If you want to get more watch time on YouTube videos and reach a larger audience, add closed captioning to your YouTube videos. This will enable the hearing impaired to understand the content of your video and if people have their sound turned off, they can read the captions below the video.
Do you want a grow your YouTube Channel this year so you can attract more views and subscribers? If so, pick up a copy of my 100+ page YouTube Marketing Guide at TubeBootCamp.com
Auto-generate closed captions
The easiest way to add closed captioning to a video you’re watching on YouTube is to click the CC icon at the bottom right of a video. That means that YouTube auto generates the captions. It says English auto-generated, click for settings. If you click the settings, you can see that the English is auto-generated. That means that YouTube auto generates the captions. You can see that the auto-generated captions appear at the bottom of the video.
How do you add closed captions to your own YouTube video so it will be more accurate than the auto-generated ones from YouTube?
- Log into your YouTube channel
- Click YouTube Studio Beta,
- Click transcriptions,
- Select the video that you wish to add closed captions to, I’m going to select this video. As you can see it’s already got published automatic captions on the video. You can always get people from the community to create your transcriptions. I also have community contributions turned on for this video so anybody from the community can add closed captions.
- If you want to edit the automatic captions, just click on the published icon, it says view published subtitles and CC English automatic.
- If I want to edit those, just click on edit, I can now edit the transcription.
- After you’ve edited the transcription, click publish edits. Now I’ve got the English automatic and I’ve got English.
That’s a free way to add closed captions to your videos, you simply edit the auto-generated captions from YouTube.
How do you upload a transcript of your video created by somebody else?
- Log into your YouTube channel,
- Click YouTube Studio Beta,
- Click transcriptions,
- Select the video you want to add closed captions to, I’m going to select this one,
- Click add. Now I can upload a file which means upload a transcript or timed subtitles. I can transcribe on auto-sync which means type or paste a full transcript of the video and subtitled timings will be set automatically. I can create new subtitles or CC which means create subtitles and closed captions by typing them in as your watching the video. That’s what I showed you previously, so this time I’m going to t
- Click transcribe and auto-sync.
- Copy and paste the text into the transcribe and auto-sync box.
- Click set timings. Now YouTube is setting the timings.
- Typically it takes a few minutes for YouTube to create the closed captions for your video.
While we’re waiting for the video to be processed, I just want to remind you that you can go to Gotranscript to get your video transcribed 100% by humans.
Get your video content transcribed for under a dollar a minute and a turn around time is under six hours.
Let’s check if the transcript has been processed. Click English setting timings, here’s my transcription which I can edit if I still see mistakes. When I play the video, I can see the captions on the video as well as under the video. After I’m satisfied with the transcription and the closed captioning, click publish.
Now it says that subtitles are being published. If you still have the auto-generated captions, it will appear under the transcript. You click on English, you click on publish and then delete the transcript.
You can also upload a transcript if it’s on a computer.
Here’s how to quickly upload a transcript using YouTube Studio Beta.
- Select the video,
- Click advanced,
- Click upload subtitles CC,
- Select with timing or without timing. I’m going to select with timing.
- Click continue,
- Select the transcript file from your desktop,
- Highlight the file,
- Click open,
- Click save and that’s all there is to it.
What are the top benefits of adding closed captioning to a video on YouTube?
- Increases watch time.
Viewers pay more attention to your video when they can read along while listening to your video content. - Reach a larger audience.
Viewers that have a difficulty with their hearing or have the sound turned off because they’re in the library or at work can read the captions under the video. Now you’ll be able to extend the reach of your audience to those people as well. - Read content on mobile devices.
As you can see the captions are easy to read on a mobile devices. - Repurpose your transcript.
Since you have a transcript of your video content, you can repurpose it by adding it to your blog, social media sites et cetera. You can even convert the transcript to a PDF file and submit it to documents sharing sites to get even more traffic.
Let me ask you a question…
Do you want to get more views and subscribers to your YouTube videos by exposing content to a larger audience?
If that’s a yes, watch my next video on how to translate your video content into different languages.
Do you want a grow your YouTube Channel this year so you can attract more views and subscribers? If so, pick up a copy of my 100+ page YouTube Marketing Guide at TubeBootCamp.com
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