How To Make A Youtube Channel Banner

You're starting your YouTube channel and you realize you have to create a channel banner. But one, you're not sure what should be on that channel banner. Two, what does a good channel banner even look like? And three, how do you create a channel banner? So in this video today, I'm going to answer all those questions for you. And at the end of this video.

There is a tutorial where I show.

You exactly how to create a channel banner in Picmonkey. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Just the Tips with Trena where.

I provide online entrepreneurs tips and tricks.

On how to create a video content strategy that works for them and their business. Like I said, today we're going to talk about channel banners on your YouTube channel. If you aren't subscribed to my channel.

Yet, just make sure you go ahead.

And click that red button down below and we will get started.

First things first, a channel banner is.

So important when you are creating your YouTube channel, and this is basically your primary marketing material. When people land on your channel, it's very important to make sure you optimize the space and that you have one on your channel when you start publishing new videos.

So what should be on it?

Well, you should definitely have your name or your business name and your logo. That's obviously one of the most important things to have.

Second, I would try to have a.

Tagline if you have a tagline for your business or some kind of catchy phrase that really sums up who you are and what you do. But you really want to limit the amount of text that you have on this channel banner.

Because if you think about it, this.

Channel banner is not only going to be on desktop, but people are going to be seeing it on mobile also. So it's going to be really small. So really limit the amount of text that you do have on this channel banner. And the third thing you should think about having on your banner is when you upload videos, if people find your channel and they are looking through it, they're going to want to know, does this person update regularly? Do they post weekly, daily? They just want to have a general idea. When you are uploading videos, have your schedule on your channel. If it's random and you just try to get any video up once a week, just put new videos every week. Now I'm going to pop on over to my computer and I'm going to walk you through how to create a channel banner and some really good examples of channel banners that are out there.

Let's first start out with a few Examples of channel banners that are good. This is my channel and as you can see here, I post new videos Monday and Friday. But I actually need to change this because it's now Monday and Thursdays. But I post my video schedule. I also have just a little tagline here, a little text here that talks about what I share on my channel. So business strategy, video content and social media. That's an example of my channel banner. Let's look at a few more. Marie Forleo, we all probably know she has a little tagline called create a business and life you love. That's what I'm talking about with a tagline for your channel banner. Let's also look at Roberto Blake. He does a lot of videos on creating videos for your business. And he has a tagline there, always be creating and then helping you create awesome seven days a week. So he's sharing that he creates new videos and uploads them seven days a week. Let's also, on a total different spectrum, Alicia Marie, she's more of a vlogger lifestyle YouTube channel. You see, she has on her channel.

Banner new videos every weekend.

So that gives her space to maybe upload a video on Saturday or Sunday, whatever her schedule looks for her, she has that space to just upload a video every weekend. And then finally, Jess creatives, she has the space to upload videos every week. So maybe she has something coming up on Monday. She wasn't able to get a video up, so she can put a video up on Wednesday so people can expect a new video from her every week. So these are just some great examples of channel banners that you can get inspiration from and how you can really use this, the idea of a tagline or a video schedule on your channel banner. So how do you create this channel banner? Well, lucky for you, YouTube already has a template for you to download and use to create your channel banner. So you want to go over here to this little pencil guy on your channel banner. It should be there. Even if you don't have a channel banner yet, you want to go to edit channel art. From there, you can go to this little link right down at the bottom that says how to create channel art. Click on it and then go on over here to image size and file guideline. And this shows you exactly what your channel banner template is going to look like. And you can download the template right here. When you download it, you want to make sure that you use use the fireworks PNG so it'll actually give you two different files. And for PicMonkey specifically, we want to use the channel art template, the fireworks png. So now that we have the template downloaded, we want to go into PicMonkey, which is just a free editor online.

That anybody can use.

