Video Transcription Benefits: Part Two
Part Two: Accessibility and SEO
Here at PEG we utilize transcriptions for a number of reasons. We have already covered how we use them in the editing and revisions process, but the are also incredibly important when the video is complete.
Accessibility
Accessibility with video is really important because as an audio and visual medium, you have the potential to isolate or exclude groups of people without even trying.
Captions
Just like on TV or in movies, captions allow people who are deaf or hard of hearing to read what is being said in your videos. Most video services these days will do a decent job of pulling audio and attempting to auto-create captions, but having access to a transcript of your video makes it easy to go in and edit captions to make sure they are accurate for viewers.
Let's also not forget that closed captions are used by lots of hearing people as well. They might just be in a place where they can't listen to audio or like reading along.
In fact, it has a significant impact on if people will click on your video and how much they will watch. A study by PLYMedia measured an increase in 40% for views of captioned videos. They also found that viewers were 80% more likely to watch a video to completion when closed captions were available.
Audio Descriptions
In a similar way, audio descriptions are able to help visually-impaired people fully understand what is going on in your video. While they might be able to hear dialogue or speaking moments, the descriptions help fill in the visual gaps by providing audio that explains what is being shown. While these aren't part of a traditional video transcriptions, it's still an important thing to keep in mind as you think about your video's accessibility.
SEO
Search Engines
Google and other search engines crawl your site and look for indexable items it can use for keywords, etc. Right now, search engines can't crawl media items like images or video. This mean any great content you have IN your videos can't be seen!
The easy fix to this is to include a text transcript with your video - which CAN be read by search engines. This means your key words and other valuable info is accessible and search engines, and therefore lots of people, can find it.
This is even more important for those longer-form video transcripts. In general, pages with 2,000+ words show up higher on search engines. That means a two-fold benefit for your multi-minute long-form video content! Big SEO video win.
Important Reminder: Closed captioned videos have an indexable text file that can be used in SEO, but Open Captions - or captions you have burned into your file - have no SEO or search value because they are embedded and become part of your video file, therefore making them un-crawl-able.
Link Building
Search engines LOVE links. But you need text content to create those links! Having the transcription on your page allows you to link relevant content to your video with both internal and external links.
Plus, having an accessible transcript handy for other people makes it easy for them to grab facts, quotes or other clips from your video to use on their own site - generating backlinks and giving an even bigger SEO boost.
BONUS CONTENT
What else can you do with this transcription once you have it? Anything you want! Turn it into a blog. A white paper. A series of graphic social media post. There are countless ways you can repurpose the content outside of the world of video to really make the most of it!
