Easy YouTube Closed-Captions and Increased Search Visibility

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Nikc Miller

It is no secret that adding closed-captioning to your YouTube videos is a big win when it comes to increasing search results and user engagement. ReelSEO confirmed this a while back in this great video:

What you probably haven’t heard is how easy it is to add captions to your video. We’re not talking about the auto-transcription created by YouTube, but rather a real 100% accurate and timed closed-caption that will help your video get better search results.

Here’s how to do it:

1.) Compile the transcript of your video. You might be able to easily do this if you have the original script lying around. If not, you’re still in luck since YouTube automatically transcribes every video that is uploaded. The YouTube auto-transcriber tends to get a lot of words wrong but it’s still a good starting point.

To get the YouTube transcript, go to My Videos and choose a video. Click “Edit Info” and go to the Captions and Subtitles tab. You’ll find a file called “English: Machine Transcription” and a download button. Downloading will produce a file called “captions.sbv”. This is not a very common filetype, but it can be opened in most text editors. Here you will find timing and transcription info that will be a useful starting point to transcribing your video. With any luck, the machine transcription will only need a few changes.

Copy the text into a new document. Don’t worry about the time info yet. Just fix all of the errors until you’re happy with the complete transcription.

2.) Time your transcription to the video. Since YouTube has a feature called “auto-timing” this part is easy. Watch the video as you read your transcription. For every pause, start a new line. For every longer pause, skip a line completely. That’s it! No numbers or timecode needed, just blocks of text spaced out organically. Save the document as a .txt file.

3.) Upload and test. You can upload your txt file on the page where you found “English: Machine Transcription.” Upload the file and within a minute you will be able to see your new captions in action. Watch through twice to make sure that they are complete and correct.

That’s it! Within a few days your captions should start ranking in YouTube and Google Video search results.

YouTube Tricks: How To Render In Perfect MP4

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Nikc Miller

I’ll admit that the name of this post is kind of a joke. In Google Analytics (an app we obsess over) I see that people commonly search for “how to render in perfect mp4” only to land on our company website. In reality, that’s not such a bad thing because we really do render in perfect mp4 with a wonderful hardware based encoder (just ask us, we’ll tell you all about it)! Yup, renderin’ perfect is something that we know how to do really well, so why not give the people what they want? So here it is:

HOW TO RENDER IN PERFECT MP4! (Ta-da)

First off, I’m taking it that you wanna render your video in mp4 to place it on YouTube, Vimeo or another video hosting service. Keep in mind that these sites change their preferences on what seems like a daily basis. So just because these are the best encoding settings today, doesn’t mean they will be a year from now. Secondly, I’m just gonna assume that your video was produced in HD.

So here are 3 settings that “The YouTubes” LOVE right now:

Keep Your Frame Size Consistent
Why: Youtube’s HD settings go as high as 1080p. So if your video originates in 1080p, congrats! Upload it full frame. If your video is smaller, don’t try to enlarge it in the encode. If it’s 720p, keep it 720p. 480p to 480p and so on. It will look its best at its original size and accordingly on all smaller sizes.

Encode At Datarate Of 5mb/s For Video
Why: Logically, it makes sense that a higher bitrate video would produce better looking video. However, YouTube is going to transcode whatever you upload to its own max bitrate (about 4mb/s). So encoding at the higher bitrate is just gonna mean larger file which ultimately means a longer upload with (arguably) the same results.

Use A .Mov Or .Mp4
Why: A lot of sites will tell you that your video has to be a MP4. To tell you the truth the file extension MP4 or MOV doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it’s compressed with the H.264 codec which is usually associated with the MP4 extension (Confusing huh?). Whatever you do, please just don’t upload a Windows Media file (.wmv)!

Free Download: 10 YouTube Tips For 2010

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Nikc Miller

A few weeks ago we launched our new mini-ebook Produce, Post, Promote: Ten YouTube Tips For 2010 to our email list (you can get it here). The book has been very well received and was downloaded by people ranging from business owners to bloggers.

Alot of people have already asked me something to this effect:

Why would a video production company want to give away their own pro web-video tips to any ole person that signs up?

To me the answer is simple: I give this advice out to my friends all of the time. After typing up yet another email to one of my buddys about how to properly tag a video, I thought: It’s really time to (finally) write a guide!

The 13-page book contains tips on:

Planning an effective video campaign
Properly tagging videos for maximum exposure
Gaining new audiences with your video
Using your current marketing efforts to gain more views
And More (for real)

I’m always scouring the web for info so I know there’s alot of FREE (!!!zomg!!!) crap out there, so to prove that this little guide has alot of value, here’s Tip 11 (the one that didn’t make it in the book):

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Create A Click-Through Ad To Your Website For (Almost) Free:Alot of people immediately write off the Promoted Videos option that YouTube offers. If you aren’t aware, Promoted Videos works like Google AdWords. You can pick keywords and offer a pay-per-click price for each time someone clicks on your video for those words. If you are not interested in pay-per-click, you may have never experimented with this option. However, YouTube offers a big incentive for using Promoted Videos: A Clickable Call-To-Action Overlay.

This option gives you the power to place your very own ad on your video that clicks through directly to your site. The best part is that if you are not really interested in paying-per-click you can bid ultra-low on a super popular keyword. The result: You pay next-to-nothing because your video gets zero-to-low impressions, and you come out with an effective click-through advertisment for your video.

Check out this example!

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You can get the full-version of Produce, Post, Promote: Ten YouTube Tips For 2010 here. Did I forget to mention that it was free?