And you'll want to click on design. Then you'll want to change this dimension to 2560 by 1440, because that is the template YouTube gave us. So go ahead and hit apply and then go over to this little butterfly. It's where you can download overlays and you want to download your own. So you want to go to my computer, pull up that channel artwork, the fireworks image, and open it. You want to pull it so it covers that entire white space of your image. Okay, so what's important about this is to remember this is your basic channel banner area. But people can watch YouTube on their TV, so this whole space can also be seen on their TVs. But we really want to focus in this darkest gray shade because that's what mobile and the minimum desktop area is going to be. So one of the things I like to do to get started is fade this out. So I faded it out and then just get started, maybe adding a logo. So to add logos, you go over to your overlays, which is this butterfly button, and click add your own, just like you did with the template. So I just pulled my logo. I'm going to resize it. I probably want it in the center of my channel. So that looks like it's about the center. Let me make it just a little bit smaller. So that's what it's going to look like. For right now, if you want to add a background color, go ahead and click on this butterfly again and you can add geometric. So maybe you add a square. And you want this to be a certain color for your graphics. So head on over here and enter in the color code, hex code for your brand. Now, I got this cool goldish colored block that, you know, is my brand color. And I want it to extend the whole way out. So even if people are on tv, you know, this covers the whole area. So you can right click and send the back. Make sure it's covering all of that area. And then if you want to delete or move, you know, this area real quick to see what it's going to look like, I would just slide it down to the bottom and then you'd see actually what your channel banner is going to look like on a tv. But remember, this little center area is what is on desktop and mobile. If you're not done editing, go Ahead and pull this guy back up into your graphic. I would definitely focus on doing the background color as the last thing you're doing. So I'm going to delete that, pull this back in here and focus on what I'm going to write in the text and logo safe area. I probably want to add what my upload schedule is going to be. So I'm going to add text, which is this T right here. You can add your own text or use text that they already have, but this is my brand text. I'm going to let people know new videos every week. This way I'm not pigeonholed to doing the every Monday and Friday. So if something happens where I can't get a video up those days, at least I'm posting a new video every week. You can change the size, you can make it bold, you can change the color up here, you can center it. Just mess around with what you want it to look like. I actually think I'm going to keep it with the. If you notice, YouTube also allows you to have a link up here. So you can see I have a free video script template, so I think I might actually call that out on my channel banner. So I am going to go back to PicMonkey. I'm going to go over to this overlay area and they do have arrows. Now, these images that have the crown on them are for people who actually pay for PicMonkey. So you're probably just using the free version. So those ones will not be available to you. So I'm just going to pick an arrow that I have available to myself, maybe turn it, then add a little text so people know what I want them to do there. Grab my free script plate here. You want to make it small enough so that it fits onto your channel banner. And I'm going to split this into two here. Then I'm going to go ahead and delete this template because I know it's going to fit in all the areas. Delete this and then finally add my background color that I want it to be. Now, if you want it to be white, then you're done. Right click send it to back and that's what your channel banner is going to look like. Now you might want to fiddle around with it to make sure everything looks centered for you. So then you go over here to save. Just remember to save it something that you know what it is. Go ahead and save to my computer. Then you can go back to your YouTube channel. And if you are not still in this room, remember you Just go to the little pencil up here in the corner. Now you can select a photo from your computer. Your channel JPEG should be right there. You can open it up.

And you.

Can see what it looks like on mobile, on TV or desktop, so you actually get a preview of what it looks like. You can always adjust the crop if you did not do it right. But as you see, we actually created our graphic, the exact dimensions that YouTube requests, so we don't have anything to crop. Take a look at your preview one more time, select it, and there you go. Now you can see my text here is a little bit off, so maybe I want to go back and fix that to just move it a little bit to the right. But that's pretty much the gist of how you create your YouTube channel banner. You can mess with it a little bit. You can spend as much time as you want creating something awesome. If you do have canva, canva does offer a channel banner template, but it doesn't have that little gray area that lets you know the safe space. So keep that in mind when creating your channel banner to keep the important information in that darkest gray box that YouTube offers in the channel banner.

So I hope that tutorial was really helpful for you. I know Picmonkey, since it is a free platform, it was a great place to teach how to create the channel banner so that everybody could use it. If you have any questions about creating a channel banner, let me know down below. What's holding you up with the channel banner? Is it the dimensions? What exactly do you need to know about having the best channel banner for your channel? Let me know in the comments section below. Make sure you share this video. If you have other business friends that are starting their channel out, make sure they're doing it right and adding a channel banner. So just click on any of those social share buttons down below. Share to Facebook, Pinterest, whatever your favorite platform is. Thank you guys so much for watching. I really appreciate you taking the time to consume my content and I will.

See you next time. Bye.