As YouTube has developed into one of the preeminent search engines on the web, marketers are looking for anything to get them to the top of the page. Here at WELD, we’re embracing closed captioning as another SEO tool get our client’s videos to the customers who want to see them.
First of all, closed captioning allows your video to hurtle barriers into demographics that are often neglected.
For obvious reasons it improves accessibility for the hearing impaired and for those without computer speakers or at work (don’t let your boss read this). Adding closed captioning also crosses borders by adding Google Translate into the mix in just a few simple steps.
Find "Translate Captions" under the "CC" menu at the bottom of your video.
Users can also narrow their searches under “Search Options” to retrieve videos only with closed captions enabled. Considering the limited number of people adding captions to their videos, you have the abliity to differentiate yourself from the crowd just like shooting your videos in HD would.
Users can filter their searches to only see images with closed captioning generated by the author.
Beyond the apparent benefits, YouTube is also indexing everything that is contained within your captions. This has huge implications for the future of searching video.
It is clear that specific phrases from the transcript can be used in an organic YouTube search. While this is exciting for SEO nerds, it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever naturally search a long, cumbersome quote like “Whitewater rafting on the Gauley is a big adrenaline rush.”
"Whitewater rafting on the Gauley is a big adrenaline rush."
Search field contains, "Whitewater rafting on the Gauley is a big adrenaline rush."
But after taking two important keywords from the quote (Gauley, adrenaline) and using them as the search parameters, we find the same results.
Search field contains "Gauley" and "adrenaline."
Even though this would still be considered a long-tail search, it is much more likely to be typed in by someone who is looking for something very specific. True, as we travel along the “long-tail” mass numbers decrease but motivation and, hopefully, engagement increases.
Hopefully the end result will be capturing the attention of the motivated users who are more likely to act on and share their findings with others in their niche.
The best part about the indexation of closed captioning is that you can pursue the niche groups without losing your mass audience and appeal. By using captions you can add thousands of new keywords to your metadata that will attract fringe users while simultaneously preserving the integrity of your title, description and tags.
In other words, the title will attract the majority of vanilla users looking for a basic “Upper Gauley River Rafting” video while those who are specifically looking for a Gauley video with “adrenaline” will end up in the same place. You get the best bang for your buck.
Unfortunately, adding captions does involve some work. YouTube offers a service that will automatically caption videos for you but those results are not indexed or particularly accurate.
The speaker in the video actually says, “It's really intense how all of that water is going straight towards the rock and you just have to try to ride it out and make it all the way through.”
The best, most accessible tool that we’ve used to caption videos is CaptionTube, a Google app in its beta version. While not particularly intuitive to begin with, the app certainly gets the job done once you learn the ropes.
CaptionTube is currently a beta app generated by Google.
Once you have your YouTube/Google account synced with CaptionTube, simply import the video you would like to modify and click the “Edit” button.
Google and YouTube have made the import process extremely easy so you can spend more time working on your captions.
You enter into the “timeline” interface but I have found the “list” option is easier to understand and edit. The next steps in the process can be grueling so don’t be discouraged if it takes some time to get over the learning curve.
The "timeline" makes seeing how the individual captions interact easy but editing is a chore.
Even though the "list" interface lacks the ability to see captions in respect to time, it is still easier to navigate during the editing process.
Play the video until you would like the caption to appear and then hit the “add caption” button. Wait until the end of the phrase and press the button beside the “Caption Duration” box. This will set the amount of time that your caption will appear on screen.
Making sure your caption ends at the correct time will ensure individual captions won't overlap during the video.
Now, just enter your text and click the “Save” button. Rinse and repeat.
Like many things in SEO, captioning web video definitely isn’t fast, exciting or glamorous but in the long run (and “long-tail”) it’s definitely worth it.
Tags: captions, captiontube, closed caption, google translate, search engine optimization, SEO, strategy, YouTube
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