Video transcription refers to the translation of audio from a video into text. It can be done using either automatic speech recognition technology or human transcriptionists. Video transcription is not necessary if your videos only use audiovisual material to communicate information.

What drives a video publisher transcribe their content to make it more useful? There are many reasons. We'll be discussing the top three reasons you shouldn't add transcription to your videos.

1. Video transcription improves SEO

A transcript can help you improve your video search engine optimization (SEO).

Safe Net conducted a 3-week SEO study that compared search rankings for pages with video transcripts. The pages with video transcripts rose quickly in Yahoo and Bing's search rankings for a targeted keyword phrase. They moved from not being listed to 14th to 9th and 11th respectively.

This American Life noticed a significant increase of inbound traffic as well as increased user engagement by adding video best video transcription software. In fact, 6.2% of all search traffic visitors landed on a transcript page.

Search engines cannot crawl video so transcripts are useful text that can be indexed or ranked. Transcripts make your video searchable on the internet and in your archive.

Your SEO keyword strategy can also be improved by using transcripts. Your transcript can be used to identify key keywords in your video. Then, adjust your on-page SEO elements to match that keyword's phrasing.

2. Video Transcription Creates Better UX

There is great potential to improve the user experience once a viewer has access your video transcript.

Every person learns differently. A transcript allows viewers to access your video's contents in a different way.

Transcripts make it easy to search for keywords and topics in the video.

These are just two additional features that can enhance the user experience.

Playlist Search

Transcripts allow you to make your videos searchable via search engines. However, you can also use onsite search capabilities. A tool such as a playlist searching plugin allows you to scan a whole video library looking for specific words, and jump to the video in which that word is spoken. Not only are searchable transcripts extremely useful for researchers but also for ordinary users.

Interactive Transcript

You can also make your video transcript interactive. Interactive transcripts highlight words as they are spoken during the video. Timed text helps keep viewers engaged and reinforces content because it can be both read and heard simultaneously. To jump to a specific point in the video, the user can click on the text. This is a smoother UX than marking timecodes while navigating the video.

3. Video transcription increases accessibility

Your videos will be viewed by more people if they are available to them. Video transcripts can be added to your audience.

Viewers who are hard-of-hearing or deaf

Without text accompanying your videos, people with impaired or non-existent hearing will not be able to consume them. Video transcripts should contain more than speech. They should include speaker IDs as well as essential non-speech sounds such [LAUGHTER] and [SILENCE].

Closed captions can be created from your video transcript in order to provide an equivalent viewing experience for hard-of-hearing and deaf viewers.

Accessibility is not a luxury that many organizations want, but a requirement of law. While accessibility laws may vary from one state to the next, federal law mandates that all federal agencies have videos captioned and transcribed. Video accessibility is required for broadcast media as well as "places for public accommodation" such museums, libraries, universities.

In sound-prohibitive settings, viewers

An Pew Research study in 2021 found that 31% reported being online almost constantly. A 2018 Nielson survey showed that nearly half of Americans spend their lives online, on TV or on their phones.

Consider all the people who find your videos while they commute to work, wait in line at the postoffice, or eat lunch in noisy cafeterias. Some environments are not conducive for audio. A transcript allows your viewers to consume your content in a different way, keeping them from leaving your site.