It's an SEO's duty to try to utilise and leverage as many opportunities as possible for clients and employers in order to drive relevant traffic to their websites. One technique that I sometimes feel is overlooked — or at least not given the attention it deserves — is transcription, i.e. turning audio or other media into text.
I was inspired to write about transcription for SEO (and more) after talking to a client at one of my previous agency roles. A few staff members at the top of the company are well known in their industry, and we wanted to leverage their popularity and standing by encouraging them to guest blog. For one of them (who's practically a celebrity in his industry sector!), we were told this:
Client: "Well, he doesn't want to write content on a regular basis. You see, he has enough on his plate as it is with his popular, weekly, hour-long podcast."
Then the light-bulb moment happened...
Me: "Do you transcribe the podcasts into text and publish them on the site along with the audio?"
Client: "No. Why?"
Why?! Oh, my sweet, naïve client...
(I didn't actually say that in reply to the client! That'd be silly.)
Ahem... Where was I?
Quite fittingly, my first instance of seeing regularly transcribed content was on this very site: Moz's Whiteboard Friday videos are all transcribed on a weekly basis (or at least they have been every week for the last few years).
For that reason, it only seemed right to talk about transcription in the form of a YouMoz submission!
I think there are benefits beyond SEO, as it also touches upon user experience (UX), and if you sit down and really think about it, there are a lot of different things you can transcribe, which is why I've also provided a list of ideas towards the end of this post.
The benefits of transcription for SEO
The main benefit of transcribing audio for SEO? Search engines cannot 'read' audio media. Yet. Properly.
Yes, you can add text to an image to help search engines deduce its content and purpose (in the form of the title and alt attributes), but that's not necessarily the case with things like videos. Embed a YouTube video, look at the code and see for yourself — it isn't full of the video's text, ready to be crawled by a search engine spider.
And while search engines are getting wiser and more Skynet-esque by the day, they're still a long way off from effectively turning audio into words. I can't find the exact tweet right now, but someone recently tweeted @mattcutts asking if the Webmaster Videos were transcribed. He replied saying that they were automatically transcribed on YouTube, accessed via the "Transcript" button.
I checked a few of Matt's videos and they weren't too bad, but what about when the audio isn't crystal clear and/or the speaker has a bit of an accent? I checked a video I made using my laptop's webcam and inbuilt microphone, spoken with my unusual accent (which I've been told sounds Welsh, Cockney, and accentless all at the same time), and found that the line:
"...in this video I'm gonna talk you through how to implement rel author..."
had been transcribed into:
"...video onions will keep you have to impeachment gravel for..."
Nailed it. (And I honestly thought I spoke quite clearly in that video!)
So I think it's safe to say for now that transcription through a more — how to put this — "traditional" method (i.e. through transcription service providers) is still essential at this stage.
The major benefit of transcription for SEO? Hitting the long tail. What if a video or podcast covers a topic that's not talked about in a blog post or other supportive text? Or, what if people are searching for a spoken quotation, as opposed to a written text quotation? Without transcription, they'll miss it. With transcription, they won't.
When I created the previously linked-to video about impeaching — er, I mean implementing rel="author", I embedded it in a post on my own blog along with the transcription, potentially driving more people to my blog from organic search — especially those searching for something relevant to the video and/or the event at which I spoke.
Another good example: the Q&A at an event after a speaker has given their presentation. The speaker may share their slides and speaker notes, but Q&A is obviously quite impromptu and on-the-spot in nature. If a video has caught it, and that video has been transcribed, then people looking for the answer to one of the questions that was asked will be able to find it.
The benefits of transcription for UX
I also think that there are more benefits to transcription than just improving long tail SEO. It can vastly improve usability and UX, too.
There have been numerous times when I've wanted to watch a Moz Whiteboard Friday, but I've been in a public place and not had any headphones. The next best thing? I could read the transcript. In fact, some people I've spoken to prefer to read a transcript than watch or listen to something. Each to their own, I guess, but at least by providing both you're giving your users the choice.
