thousands of stories; I am not exaggerating! An overused image has less chance to attract the reader’s attention.
In the article below, I provided a list of 20 websites that contain millions of free images.
I also wrote this viral article about a forgotten website that Provides 78 million free images.
If you are lazy, like 99.9% of writers, you can use Google to find free images in no time. See this article.
2. Personalize your thumbnail
What I mean by personalizing the thumbnail is making it related to you. I will elaborate on two main points.
2.2. Use your own pictures
Medium is more about our personal experiences in life. Stories that follow this path get more attention on the platform. Consequently, personalized thumbnails get more attention too.
Try using pictures of yourself as thumbnails of your stories. And do not worry; they do not have to be professional. In fact, less professional pictures are more favorable because they look natural.
You can also use pictures of your pet if the story’s topic is related. Or you can borrow images of your friends, but ask for their permission first.
2.3. Personalized thumbnail from the stock photos websites
If the previous tip is not working for you, try this one. Stock images’ websites contain many pictures that look less professional.
Instead of using a professional picture of handsome models, use a simple image of a regular guy. The example below illustrates the idea.
3. Give your thumbnail a main character (or object)
Either using your own image or an image from the stock, always give your thumbnail a main character. It could be a person, an animal, or an object (a cactus, for instance).
You do not want to distract the attention of your ‘probable’ reader by a scattered thumbnail! Instead, you should give her a simple and minimalistic thumbnail; attractive and easy to understand.
4. Avoid using text on thumbnails
Unlike the previous tips, which are recommended for different platforms, this tip is tailored for Medium. Using texts on your thumbnail is not recommended.
The reason behind that is the way Medium lists stories on the landing page. As you can see in the picture below, the thumbnail is diminished. Therefore, it will be tiresome for the user to read it.
Moreover, the thumbnail looks even smaller on mobile phones. See the screenshot below. You, as a writer, should think about the way your story appears on all sizes of screens.
5. Use high-quality images
The quality of the image is a wide area, but I will narrow it into three main aspects.
5.1. Size of the image
If you use a stock images website, always download the image in high quality. Mostly, those websites provide you with different quality options. Thus, choose the best one.
The size of the thumbnail should not be less than 1 MB and more than 10 MB. A 3 MB image is perfect.
5.2. Rational edits
If you use an image editor before uploading the thumbnail to Medium, be rational while changing the settings of colors, lights, and shades.
The last thing you want is to make the image looks noisy. A minimalist and clean image, with soft colors and lights, is ideal.
Usually, stock images do not need to be edited. Therefore, you may need to take this step only if the image is yours.
5.3. Dimensions of the image
The recommended size of a thumbnail is the widescreen. 720 pixels x 1280 pixels is an ideal size.
Generally speaking, avoid squares and vertical rectangles.
6. Customize your blog (optional)
Medium users follow hundreds of writers. It is not easy to get the attention of the users every time. Even if they prefer your style over the other writers, they cannot spot your article when it appears on their busy Home page.
To overstep this issue, you may like to customize your blog by using the same template for all your thumbnails.
That way, once they see the thumbnail, they will know that the story is yours. You will get their attention and win the home page race every time.
6.1. How to customize your blog
To customize your blog, you need to use the same template for all your thumbnails. The template will work as a brand for your blog.
The template could be as simple as a purple frame, a notable filter (White & Black, Sepia, Neo, etc.), a distinguished genre of painting (Portrait art, for instance), or just your face.
Note that the customization of your blog will only bring your old readers’ attention to your story. You still need to balance this with a charming image that will reach new readers.
