Subtitles Create Video SEO

Video SEO is an increasingly important process to take into consideration for content creators to reach their uppermost potential. Subtitles are one of the simplest, yet most powerful additions you can make to enhance your videos’ visibility online.


Subtitles have a range of benefits that go beyond just making it easier for viewers who might be hard of hearing or non-native English speakers to watch and understand what you are saying – subtitles add search engine optimization (SEO) value as well, which will greatly increase the chances that your video will appear more often in search inquiries, increasing those all-important views!






In this post, we will let you gain an understanding of the process of SEO, discuss why subtitles are so critical for effective video SEO, and examine some best practices for ensuring optimum results by adding automatically generated subtitles with the help of AI software.

Search Engine Optimization

As a content creator, you know that creating great content is only part of the equation when it comes to engaging your audience. You also need to make sure your content reaches its intended target and stands out in an increasingly competitive and crowded online marketplace. That is why becoming familiar with search engine optimization strategies should be an integral part of any successful content creator's game plan.

SEO is short for search engine optimization and is the process by which search engine robots regularly crawl and detect website content, to determine the ranking of pages in search inquiries. The ranking is based on several factors such as engagement metrics and relevant keywords.

Keyword research is the number one most important factor in achieving valuable SEO. Other important factors are URL optimization, meta tags, header tags, and of course content optimization.

How does SEO Value Video Content?

There is an obvious obstacle present when it comes to achieving video SEO - search engine robots are not able to detect the visual and audible parts of a video. Therefore, they cannot detect the important keywords present in your speech. 

Luckily there is a way to get around this quite easily. By adding a subtitle file to your video you will allow the search engine robots to “read” and detect your keywords, and this is how your subtitles will create video SEO for you.


Bare in mind that not any kind of subtitles provides you with video SEO. They have to be closed caption subtitles in order to add SEO. They are the kind of subtitles that can be turned on and off, and you upload them as a subtitle file (SRT, VTT) to your video on your chosen video platform. This way search engine robots are able to “read” them.


The kind of subtitles that will not provide you with video SEO is called open caption subtitles and are burned onto your video, meaning they have become one entity with the visual part of the video, and therefore cannot be either turned off or detected by search engine robots.


Subtitles in general have other benefits than SEO. They increase viewer comprehension and engagement rates by up to 80% [1]. Studies show that subtitling videos create better comprehension, attention to, and memory of a video. 

Furthermore, they unite the visual and audible parts of videos to let everyone watching on mute follow as well. Subtitles include those hard of hearing and when translated they give rise to an international audience.

How Can AI Software Help Streamline Your Work?

With a growing hunger for video content on digital platforms, computer technology is rising to meet the challenge. Leveraging artificial intelligence, content creators now have access to AI subtitling software that automates the process of subtitling videos – revolutionising how we create and share media today.

While it is possible to manually type your subtitles, many content creators are now turning towards subtitling software as an easier and faster solution for generating subtitles. Some software can subtitle a video in a matter of minutes depending on the length of the video. To give an example, it will take AI subtitling software around 20 minutes to subtitle a 2-hour-long video.

You might worry that the AI mishears the words and transcribe your speech into something unintelligible. Not an uncommon concern to have, as we know that AI isn’t matching up to the intelligence of human beings. But as it turns out, for the particular function of subtitling most AI software is rather precise with an accuracy of up to 98%. 

For this reason, AI subtitling software is in fact already a popular and successful tool on the market and is helping both translators and content creators in amplifying their work.


The AI converts spoken words into text using neural network techniques and speech recognition. And it can also be used to translate subtitles into hundreds of different languages. Although the function of translating is not as precise as the subtitling function itself, AI translation software is more accurate than non-AI translation software, as whereas the non-AI software translates word by word, the AI uses advanced language models that consider composition, structure, syntax, and grammar to compose and translate into the most plausible sentence.

6 Tips to Increase Video SEO

 To improve the ranking of your videos 6 tips are given below: 

#1 Use closed caption subtitles

By enriching your video with closed caption subtitles containing relevant keywords, you can significantly improve the effectiveness of your video. Not only will it help search engines better understand your content, but viewers are also more likely to engage with a clearly articulated and visual message.

#2 Look at your title and subheadings as the most important keywords.

This will make it easier for Google and other search engines to understand what your video is about.

#3 Your video content and keywords should always correspond well!

Deliver content that not only hooks viewers but also provides the answers they seek! With well-aligned subtitles and video to match query intent, bouncing rates will decrease as visitors stay longer on your page to explore further - keeping them engaged throughout their journey.

#4 Try to add a few strategically placed keywords in your subtitles, even during dialogue-free moments. 

This can bolster keyword visibility and boost engagement on social media platforms!

#5 Add a video transcript to the video description.

Enhance your video's visibility with the power of transcription! By adding a transcript to your video description, or by using it as a blog post on your webpage, not only do you make sure that Google robots accurately recognize and index important keywords – but you also open up an array of opportunities for viewers. 

From studying purposes (where they can easily look back on key points) to improved content comprehension - transcripts bring numerous advantages that should definitely be taken into account. The good news is that you can get your transcript in no time by downloading it as a text file - recycling your content!

#6 Host your video on the right platform. 

Give your videos the home they deserve - a reliable and fast-loading platform. Make sure to select one that will allow you to upload subtitle files, so you can benefit from video SEO and so viewers can enjoy an effortless experience no matter where in the world they are located!

Key takeaway