Additionally, when I revisit the Whiteboard Friday at a later stage and want to double-check something that Rand or whoever has said, I can use my browser's "find" function, type in the relevant word(s) and find it right away. So it's good for quick checks and references as well — much quicker than trying to find the exact moment in a 5-10 minute video when something was mentioned.
How to do it (and is it really worth it?)
I'm sure that there are plenty of transcription service providers out there. Wanting to try it out myself, I went for Moz's provider: SpeechPad. It seemed pretty reasonable and I had no major problems with it. I had to tidy up a bit of the text (e.g. Gafyn's name — which is the Welsh variation of Gavin — was spelt the non-Welsh way, some Twitter handles had been missed, etc.), but it was about 95%+ correct. All in all, $5 to transcribe my 5-minute rel="author" YouTube video? Bargain.
I know what you might be thinking: Is it worth it if a) you produce (or have previously produced) lots of media, or b) your media is quite long, e.g. an hour-long podcast or an event?
Well, put it this way. I paid $5 for a 5-minute video to be turned into text, which was 645 words long. It's unique text, and apart from a bit of a proofread and tidy-up afterwards, it was good to go. I know people who pay 10 times that amount (if not more) for 600 words of unique content. When you look at it that way, it's pretty reasonable. An hour-long transcription is likely to be essay-sized — in the 1,000s of words — which should hit the long tail like crazy.
Transcribe ALL the things! A list of things to consider transcribing
The list of things that you can transcribe is pretty much endless, so I wanted to put a shorter list together to spark ideas and make you think of what your business or your clients might have produced already that is transcribeable (and if that's not a word, I'm totally coining it):
Events
- Presentations, panels, keynotes
- Q&A
- Vox pops between sessions
- PR stunts (if they're filmed)
TV & Radio
- Full TV/radio shows
- Appearances on TV/radio shows (e.g. if your client only appears on a five-minute segment)
- Adverts
Podcasts
- Full podcasts
- Appearances on podcasts
Music
- Lyrics (especially if it's an unsigned band — they might not yet have their lyrics plastered on every lyrics website ever)
- Live shows (especially if there's banter between songs and/or alternative lyrics)
Other
- Interviews
- Whiteboard videos (obviously!)
- Corporate/promotional videos
- Testimonial videos (as in testimonials from clients/customers)
- Webinars
- Google+ Hangouts (I'm thinking #maximpact...)
- Videos with commentary/voice-overs
- Documentaries
- Pretty much everything/anything that has (or could have) audio!
Have I missed anything obvious? I'm sure I have! If you think of anything that I might've missed, leave a comment below!
Now if you don't mind, I'm off to video my gravel and impeach some onions... or was that the other way around?
Transcription is such a great idea for when you have a client that doesn't like to write but has a lot to say! Bring a recorder to your next meeting and ask them to just talk about their industry and you'd be amazed at what kind of information comes pouring out. They have the know-how, you just have to pull it out!
Hi Nick, that's an absolutely fantastic idea!!! I know a whole bunch of people who could talk for England (or Wales, in my case!) but don't care too much about writing. That's a pretty good solution in that case!
Very informative post Steve! Thanks for letting people know the importance of transcribing content, especially to text. Would have been great if we had had a TLDR for this post. :)
Thanks RW! Haha, seriously? It's not exactly the longest post ever written...! ;-)
We use GMR Transcription. Its accurate on fairly clear audios and inexpensive.
GMR Transcription? Is that like an alternative to SpeechPad? Sounds cool - I'll have to give it a go sometime! :-)
Very cool! I worked in video description and transcription for a few years while in university. I saw many (many many) people balk at my prices, then choose a cheaper option and wind up with misspelled, badly formated text that was obviously not going to win them any Google love.
I notice that Slideshare automatically pulls text from slides to display as a "transcription", even when there's no sound. That's another (free!) way to get some written content to use in different ways.
