Adding subtitles and captions for YouTube videos is the best way to push your video content forward, allowing videos to become easily searchable. Unlike the other content found in YouTube videos, closed captions come from a specific text file that your video references while it plays, making it completely readable to search engine bots that determine when and how often your video appears in search results.
In fact, Discovery Digital Networks performed a YouTube study in 2013 that compared both types of video content and found that those YouTube videos with subtitles saw 7.32% more views on average than those without. Within the same test, the network proved how subtitles affected search results. “To test this, they searched for a phrase that appeared in the transcript of the video, but not in the video title, description, or tags. The example below shows that their captioned video ranked 4th on YouTube for the query, proving that YouTube indexes closed captions and factors them into search rank.”
How to Upload Subtitles to YouTube
While YouTube offers a built-in capability for adding in subtitles, the process can generally be difficult and cumbersome, and the end-results don’t turn out as well as you’d hope. For more professional results at an affordable price range, our First Draft transcription service is perfect for converting your recorded video into accurate text.
Starting at just $0.79 per minute of recording, we can transform your YouTube video content. Here’s how to create and upload subtitles to YouTube:
Step 1: Order a First Draft transcript of your video file. Follow these instructions for how to order transcriptions.
Step 2: Once you receive the transcribed video content, download your finished transcript from the TranscribeMe Portal as a TXT file. Click to open the file and view your subtitle transcript.
Step 3: Go to the YouTube Video Manager to see your videos, and locate the specific video you want to add subtitles to. Then, click Edit and select Subtitles & CC.
Step 4: Set your preferred language – the language spoken in the YouTube video.
Step 5: Click Add new subtitles or CC and select “English” (or the same language you set for your video in the step before).
Step 6: Select Transcribe and auto-sync, then copy and paste the text from your finished video transcript. Click Set timings when ready, and you’re all set!
Have any more questions about our transcription service? Please reach out to us anytime.
