Content is key. How many times have you heard that? But I want to let you in on a little secret. It’s true! Search engine optimization techniques rely on search engines “reading” through your site content to decide whether or not you are a better than your competition. Let’s take a look at YouTube. YouTube encompasses interests in all kinds of fields from fuzzy animals, movie reviews, and how-to videos on just about anything. But one thing you may not have known is how their relatively new feature for closed captioning can benefit you as a company or business.
YouTube captioning has been found to be an excellent SEO tool for your videos (and I absolutely recommend having videos if it’s possible for whatever product/service you’re selling). And in today’s world, we have two of the biggest internet giants working together. With the new Google-owned YouTube, you could definitely say YouTube captioning and metadata (description, tags, title, etc) will be a huge asset to ranking well on Google.
How does this work? Google reads through the video captioning with their search engine bots just as they would through a website. The content these bots find on your YouTube channel gets combined with other information scoured all over the internet that is linked back to your website. Blog posts, articles, Twitter feeds, and now YouTube captioning will be joined together into an “internet fingerprint” if you will. The more relevant and reputable information you put out there as content, the more “likes” and “shares” you will receive, and the more Google will bump you up.
Not only is the captioned content for your video important for search engines to scan through, it’s also important that the captions be precisely timed to the video. And lest we forget what YouTube captioning was developed for in the first place, it’s not only effective in helping bots to find you, but it also helps the viewer in reading your captions.
There are not many downsides to YouTube captioning when all is said and done. It helps individuals that are deaf and hard of hearing first and foremost, and it also offers another platform for content that Google bots can pick through. It’s possible that the only drawback is the time-consuming effort in transcribing your videos. And though the internet offers many a solution in getting YouTube captioning for free, this may not be the best option for everyone.
Since the birth of YouTube in 2005, there have been billions of videos uploaded and about 35 hours worth of video uploaded every minute. Any respectable business or company facing the daunting task of captioning their six years worth of videos would see it as more time than it’s worth. However, with the perks it has in SEO, YouTube captioning is completely worth the time, and it won’t be the back-breaking, arthritis-inducing pain if put to professionals.
In 2010 the Described and Captioned Media Program, otherwise known as the DCMP, reviewed and passed numerous captioning vendors for their YouTube captioning capability certification. Unfortunately, these services are not for free, but there’s a price to be paid to get the job done quickly and correctly. YouTube captioning is an effective SEO management tool, and with a minor expense, it can be done efficiently as well.
As you wait for Google bots to catch up to all of your SEO improvements, stay on top of getting your future videos captioned before uploading them to YouTube, and make sure to keep your channel as active as possible! Oh, and don’t forget, content is key! youtube likes