Wow, I didn't realise SlideShare offered that. Thanks Ophelie! :-)
Great point, Ophelie! When I was in college, I interned in a language research lab and transcribed a lot of interviews. I was an intern, so I was "paid" in experience, but I'm sure companies could find students who would do quality work at reasonable prices. Most schools have an online job board these days.
YES YES YES! This is exactly the premise that we built our business on. People are reluctant to write, but love to talk. Let them talk while you record. Then transcribe. Then rewrite. Then edit the audio. Then make a video out of the audio. You now have 4 unique pieces of content...transcription, blog post, podcast, video that only took up 5 minutes of the business owner's time. We do it in batches during a single monthly Skype recording session. Do enough 5-minute interviews in a single session for a weekly stream of new content.
That sounds brilliant, Dave - really glad to see someone chip in with an example that's been so beneficial to them. You've really helped to point out the benefits there. Nice one! :-)
Great post and I totally agree about the entire transcription thing. The struggle I've had is proving to my team members that it's of value. Maybe it's because I spent a while as a relay operator and I'm more aware of how big the non-hearing community is, but it really irritates me when hearing people turn up their noses at transcribing an captions with an arrogant sniff saying "Our customers don't need that." Yes, they do. They not only need it, they want it, even the hearing people.
Two tools that I've used to created my own timed transcription.srt files are https://www.dotsub.com (a web-based tool) and also Camtasia for Mac. The advantage to using Camtasia is that your transcribed content doesn't instantly live online and consequently get attributed to DotSub instead of your Website. It's time-consuming sure, but if you're operating on a shoe-string, or your fighting to get a budget for something else that's a priortity, these are some good options.
Brill, thanks for passing those on, Dana - I'll have to check 'em out sometime :-)
Hey Steve,
Congrats on your Moz post making it to the main blog. I love this idea for people who own lots of video content and are trying to figure out how to squeeze more out of it for the SEO benefits. This makes particular sense for lots of industries, including blogging like you mention above. I am actually hoping a client does the very same, as they have hundreds of popular youtube videos, all with good content contained within (rich in natural KW phrases etc).
I actually read that Gary Vaynerchuck made a point of making one of his employees to effectively shadow him around conferences, transcribing cool or insightful things that he said and sharing them to his followers. We create content all the time and much of it gets lost or forgotten. His point was that even for people who are 'too busy' to create content, there are ways this can be done if you approach it in the right way.
If only we had done some more videos at Confused.com! ;)
Cheers
Scott
Scott?! No way man - how are you?! Hope you're well. I keep in touch with Mr Ridout from time to time... send me a tweet at @steviephil some time, it'd be good to catch up!
This post couldn't have more perfect timing! I spoke at an event yesterday and was debating on whether or not I should have the recording transcribed. Will check out Speechpad.
If you subscribed to YouMoz, you would have seen this ten days earlier and would have known going into the event you'd have it transcribed. :) Just trying to get viewership over at YouMoz itself up a tad, if I can.
My work here is done! *walks off into the sunset* ;-)
I watch, or better I read whiteboard friday at work, here are some people arround me. Some designers wich need silence (or they kill me) - so I am one of these guys wich read the WBF instead of watchin it. OK and than I watch it at home on weekends - with sound ...
Earlier i was not familiar with the benefits of transcription of a video and all the time i was thinking that why should we transcript a video when we can watch them, but now i know the secret and importance of transcription a video. Its another feature which describes the meaning of a video in more effective way.
Congrats Steve, that's awesome! We get many of our clients' videos transcribed for optimization, readability and, to some extent, syndication. If they have a YouTube Channel already set up, it's not too time consuming nor costly to get a transcript and post it with the video. If they don't have any existing videos, we've been working to both create whiteboard animations and have been creating PPTs with narration for them. They're great from both SMM and SEO and have proven very helpful to our overall Internet marketing campaigns.
And @Sangeeta -- GMR Transcription rocks!
Great read.
This is something I would like to do more because it would make content generation a hundred times easier. You almost wouldn't have to actually write anything.
Also, for those of us that are better on video it is another boon.
