HOW TO ADD SUBTITLES, CAPTIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS TO YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEO

HOW TO ADD SUBTITLES, CAPTIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS TO YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEO

A key element in building and maintaining a strong subscriber base on YouTube is to make your content as accessible to a wide audience as possible.

This means adding subtitles, captions, and translations to your YouTube video to allow viewers to enjoy your content regardless of the language they speak, or any other accessibility needs they might have.

While it can seem like a lot of effort, we promise it’s worth it! In just a few quick steps you can add subtitles to your YouTube video, add closed captions, and translate your content into various languages.

And if you don’t have the time or energy to do this yourself, you can always hire a third party to do it for you. Just be sure to source them from a reputable site, or you can even have a viewer volunteer to assist you.


Let’s get started!

HOW TO ADD SUBTITLES OR CAPTIONS TO YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEO

Adding subtitles or captions to your YouTube video is super simple. Just follow the steps below:

  1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
  2. From the left menu, select Subtitles.
  3. Click the video that you'd like to edit.
  4. Click ADD LANGUAGE and select your language.
  5. Under subtitles, click ADD.

HOW TO EDIT AUTOMATIC CAPTIONS ON YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEO

If YouTube’s automatic captions are incorrect, you can easily edit them using the steps below:

  1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
  2. From the left menu, select Subtitles.
  3. Click the video you want to add captions or subtitles to.
  4. Under “Subtitles”, click More next to the subtitles you want to edit.
  5. Review automatic captions and edit or remove any parts that haven't been properly transcribed.

Keep in mind: If your video doesn't generate automatic captions, it could be due to one or more of the following reasons:

  • The captions aren't available yet due to processing complex audio in the video.
  • Automatic captions don't support the language in the video.
  • The video is too long.
  • The video has poor sound quality or YouTube doesn't recognize the speech.
  • There’s a long period of silence at the beginning of the video.
  • There are multiple speakers whose speech overlaps or multiple languages at the same time.

HOW TO ADD TRANSLATIONS TO YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEO

You can add translations to your YouTube video to help reach a wider audience using the steps below:

  1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
  2. From the left Menu, select Subtitles.
  3. Select a video.
  4. If you haven’t selected the language for a video, you’ll be asked to choose the language and Confirm.
  5. Select Add language and select the language you’d like to translate to.
  6. Under “Title & description”, select Add.
  7. Enter the translated title and description, and select Publish.

And if your video language was incorrectly set, you can update this information as well:

  1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
  2. From the left menu, select Content.
  3. Click a video’s thumbnail.
  4. At the bottom of the page, click SHOW MORE.
  5. Choose the video's language from the Video language section and Save.

And that’s it! By following the steps above to add subtitles, captions, and translations to your YouTube video, you’re one step closer to reaching a wider audience and earning more loyal subscribers.

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