There is a lot that goes into getting your YouTube videos found, but one of the most underutilized ways to boost your YouTube SEO is with video transcription optimization. Search engines can’t crawl videos—you have to tell them what your video is about. By transcribing the spoken words of your video, you can help the search engine bots decipher what keywords your video should rank for. This one simple task can make a world of difference in your rankings both on YouTube and on Google. Here’s a closer look at how YouTube transcription optimization works and how it can benefit your business.
How YouTube Transcription Optimization Works
Here’s the good news about youtube transcription: YouTube does it for you automatically, for free. Yes, you read that right. You do not have to take the time to type up all of the words of your video. All you have to do is wait about half an hour after the upload is complete and then click on the “open transcript” button.
Once the transcription is open, you will see a complete, time-stamped text format of your video, but it will show to the right of the video, so your visual content is not disturbed. You no longer have to worry about embedding it.
It’s a really cool feature and makes it pretty easy to get your video transcription done. However, you will want to take a few extra steps to make the most of the transcript:
- Proofread the transcript and edit it so that all of the sentences actually make sense. It does no good if the transcription isn’t accurate. If you don’t have time to do this, it may be worth paying a third-party transcription service to provide you with a ready-to-use transcript.
- Once it is edited, copy the transcript and paste it into the video description. This small step is what makes the text scannable by the bots and will help you rank above other videos.
Benefits of Video Transcription SEO
As mentioned, the main benefit of YouTube transcription SEO is to educate the search engine bots. It is only when you present text with your video that they will be able to identify the content and then index it and rank it. But there are some additional benefits of video transcription optimization that you don’t want to overlook:
- Assist the Hearing Impaired – When you offer video transcription, you are making sure that everyone can enjoy your video, which is not only the right thing to do, but it also gets you more views, and therefore, higher rankings.
- Locate Certain Topics Quickly – If you have a long video, your viewers don’t want to have to watch the whole thing to find one tidbit of information. With YouTube transcription, your audio content is timestamped. This makes it simple to locate the desired topic and get right to it.
- Improve Your Website Rankings – Once you have taken the time to transcribe your YouTube video, you may as well put the content to work on your website as well. Turn the transcript into a blog post to get extra credit for the keywords and content. For bonus points, add a link to the blog in the video description, and a link to the video in the blog.
If you are taking the time to create a YouTube video, you want people to see it. By utilizing YouTube transcription optimization, you can be sure the bots and your viewers can see your video. To learn more about YouTube SEO, contact us today.