High five 0/\0
Hey Steve, great post! Love to see other people getting excited about video transcription. We always have a script written before creating videos, which makes it easy to post the transcript. The challenge is making sure it's available to the user in an attractive way without taking the page but also that it is static and crawlable. Good luck with your clients!
I've been debating (in my head) whether it was worth hiring a service to transcribe my videos. For the longest time I would write what I said in my videos, and it is very time consuming. Thanks for this article... gives me something to add weight towards the service.
Hi Scott, that's exactly it - it's so cheap to outsource to someone like SpeechPad that your time can be spent doing what you do best instead (in your case: photography)! :-)
Steve (or anyone):
We have some long lecture videos (40+ minutes in length) we have transcribed - would you recommend placing the entirety of the transcription on the page or offering it as a PDF download? Which will be most beneficial for UX and SEO? The content is about 12 pages in length...
Hey, that's a good question. It gets trickier when you're talking about content of that length, as it'd make a heckuva long page!
Yeah, perhaps consider including the first 2 pages of the transcription on the page and including a PDF download to read the rest (containing the full transcription), if including the full transcription on the page is a bit OTT. Alternatively, what about an area/module on the page that expands to show more text when clicked on, so that it only shows the first 1-2 pages to the casual glancer, but for the search engines and anyone who wants to read more, they can see it all if they do so choose? Perhaps chat to your web developer about it to see if it's doable :-)
Great post Steve!
As the SEO/Content Manager for a Video Transcription company, I am glad to see SEOs talking about video transcription.
The benefits of video transcription actually popped up on my radar a few years ago when I listened to Rand speak at my old company, HubSpot. Someone asked, "What is one thing I could suggest to my customers that no one is doing for SEO right now that has major potential? He said, "Transcribe videos. All that content is just sitting there, waiting to be utilized." That was my, *lightbulb* moment.
I would by lying if I said my job isn't made insanely better by the fact that I can receive our transcribed webinars very easily. I then create summary blogs and customer case studies.
Furthermore, I am really excited to see marketers embrace video as a content starting point as you alluded to. Instead of scaling to video, we need to utilize experts to create video first and then spinoff derivative content from there.
Of course, transcripts do enhance UX which is where SEO is moving towards more and more. I have written a Video SEO series tied to transcription, the 7 Key Benefits of Web Video Transcripts Blog is worth a look for those starting out. :)
https://www.3playmedia.com/2013/03/01/video-seo-series-7-key-benefits-web-video-transcriptions-captions/
Obviously I am super passionate about this and always happy to talk more about video SEO strategy! Cheers!
@shannonkmurphy
Awesome, thanks for sharing, Shannon. That's cool about Rand as well - I didn't realise that he talked about transcription way back then. Wish I'd been there! :-)
Hi,
Nice article. I run a youtube channel so all my videos are uploaded on youtube. I also transcribe the videos and submit then as captions to the video. I also share the video on my blog. My question is if I paste the transcript on my blog will Google take it as copied content?
Thanks
Vikram
Hi Vikram, that's a good question. In that case, I don't think so, if you're sharing the source video (i.e. embedding the video from YouTube on your own site). It's not like you're creating a completely different video from scratch and doing the same thing (e.g. also doing it on Vimeo) - I could see that being considered copied content maybe, but I think the way you're doing it is fine. Sounds good - keep it up! :-)
Great post Steve, we do this a little but sometimes it is difficult to convince clients of the benefits!
Thanks Peter. That's a very good point! It mightn't be a tactic to recommend right away (after all, there might be more pressing and priority issues to attend to), but if they're having trouble being convinced of the benefits then it might be worth suggesting a trial or test campaign, i.e. just transcribing a few pieces of media (maybe the most popular ones) and seeing how it goes from there. If it's only a few 5-minute videos for example, at $1 per minute it's hardly a bank-breaking expense for them to try out! :-)
In a previous job I did a three-hour presentation about basic SEO and social media, which was received with plenty of enthusiasm and those "light-bulb" moments on my newbie students' faces, but as with most things like this, I knew that as soon as they went home, they'd forget much of it. I'd given them access to the slideshow presentation on my website, but slides don't convey all those little details that you talk about in between.
