Using Video Transcripts for Improving SEO

Accessibility

For an able person, this may not be a big deal, but for people hard of hearing or deaf, this makes a world of difference.

Your video content will be inaccessible to people who cannot hear the audio.

Hence, it is necessary to make your content inclusive so that people who are unable to watch it otherwise can do so.

This will also help you get more engagement and attract viewers on your site.

Indexed by Search Engines

Search engines cannot listen to your video, nor do they watch it.

What they do is index it.

Search engines are able to crawl the text and then index it.

Here the search engines such as Google are crawling the keywords in your transcript.

This helps in ranking the content and also bringing more traffic.

Moreover, crawlers need transcripts in order to know intent.

That will be able to give more relevant information which also boosts ranking as relevance is a ranking factor.

The same goes for closed captions.

It comes from a text file that is readable by the bots.

This helps in increasing views of the captioned videos.

In fact, they had around 7.32 percent more views on average.

Thus, the viewership and indexing of keywords will overall influence the ranking and improve SEO.

Closed Captions Can Increase Engagement

In the same vein, closed captions and transcriptions will keep the viewer engaged.

This goes for videos in the mobile format where turning on the audio is not always feasible.

Thus watching it to completion and increasing ranking.

Benefits of Video Transcripts

Link Building Opportunities

Transcripts can be a means for internal link building.

If the video speaks about product features, you can link to a product page on your website through the transcript.

As you will build these relevant links, the viewer will go from one of your pages or video to the next for a longer time.

Moreover, you can also get external links as people like to share videos.

Transcriptions allow viewers to make the decision whether your content is easy and carefully curated to share.

It Improves UX

User Experience is becoming an important factor in determining website and page rank.

Transcripts generally improve user experience as they make life easier for the viewer.

It can help:

• Journalists lift quotes directly and report on events accurately
• People whose first language is not English, understand the video better
• Students can use the transcription in video lectures to understand better
• Researchers or general viewers can find information quickly through transcripts even if the video is super long
• Transcripts make content accessible

All of these factors contribute to UX hence ranking and SEO.

Lowers Bounce Rate

As video transcripts increase engagement and your target audience, it then lowers bounce rates.

So it is rather self-explanatory how the average time on the pages increases.

Viewers get more content to consume so they are likely to stay on the page till the video’s completion.

They will avail more value of what you made through the transcripts rather than clicking back when they could not listen to the audio in a crowded place.

Besides this, it increases site traffic, aligns with your keyword strategy, paginated transcripts improve Off-page SEO and makes content creation easy.

All of these factors contribute to a boost in SEO if the transcripts are used accordingly following the best practices.

Use Relevant Keywords

Carefully craft your script beforehand and include keywords relevant to your topic.

These can be the LSI keywords that appear when you search for the keyword.

For instance, if your topic is the keto diet, you may want to include keto diet tips and a keto diet plan in the video.

Apt Keyword Placement

Place the keywords at the beginning of your sentences and paragraphs if possible.

Do not overdo it.

Keyword stuffing will look unnatural in videos. Your viewers may end up leaving if there is too much of it.

Use a variety of keywords but place them naturally in the context so that there is no excess.

That said, do not place them scarcely that Google or other search engines do not even index it.

Check Accuracy

You do not want people or search engines to misunderstand what you said.

Hence, check the accuracy of what you said and what was transcribed.

This is especially true if you use software that we will discuss below.

Making Videos Accessible

While making transcriptions and closed captions can increase your audience base, it can also help people with disabilities access your content.

Make your content inclusive and ensure the words on the transcript match the audio track.

This can enable the hard of hearing to access a lot of content that is hidden from them.

So how do you begin transcribing?

Let’s find out that below!

Manually Transcribing

Transcribing on your own is not only about changing speech to text but also editing and formatting it.

That may not be a feasible option for everyone.

Moreover, transcribing a small video can take a lot of time involving pausing and playing the audio.

Google’s Automatic Captioning

Youtube by Google has automatic speech recognition software.

That makes closed captions for Youtube’s video content whether it is live, shorts or videos, automatically.

Google docs voice commands

Google Chrome enables you to do free voice typing.

In order to use it, open a document using Google docs, select voice typing and as soon as the microphone icon appears, click it.

From here, you can begin dictating and the text starts to appear.

Add Captions

Make videos accessible by adding closed captions.

These can be automatically added to your Youtube content without needing an external software and only using the built-in one.

From the closed captions, you can make the overall transcript of the video.

Mobile apps and Free Transcription Tools

If you are looking for free tools for your work, you have Descript and oTranscribe.

There are also mobile apps such as Otter and Trint that can make your work easy. More on these tools later.

Speech to text application programming interface (API)

Software like Deepgram and Amazon Transcribe are two options among the speech to text API.

Tools

Dragon Naturally Speaking

This speech narration and dictation software write the text as you command it.

However, the text will still need proofreading, editing and finally formatting to form the completed piece.

Sonix

This transcription service converts videos and audio into text.

It includes an SEO-friendly media player, secure storage, can transcribe up to 35 languages and offers automated subtitles. This is a quick solution to your subtitling worries.

Trint

This web-based platform uses AI to transcribe videos.

You can also use it as a mobile application for easier use.

Rev

This transcription service will give you high quality audio to video transcriptions at a small price per minute.

All you need to do is to upload your files and let it do the work of transcribing the audio.

TranscribeMe

You can also get high-quality transcripts using the service TranscribeMe.

This is a paid service but you can test it first in the free trial.

Scribie

This transcription service will give you fast and accurate results.

Scribie prides itself in having a team of transcribers that are experts in their field.

So whether you have a medical, academic or legal audio, you will get accurate transcription.

This is also a very affordable service with transcriptions beginning from 0.10 cents per word.

Adobe Premier Pro

Anyone familiar with video editing knows about Adobe Premier Pro.

It has a feature that can allow you to make a written transcript within the app.

Finally,

Now you know many of the video transcription software and its benefits for SEO.

Next time you make a video, ensure it has a transcript and closed captions.

It will not only rank your website and the videos higher but will also be extremely beneficial for people who are hard of hearing.