Online videos are becoming increasingly popular and our brains now crave moving images. In 2022, more than 1 billion hours of video were watched worldwide every single day on YouTube alone, the pioneer platform for video sharing and the second largest search engine after Google, and 500 hours of video material were uploaded every minute. In Switzerland in 2022, YouTube had 4.5 million users, with one in three people using YouTube on a daily basis (source: Statista). A successful content marketing strategy without video is just inconceivable today – just as videos without closed captions are if you truly want your videos to be found, liked, and shared. Find out how closed captions or transcripts can help your online videos get more traffic and be better ranked by search engines.
A picture is worth more than a thousand words
No medium conveys emotion better than video. Content that is conveyed via video is remembered better and for longer. Moreover, a lot of information can be portrayed via moving image within a very short time. So it is not surprising that videos are in the vanguard of the battle for users’ attention, leaving text in the dust. After all, we are aware of the very human desire to prefer the path of least resistance – why bother to read through the user manual of a new smartwatch if there is a five-minute explanatory video on YouTube? This is one of the reasons for the upsurge in video content that we have been seeing, especially since the advent of smartphones. From image films for branding purposes, to product videos that explain features, and to unboxing videos where we can experience firsthand all the joy and excitement of a new product being unpacked for the very first time – the potential uses of videos are very diverse. But how do you make sure that your videos actually reach their target audience and do not get lost in this seemingly endless medley of videos on the web? Adding closed captions and transcripts to your videos is a tried and tested strategy to improve your videos’ discoverability and reach as well as to increase user interaction with your videos.
It’s the first impression that counts
When we meet people in real life, we judge within a matter of seconds whether we like them or not. In the digital world, things are no different: Even when scrolling through our newsfeed, we decide within a few seconds whether we want to watch a video or would rather continue scrolling. To be more exact, we make this decision within just three seconds, as can be seen from a study by Nielsen on Facebook videos from 2015. So your visual content has to captivate us within the first three seconds, convince us of its relevancy, and arouse our interest so that we stop scrolling. According to Nielsen, 65% of people who stop scrolling in the first three seconds watch at least ten seconds of the video, and 45% continue to watch for 30 seconds. Since videos are played in silent autoplay mode in most social media feeds, closed captions help to break through the crucial three-second barrier, because they convey the video message in an additional format as text, thus making it accessible and generally more memorable even without sound. Furthermore, they also increase the likelihood that a video will be watched for longer or until the end. In this way, closed captions enhance the so-called video completion rate (VCR), especially since most users watch online videos without sound. This is according to a study by Verizon Media, who put the figure at an immense 69%.
Read me, Google!
Search engines cannot watch videos or listen to audio files, they can only read text. And so, for videos without closed captions or transcripts, only the text in the video description, the title, and the tags are taken into account in search queries. Only by adding closed captions or transcripts do the videos become readable for Google and Co., thus also enabling the entire video content to be indexed, i.e., also included in search queries. This not only increases the keyword density, but also the keyword variety. In this way, videos can be read and ranked according to a variety of relevant terms, instead of only the terms in the video description, the title, and the tags. In a study by Discovery Digital Network, YouTube videos with closed captions accrued 13.48% more views in the first two weeks after their upload and 7.32% more views over the entire duration online than videos without closed captions.
A positive UX – the best aphrodisiac
However, even video metadata that has been perfectly optimised for search engines cannot help your videos reach the top ranking if they are not accompanied by a positive user experience (UX). Of course, metadata is the most important factor in search engine optimization (SEO) when a video is first published, but users’ interaction with the video post-publication is just as critical. Only videos that are watched frequently and for a longer time, and that are commented on, liked, and shared get a good SERP (Search Engine Result Page). When it comes to videos, Clickbait is the libido killer par excellence – in the long term, you will only win over your target audience with relevant, interesting, and high-quality content, i.e., with an optimal user experience. Closed captions contribute to this by making videos accessible even without sound. The fact that most users today watch online videos without sound illustrates the importance of closed captions for a positive user experience. Closed captions also increase the comprehensibility of videos, because when you listen to and read content at the same time, you take it in to a greater extent and more easily. Users prefer comprehensible videos, and therefore they watch them for longer. Closed captions are also proven to help in learning a new language, which is of great importance for the user experience of non-native-speaking users in particular.
Closed captions amplify the discoverability and reach of your videos and help you log more views and interaction, as well as generate a better user experience overall. Closed captions boost the ranking of your online videos. So if you want users to swipe right on your videos, add in closed captions.
