How to Add Text to YouTube Videos & Improve Your Subscribers’ Experience

There are more than 5 billion video clips hosted on YouTube to date. Who’s watching? The scope of YouTube’s demographic is huge. 81% of internet users aged 15-25 use YouTube, and the number only decreases to 71% among 26-35 year-olds. The lowest percentage of users is among the 56+ crowd, 58% of whom watch YouTube. The U.S. leads the rest of the countries in the world in its number of active YouTube users.

How Do I Add Text to a YouTube Video?

There are several different ways to add closed captions to YouTube videos. You can use one of many video editors available to download to add text before you upload your video, or you can use the YouTube video editor, Creator Studio, to add text after you’ve uploaded the video to Youtube. Sometimes YouTube’s speech recognition technology has even provided captions for you automatically. 

Adding text to your own videos, whether you do it before or after they’ve been uploaded, can add precious time to your video editing process. Also, when YouTube uses AI to add captions it makes errors that are eliminated when a person adds captions. For example, a person listening to audio can distinguish between different human voices at times when a machine learning how to distinguish audio may have difficulty. 

Here’s where Rev can help you out. Rev’s caption service adds text to your videos quickly and accurately. Get started by ordering your captions from Rev’s page.  Let’s walk through the process step-by-step.

1. Order closed captions

There are three options: you can upload your video from your computer, share a link to a public web address, or you can pull videos directly from your YouTube or Rev account. Once you complete one of these actions, your caption order generates.

2. Add additional options or languages

Notice there are options to expedite your order, or add subtitles in another language. Once you click “Checkout,” you’ll be prompted to create an account.

3. Creating your account

Enter your info and you’ve got an account with Rev! You’ll be redirected to a payment screen.

4. Checkout

Here, you can securely checkout using either your credit card or PayPal. That’s the last step in the process. Your text for your video is now being generated.

Rev delivers most of its .srt (caption) files within 24 hours or less, so once you place your order, your video text is on its way! To make the process completely seamless, you can integrate your YouTube account with Rev, so that all videos you upload are automatically captioned. If you integrate your YouTube account with Rev, you also save 12% on all caption orders.

Having accessible and clear text for your YouTube videos is essential. Rev can help by providing accurate, quick captions for your videos. That way, you can cut down on time spent captioning and get rid of machine errors, so you’re free to communicate with your audience and create new video content to build your channel.

What Are the Benefits of Having a YouTube Channel?

If you’ve got a YouTube channel, you can create video content that will connect you to your audience. People want to get to know the dynamic version of you and your brand through YouTube. Video provides human connection in a way that static content just doesn’t. You can highlight elements of your personality through videos that are more difficult to communicate through text. 

Having a YouTube channel also benefits your search engine marketing strategy. You can boost your SEO by including internal backlinks in your videos. Other websites can provide you with exposure by embedding your videos on their pages. 

Why Is It Important to Make YouTube Video Content Accessible?

Audio is an essential component of YouTube content, but not everybody can experience audio. Adding text to your videos makes them accessible to those with disabilities (it’s part of ADA compliance). 

Adding text to YouTube videos also makes them accessible to those with temporary audio issues. It could be that the audio on a user’s phone is broken, or that the user is in a noisy environment, or that the user does not want to make noise in a quiet environment. 

Adding text, also known as closed captions, to the content on your YouTube channel also boosts your SEO. When you add text to your videos, that text becomes part of the keywords Google uses to identify your website. The number of your unique keywords increases the ability for people to find your content.