Hi, Mahmudul here from Starscape SEO. Welcome to the first installment of our series, “Analyzing KW Region REALTORS® YouTube Video Thumbs – Pt. 1.”
In this post, we’re diving into the visual strategies used by local Kitchener-Waterloo REALTORS® on their YouTube channels on some of their most viewed videos.
We’ll be taking a close look at their video thumbnails —those tiny but powerful images that can make or break a viewer’s decision to click.
Youtube Thumbnail SEO – What Is It?
YouTube operates with its own SEO algorithm, which is closely tied to Google’s search engine, as both platforms are owned by the same company – Alphabet Inc.
To succeed on YouTube, your video content must be both valuable and engaging, with a well-crafted thumbnail that captures attention.
If your video lacks these elements, it is unlikely to be promoted or highlighted by either YouTube or Google, significantly reducing its visibility.
This interconnectedness emphasizes the importance of optimizing your content for YouTube’s SEO, as it directly influences your video’s chances of being discovered across both platforms.
So, whether you’re a REALTOR® looking to optimize your own thumbnails or just curious about how KW’s real estate pros are showcasing their properties and services, join us as we break down what works and what doesn’t.
Let’s get started!
Emily Schuurmans
Emily Schuurmans is a REALTOR® working for Keller-Williams, which is located at 640 Riverbend Dr, Kitchener, Ontario, as well as House2Home Realty out of Toronto.
Now, when it comes to Youtube video thumbnails, and video content, there are many real estate agents, who use Youtube mainly as a place to feature their home listings, providing a virtual tour of the homes they are selling.
This is exactly what Emily seems to be doing, if you look at her “Videos” page, displaying a medley of her listings, and quite possibly featuring any listing she has that comes up.
Each video, from what we have seen, features a professionally made tour of the home, with Emily narrating each video, showing off its location, and all of the things that make the home a desirable purchase for potential buyers.
As such, the thumbnail approach, in our humble opinion, involves getting a good clean shot of the home, and then simply calling the video the address, along with the city or town.
This approaches gives her channel a uniform look, and it definitely gets the point across as to who Emily is and what she does – real estate.
Because listings are only on the market for a limited time, she would need to balance the cost of making the video with her benefit to her as a REALTOR®, ie. each video is a digital piece of content that she can use to sell the home, share with anyone who might be interested, and build on her name and brand.
At the same time, these are not meant to be “viral” videos or topical videos focusing on her life as an agent, or the niche of realty, so the chances of any of these videos “blowing up” and getting one million views is fairly low.
This is, overall, a modern but quaint approach to being a REALTOR® who uses social media, and very low risk in terms of PR – ie. she’s not going to get “cancelled” for saying or showing anything too “risque” here. Let’s move on…
Zoran Kukic Realtor
Zoran Kukic is a REALTOR® working for Affinity Real Estate and EXP Realty located at 675 Riverbend Dr, Kitchener, Ontario.
Ok, it’s time to compare and contrast a little with the last Youtube video thumbnail. You’ll notice here that the thumbnail, while it shows the entire home, similar to Emily’s video thumbnails, also includes a person, standing with one foot on a soccer ball.
This is where things get interesting, because, as a potential customer, or as a viewer, you may become either more curious about who this man is, or your cognitive dissonance kicks in and you wonder, in a non-positive association way, “hey, what’s that man doing there blocking that house…and why does he have that ball?”
You might think we’re being overly dramatic about the snap judgements people could make here, but we assure you that there are people out there teaching very expensive online marketing courses who would probably say the exact same thing – social media is all about that one second snap judgement, and this move by Zoran of having a person standing in the picture, doing something a little bit unrelated to the point of the video, could be considered a no-no.
Of course, this was probably Zoran’s idea (who whoever made this video), as, if you watch the video, he incorporates soccer into the video (he obviously likes soccer and can do tricks with the ball), and it’s a bit of a gimmick for the video. And we’re not saying it’s a bad gimmick, either!
The problem could be, that the thumbnail doesn’t really make that clear (that he’s a soccer playing real estate agent), that the guy in the video thumbnail is – in fact – the REALTOR® who is going to take you on a tour of the home, and that he’s going to be kicking the ball around a bit in the video to spice things up.
Here we’ll make the assertion – take it or leave it – that Google and Youtube don’t like thumbnails that contain objects that are too small to make out, or things that are there for a non-obvious reasons.
Like, if a thumbnail has a guy reading a book 50 feet away from the camera, and it’s next to a big house, Youtube’s algorithm won’t like that, and it won’t reward the video maker by putting the video in front of more people.
In fact, it will probably put it in front of less people, because it’s ambiguous. Here’s a random example we just dug up from Youtube, which has a similar “people doing random stuff in the middle distance” effect:
Although not related to real estate, you can see that this video has a thumbnail that doesn’t appear to be specifically chosen or optimized for it’s amazing-ness.
Hence, due to its title being specific and yet not explaining what’s going to happen in this 1.5 hour video, and a thumbnail that is not “crafted” per se, it will probably never “go viral” or even get a substantial amount of views from anyone beyond it’s immediate audience (which might be fine for these folks).
That was a huge digression, but Zoran’s thumbnail does evoke a similar “huh?” response from us. Which is interesting, because the content of the video is arguably about the same as Emily’s video, showing off the features of the home and making a case for buying it to a potential customer.
