Does transcribing your videos increase your visibility?

[sledrunner31]

Hello all. I've been going through the tedious task of transcribing my videos and I want to make sure its been worth it. I started doing it because sometimes my narration audio is a little low, especially on small speakers. Now Im hoping it will help me get more views as well but I wanted to ask if anyone knew how it helps, if at all. Thanks.

 

[Obsurdity]

This is second-hand knowledge so I can't claim that I have personally experienced it. However, Daryl Eves who is a big YouTube SEO guy states that transcribing your videos WILL help you get more views. It will also increase the likelihood that YouTube will promote your video to different regions of the world if you translate your video. So, if you notice (from analytics) that there are particular regions that tend to view your video often, you may want to consider adding a translated CC for that regions given language; ultimately encouraging more views on your videos!

Cheers

 

[The NotARubicon!]

On one of my old channels I transcribed a few dozen videos and it made zero measurable difference in views/watch time. However that was about 5 years ago, so things may have changed.

 

[Sladee]

It helps the Youtube Algorithm pick out what your video is about. So yes it helps, but only if its not like every other video in the search box. It has to have somewhat of a niche.

 

[BeThatGuy]

I have been trying this with no luck so far. I wish I could give some solid advice but my channel is still new, I have really been wondering the same thing tho

 

[Highfalutin' Low Carb]

Google indexes the content of the transcriptions and includes that in the algorithm. It might not a make a massive difference, but at this point it certainly can't hurt. I transcribed a couple of my vids and noticed that those do get played with the captions on in Vietnam, of all places. (I make low carb cooking videos in English - go figure!) My vids that don't have captions yet don't have those out-of-country views those with captions do.

I think that if you don't upload your own transcriptions, then it's probably wise to go in to the automatic transcriptions and edit them to make sure your keywords are spelled correctly. At least that way the algorithm knows your video is about "low carb recipes" instead of 'low CAR recipes" like mine always autocorrect to. Which puts my video in an entirely different niche if Google is indexing the captions. LOL

Just my thoughts, anyway.

Edit to add: I also include captions because I have a very thick southern US accent and I talk fast, so it might even help native English speakers figure out what I'm trying to say! Ha!

 

[Audrone]

I started subtitling my videos after one of my very loyal subscriber mentioned that he wasn't very good when it comes to listening English but he was fine at reading it. Even if it's only one or two subscribers like this right now but I think that it might encourage similar viewers to watch my videos and maybe even subscribe to my channel in the future. I didn't notice any traffic increase since I started doing it but that wasn't the reason why I started it in the first place anyways.

 

[PictureFIT]

Focus on subtitle transcription to keep viewers engaged, not SEO. The impact it makes to SEO is not worth the attention.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

It's critically important to get a global audience and decrease risk from events in any particular geographic region.
The ad boycott has decreased CPMs across the Western world, Asian CPMs are still at previous levels. Having traffic from Asian countries mitigates the losses to some extent.
I recommend translating all the title/description fields into every language the auto-translate lets you (about 95 at the moment), and auto-translating all subtitles as well. You can also translate playlists. It's a lot of work, but every bit helps.

 

[Sound_Proof]

I usually transcribe all my videos but that's because I script them anyway so I just throw up the script