So I transcribed the whole course and interspersed each slide with the text. Quite apart from any SEO benefit I gained from doing this, my students were so grateful that I'd gone that extra mile, I became their "go-to" person and got lots more work off the back of it. I'd do it again, but I'd dictate it next time and use a transcription service!
Hi Mandy, thanks for passing on your experiences. I've been in the same boat, where a PowerPoint simply doesn't convey the full message that someone gives during a presentation. When I was at uni, I was told of someone who took a dictaphone along to lectures and recorded everything the speaker said and then typed it all up. It sounded like a lot of work, but I think he got a lot more out of it. And he would've avoided the frustration you get when you think to yourself: "damn, just was it he/she said exactly?"
Awesome post Steve! I think transcriptions can serve like press releases, with a whole lot of information that you can hammer into a great article. With ready made quotes! Will definitely look into this.
Thanks Stephen! That's a really good comparison, hadn't thought about it that way.
Great post Steve! The benefits of transcribing for SEO are obvious and I definitely agree that they are great for UX as well. I personally would rather read an article than watch it as I find it less time consuming. I have often clicked on an interesting looking news story and then left the page after realizing it was a video.
If a client is hesitant to transcribe their videos perhaps a good compromise would be to provide a summary of the video. This too would be good for SEO and perhaps a good way to promote the video and entice people to watch it.
Thanks Catelin :-) A summary's a good idea... It won't take as long (or cost as much money/time) as doing the full video, but would still help with its SEO - almost like a meta description for it!
It's not video or audio, but on Hashdoc (which is for sharing professional documents), we use OCR and place a transcript underneath the document viewer. Once we got this up, our ranks and traffic increased significantly. So it does work! And you are completely correct about UX-- in our case, having the text below the viewer means if the test is too small to be comfortably read in the view, and the user doesn't want to download the document and open it up, it's easy for him/her to find what they are looking for.
For the Moz site, I absolutely love the transcripts of the videos, because I can read a lot faster than I can listen, and sometimes I will read the transcript and not watch the video itself (sorry, guys). It's easier reference, too, when I want to email the post to someone and highlight a paragraph instead of saying "watch this 20 minute video!".
Hi Amy, thanks for the comment. It's great to hear about an example that benefited both SEO and UX (as it should do)!
And you're absolutely right about the Moz videos. I'm just glad I'm not the only one! :-) I don't think it's a bad thing that some people prefer text to videos - just personal preference!
Also for non english speaking countries make things pretty much easy ;)
Hi Steve,
Transcription really good and helpful for UX.
For me its same like subtitles of Hollywood movie.
As Philip said its really helpful for the people how have a hearing problems and its also helpful for the people of Asian continent countries as many of them (like me) some time don't understand the British accent or American accent.
Thanks Kiran :-) Yes, that's very true - or even Welsh accents (as was the case with me), hehe!
Really liked the post - very useful info on the transcription service. Alos, not sure if anyone's mentioned, but it's a massive plus for those who have hearing problems. I find this especially true for corporate videos that briefly explain service functionality.
Hi Philip, that's a really good point - another tick in the box as far as UX (offering the user something of use to them) is concerned!
I've made a little tutorial on creating a transcription/captions in youtube and exporting it to Wistia.
https://www.jaymutzafi.com/quickly-create-captions-for-wistia-videos-with-youtubes-automatic-transcripts/
If this is too much of a shameless self promotion, forgive me, and feel free to remove it. Otherwise it is a neat little streamlined way to do it. Hope you guys find it useful...
As someone who usually hates self-promotion (unless it's relevant to the topic at hand), this looks cool - thanks for sharing! :-)
Great post Steve! I have transcribed a few videos for clients in the past and found the results from doing so (on YouTube) to be pretty good. After all, it makes the videos more accessible and provides Google with more content to understand the videos.
Do wish I knew about Speech Pad though. Although the video's weren't that long. And I can now type a bit faster!
