WHAT VALUE IS THERE IN CLOSED CAPTIONING YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEOS
A lot of people don't know that YouTube actually does automatic closed
captioning.
At this point in time, they provide it for English only; but that will
probably change soon.
It’s done using the same technology that they utilize in
the Google Voice product, which means, at least the time of writing, their
automatic closed captioning is terrible.
So, yes, you can get closed captioning from YouTube, automatically, but it’s
really bad.
I’ve actually considered dedicating a channel about the bad closed
captioning that comes from Google and YouTube, because it’s just so off, and
wrong, and… funny.
With the way this technology is going and the nuances of
close captioning videos, I honestly don’t see it improving for many years.
Now that the “they-do-it-for-free” angle has been dealt with, let’s explore the
topic with the focus it deserves.
YouTube does offer search results based on closed captioning content and they
will show results accordingly.
The implications of this should be thrilling for anyone looking to get their content viewed
Think about it: a 15-minute video
might have a lot of words in it. But somebody searching for a certain term or
phrase might find it in minute seven of that video. The good news is, YouTube
will offer you the ability to go right to that part of the video within the search
results.
That capability is quite profound and shows how integrated YouTube
and Google really are.
Also, realize that instead of just optimizing your video with the title, description,
tags and links, you can actually optimize your video so that every single word
said within the video also contains keywords.
Scripting your video suddenly
begins to make sense; and you can totally use this to your advantage.
What’s interesting is that outside of searching, there are actually some additional.
advantages to optimizing your video’s closed captioning
You should realize that
there is a tremendous audience of people who can’t hear or are unable to
consume audio for one reason or another.
If you have close captioning for your
videos, you have suddenly given that demographic the ability to consume your
content.
It’s still a very under-served audience and they’ll appreciate the
opportunity you’ve given them.
What’s also important is that there are a number of people who want to watch
videos without disturbing others; whether they are at work, on a bus, or on some
sort of transport where having their audio go out loud might get them into
trouble.
The bottom line: if you’ve got close captioning you might get video
consumption that you wouldn’t get otherwise.
At this point Google does not provide search facilities through the transcripts.
But… we know it’s coming. Google owns YouTube, YouTube searches the
transcripts… why in the world wouldn’t they tie those two together? So,
although at this point Google doesn’t search the transcripts, logically, it has to be
coming soon.
Finally, if you do put together a transcript for your video, not only can you
upload it to YouTube but you can also put that content up on your blog.
Now,
every word that you produced becomes searchable by Google.
In the best case scenario, you should get all your videos transcribed and upload
the transcripts for each video.
At this point, people always want to know a good
transcription company; I will make sure we have a good one listed for you in the
“Additional Resources” pages so continue to addition page and post.
If you can’t do that, at least edit the automatically-generated text within the
closed captioning, and make sure that it captures your most important keywords
correctly.
If you do that, you’ll get a slight bump – nothing like what you get
with full transcripts – but a bump none-the-less. At the top of the list of quick
corrections, you will want to make sure all brand and proper names are spelled
correctly.
You’d be surprised how many different ways YouTube has tried to
spell “Colligan.”
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