YouTube Question How Important are Subtitles / Captions ??

[kitchen c/o ammama]

I spend time writing Subtitles for my video so that any person who dose not understand the language can understand it. Sometimes it takes really time and I end up thinking " Is this really worth doing?"

So, Please enlighten me. How Important is this activity ?

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

I rate this as very valuable, and it is something I require myself to do on any video that I really want to do well. Recently i have been unable to edit my captions and translate my videos, but at my peak I was gaining about 17% of my traffic from other countries and even ranking for some foreign terms.

I will say that I update a seperate title and description specifically for translations; i want that information to be specific for an audience that will be seeing it after a translation. I dont want there to be any confusion.

 

[Dr Pixel Plays]

As far as I know, adding subtitles should help you a bit with ranking in the search results, but it's not 100% proven.
If you have a script for your videos, you can create subtitles by uploading the script to YouTube, so if you already have a script that's easy.
Once have captions for one language you can let YouTube do the translation if I'm remembering it correctly, and then you should proofread the automatic translation to ensure it's correct.
I hope this helps to make captions easier.

But you really should take a look at your YouTube Analytics tab and look under 'Audience'. There you can see which country people are from and how many people use captions.
But since gaming content(my content) doesn't go well with captions, in my opinion, I'm not doing them or translating them, even though I'm native German. I also worry that if I translate titles, people click on my videos, expecting a German video, but see it's an English video and leave, which would decrease my average view duration.
Just take a look at your analytics, and judge for yourself. If adding captions increases your production time by 20%, but only 3% of your audience uses them, it's not really worth the effort.

 

[TubeBuddy]

I spend time writing Subtitles for my video so that any person who dose not understand the language can understand it. Sometimes it takes really time and I end up thinking " Is this really worth doing?"

So, Please enlighten me. How Important is this activity ?

I have a video on this subject, and have talked to people at YouTube about it. Basically it adds more data which is good. It helps really point to places like on Google highlights if people are searching for a specific thing. They're not going to make a video blow up, but the more data you can give YouTube the better ESPECIALLY for search based content. If you have the time add them, but they're not the most important thing. That is the content. I'd say if you can add them, do it. If you can't focus on better content.

They also play a humanitarian side where you're helping more viewers enjoy your content. Overall, you gain more than you lose. I agree with what @Stanley Orchard and @Dr Pixel Plays says and look at your analytics. See if people are using them and where.

I use them on all my videos, and will continue to moving forward. Have for years (In English at least) can't speak every language haha...

 

[Kari B]

I live with someone who needs subtitles and I think writing your own is very valuable. As good as the automated ones are, they can get it wrong, especially if there is background noise, music, or accents. It's a shame there isn't the option to edit the automated ones, so if they are only slightly wrong it wouldn't take as much time as writing them all out from scratch - is this a tool Tubebuddy could do, mods?

 

[kitchen c/o ammama]

Thank you so much everyone...

@Andrew @Stanley Orchard @Dr Pixel Plays @Kari B Thank you for the knowledge sharing. Will surely include them in all of my videos.

@Andrew I will definitely check out the video.

 

[Dr Pixel Plays]

[...]It's a shame there isn't the option to edit the automated ones, so if they are only slightly wrong it wouldn't take as much time as writing them all out from scratch - is this a tool Tubebuddy could do, mods?

You can edit the automatic subtitles.

Go into YouTube Studio
Go to 'Videos'
Click 'Details' on the video you want to edit
Then go to 'More Options'
Then you should see 'Original video language, subtitles and CC'
There you should see this:

Then click on those 3 dots and select 'Edit on Classic Studio'
Then click 'Edit' next to 'Unpublish' in the top right corner

Now you can edit the draft and publish it as 'English'.
Note that 'English(automatic)' is still there, so you might want to unpublish the automatic one once you've uploaded your own subtitles.

I hope this could help.

 

[kitchen c/o ammama]

Wow .. I was just looking at this to reply back ... Thank you for the reply @Dr Pixel Plays !!

 

[Midas]

I've never really gotten into using subtitles but I've heard it helps but I don't know for sure that it helps with ranking.

 

[Travel Interesante]

For us subtitles are super important. We even first correct the English subtitles, because it helps correct into Turkish more easily (and helps . Our channel is English based but my wife is from Turkey and it is easier for a lot of her friends and family to watch especially now that we make content from her home country.

 

[Gunjit]

If someone is watching your video and isn't fluent in the language your video is in then they are gonna click off, But if you add subtitles then the viewer is going to both listen the video and read the caption this way they can understand the video and your channel is going to grow faster

 

[TubeBuddy]

I've never really gotten into using subtitles but I've heard it helps but I don't know for sure that it helps with ranking.

I have a video on this subject, and have talked to people at YouTube about it. Basically it adds more data which is good. It helps really point to places like on Google highlights if people are searching for a specific thing. They're not going to make a video blow up, but the more data you can give YouTube the better ESPECIALLY for search based content. If you have the time add them, but they're not the most important thing. That is the content. I'd say if you can add them, do it. If you can't focus on better content.

They also play a humanitarian side where you're helping more viewers enjoy your content. Overall, you gain more than you lose. I agree with what @Stanley Orchard and @Dr Pixel Plays says and look at your analytics. See if people are using them and where.

I use them on all my videos, and will continue to moving forward. Have for years (In English at least) can't speak every language haha...

 

[VenGame]

Captions in general are amazing

But if you dont have time and you are about to be late on your youtube schedule then you shouldn't