Ok…NEXT!
Van Leeuwen Realty Group
Van Leeuwen Realty Group, located at 640 Riverbend Drive in Kitchener, Ontario, and fronted by Jerry Van Leeuwen, works under the wing of Keller-Williams Realty.
This thumbnail is for a listing of a home, with the address 56 Kilkerran Crescent, in Kitchener, and dates back a year, so it’s probably no longer for sale. This thumbnail is unique in a few different ways, which we’ll be discussing presently.
First of all, this thumbnail is all about Jerry, the CEO & Broker, and the address itself. Interestingly, there is no picture of the home in the thumbnail.
The message this sends to us is that Jerry is the one showing you this home, and you’d likely have to be one of his followers in order to come across this video.
Of course, that’s not necessarily the case, and here’s another way you could find this home on Youtube if you were looking for homes for sale in Kitchener.
Actually, exactly that – you’d type “homes for sale in Kitchener”, and Youtube’s algorithm would notice that this home is for sale (even though it doesn’t say that in the video title – it just knows from analyzing the entire video), and may present this video as an option for something to click for a person looking in Kitchener for a home to buy.
That said, we think Youtube would prefer to show people on Youtube searching for homes for sale a video that shows an actual home, but in the case of this video, the second you click the video, you do see the home.
The home (as seen above) just isn’t the thumbnail, and that’s on purpose, due to Jerry and his team wanting you to know who’s actually selling the home, and this being a custom thumbnail.
Therefore, the algorithm will be thinking – should I show people this video even though there’s no home to show them? People do like seeing the home right away, since it is what they’re after? It would only take Youtube’s algorithm a split second to decide to show or not show this video, and it may or may not.
Another way it can be found more directly is by typing in the exact title – “56 Kilkerran Crescent” into Youtube, but the problem with that is that people won’t know to type that into Youtube unless they already know about the sale. This is an important point, so we bolded it.
If you look at the Van Leeuwen Realty Group Youtube page, you can see that this idea of not showing the home but, rather, showing the REALTORS®, is definitely intentional and part of their branding.
Do you think this is a good way to handle the branding? Leave us a comment below! Moving right along…
The Riz Team
The Riz Team, located at 71 Weber St E, Kitchener, Ontario, is a Royal Lepage team of REALTORS®, and fronted by Riz Jadavji.
Let’s get into the thumbnail. In this case, we are looking at a listing for 1207 Queen Street North in New Dundee, as evidenced by the title of the video, with the “Welcome to”, also used by the Van Leeuwen Realty Group, and many others, to be sure!
We picked Riz’s most popular video, which has been the case for all the video thumbs we’ve shown thus far. We just filter by “Most Popular” to see those results.
From the thumbnail, you would think this would be another listing video, featuring a video tour of the home and showing off some of it’s features, and that’s exactly what this is.
What is interesting to note here, is that, based on the thumbnail, you may not guess how good the actual content of the video is.
Why, you ask? We’ll tell you why – it’s that font. It’s not just the font, it’s the font with the red dropshadow. This is being fairly picky, yes, but it is the thumbnail and studies show it is a big influence on peoples’ opinions of the video, without even clicking it.
Yes, people ASSUME things about the video from the thumbnail, as we may have already inferred previously.
In our case (Starscape SEO), having used software like iMovie and Capcut, we are familiar with these text pop ups that sometimes include a certain dropshadow, which offers a certain kind of visual appeal, but also a certain tackiness, as the red dropshadow here doesn’t necessarily compliment the picture of the house behind it. Take it away, and it might look more classy.
At least The Riz Team has used it on every video, as you can see from their gallery. And once you’re used to it, as a fan of Riz and his team, you just accept it. That said, people who have never seen it might thing, “Ew, what’s with that font and that red dropshadow? No thanks!”
That said, digital marketers of today are aware that Google and Youtube use image analysis software to see things like text on an image, and can use that text to influence the SEO of a picture, especially if the picture is tied to a video, as it is on Youtube.
So, one reason maybe that the Riz Team did this is to double down on the address of the property for SEO purposes, thinking that if they stamp each video with this address, and the address is in the title and description, Google will somehow decide to show it to more people.
What they may not realize (or maybe they do) is that people don’t necessarily search for “homes for sale in kitchener” by the exact address.
The question is, will someone searching “homes for sale in kitchener” find any of these videos. From the view count on the videos, it’s not very likely. Or what about people searching for properties on certain streets in Kitchener that match these streets? Stay tuned for another blog post to find out about that!
Conclusion
And there you have it—a closer look at how some of Kitchener-Waterloo’s top REALTORS® are using YouTube thumbnails to capture attention and, ultimately, drive business.
Remember, YouTube’s SEO is a powerful tool that’s directly tied to Google’s search engine. This means that your thumbnail isn’t just a pretty picture; it’s a critical component of your video’s discoverability. The right thumbnail, paired with valuable content, can significantly boost your visibility across both platforms.
So, whether you’re a REALTOR® looking to up your YouTube game or just curious about the art of video marketing, there’s a lot to learn from these examples.
Keep an eye out for our next instalment as we continue to explore the strategies that work—and those that don’t—in the world of real estate video marketing. Stay tuned!
Call or Text Starscape SEO: (519) 208-8680