Wow, so you did it all manually? Good on you!!! ;-) As I said to Scott above, it's so cheap to outsource that it makes sense to pay for someone else to do it and then you can concentrate on other things.
It does make sense. In an ideal world software would be able to do it but like you have said in the post and in comments, it's never 100% accurate and I doubt it will ever be. Some things are best left to humans (who don't make typos!)
Hi Steve, two comments/questions:
1. I assume you have not encountered any software that would be at least relatively decent in transcription?
2. Would you separate transcriptions from the actual videos? From my experience people prefer to have the text close to the video and visitors get annoyed if the two are placed on different pages.
Hi Lucjan, thanks for the comment. Two very good questions!
1. I've only tried SpeechPad, which was more than enough for my needs. I've not tried any other alternatives or any automated solutions (e.g. software). YouTube's Transcript option is automated, and you can see in the post how that turned out... That said, there might be some very effective software out there - if you find any, please leave a comment letting us know!
2. I would keep them together, for the exact reason that you say. Additionally, if the transcript helps to boost the page's SEO, you'd want visitors to land on the same page as the video. I think it'd be bad UX (and bad for bounce rate) if a visitor found text with no immediate or obvious sign of the video.
What do you think of subbed videos? Especially for seos in the anime industry? On one hand it boosts seo and gives sort of a niche aspect but on the other people would prefer subbed ones.
Hi Kingdra111, thanks for the comment. I'm not sure if subtitles would benefit the SEO at all, if they're on the video itself. But if they're transcribed in both languages (the original and the subtitled version) then you could potentially attract visitors from both countries!
The problem is that there are 700+ episodes of 20 mins so you can imagine the cost even if I get it done at $0.50/1minute so maybe I'll just get the new ones transcribed. It would be worth it if the transcription gets 500 views thanks to long tail and UX ( so I save on ppc). What I was saying was that subbed would provide better UX and low cost but no help in seo and transcription the exact opposite- some UX, high cost, help in seo
Ahh yes, I see what you mean. Yeah, I'd agree that subtitles would be better for UX. If you can do both, by all means, but it sounds like only doing transcriptions for new videos (and not going through all the old/archived videos) might be best.
Yes tbh the old ones are popular but I guess it's still okay to just transcribe the new ones. I haven't tried it out but getting transcriptions done on fiverr is way cheaper. If you look hard enough up can get a 20 min transcription done for $5
Wow, good find. Thanks for letting us know! :-)
Hi, IMO, I'll transcribe the old videos as well. If you have videos on animes on YouTube, it is very highly that other people also uploaded them and although the old videos are popular, by transcribing it, you are increasing your YouTube Video SEO scores and hopefully rank higher than the other channels.
A much-appreciated post, thank you for taking the time to put it together.
mind blowing post Steve.
Congratulations you did a great job Steve.
I have not found information as valuable as this, at least for me. I hope you continue sharing your knowledge with us
Amazing post as always Steve!! Good to see another amazing update from your end!! Great efforts, really an insightful post.
Hi,
Awesome post Steve.
Regards.
Vipul
This is great. I've used Speechpad and liked it. thanks for the reminder!
I was inspired to write about transcription for SEO (and more) after talking to a client at one of my previous agency roles. A few staff members at the top of the Costume Accessories company are well known in their industry, and we wanted to leverage their popularity and standing by encouraging them to guest blog.
Hello.
Very useful information, when did not hear about it. I'll try to do the transcription on their websites.
Thank you.
Hey Steve, Loved
Thanks for the Speechpad recommendation.
I was looking for this kind of server - and for that price it's an absolute bargain.
I added a comment to this a few weeks ago that I felt contributed to the conversation as well as entertained some new ideas.
It was never posted? What gives?
There is a comment from you on this post at https://moz.com/blog/transcribe-all-the-things-benefits-strategies-more#comment-229843. Is this the one you're thinking of?
Hi Shannon, I can see it above. What device were you on? I've noticed an error with comments loading when visiting from an iPad, which I've already informed the Moz staff about - so maybe it's that?