6 Reasons Your Videos Need Subtitles in 2023

You are constantly recording videos and trying to promote them on social media, optimizing the title, description and on online communities, but maybe you still don’t see the results you are looking for. 

What’s the ideal way to get results? What exactly do you need to do to achieve this? The real answer is to add subtitles. As interesting as it sounds, adding subtitles to a video makes a real difference and is especially helpful when your audience is watching videos without sound in public, or needs it in another language. 

Well, let’s not wait any further and dive deeper into this article to learn more about why you should never forget to include subtitles in your videos. 

  • 1. Not everyone can hear your video 

Did you know that nearly 20% of the world’s population has a hearing disability? That’s quite a large number and when someone can’t hear, they obviously won’t be watching your videos if you don’t include subtitles in them. 

Moreover, if you find it challenging to add subtitles to your videos, you can use the software. Keep in mind that each software has its own accuracy and you need to carefully check it out. For example, if you add subtitles to a video with Happy Scribe’s software, you’ll get an accuracy of around 85% in around five minutes. Human-made subtitles have an accuracy rate of around 99% in a one-day turnaround time. 

  • 2. Subtitles can help with SEO  

Caption files are excellent when they’re added to your videos and are indexed by Google. Let’s not forget to mention that also increase engagement levels and have a positive effect on social shares, including call-to-actions (CTAs) that help boost SEO rankings tool. SEO is a crucial element in the digital marketing world and without it, your content won’t ever be as good as it seems. 

Therefore, if you want to be found much easier through online searches for your videos, consider adding subtitles to your videos. 

  • 3. People are not always alone 

You need to know that most people are actually busy with their schedules and might  be alone to watch videos all the time. Roughly 70% of people watch videos without sound in public areas and 25% with the sound off in private areas. 

  • 4. Subtitles can clarify the video much easier 

Users understand videos much better whenever there are subtitles included and something you should always remember is that everyone has different learning abilities. Some people prefer to watch videos without sound and others like to listen. Therefore, the divided preferences are what make you need to take action and satisfy both sides. 

However, if your videos don’t have any subtitles, those who like to watch videos without sound or read subtitles won’t watch your videos. In this case, companies who have subtitled videos will always better fit the preferences of their target audience compared to if they didn’t include them. 

Subtitles allow businesses to visualize what they are trying to say and have much more impact, making it easier to impact the preferences of people and further encourage them to buy their product or service. 

  • 5. Not everyone might speak the same language as you 

You might have millions of views, but that doesn’t mean everyone speaks the same language as you. Subtitles can translate and even if the user doesn’t speak your language, they can understand what your videos mean through the subtitles. However, if they don’t understand, they won’t consider watching your video and consider that this may not be only one user, but many. 

As of now, the top five most spoken languages in the world are: 

  • – English
  • – Chinese
  • – Hindi
  • – Spanish
  • – French 

The entire world doesn’t speak English, so you need to know that you can’t get away with English at all times. 

  • 6. Subtitles can increase social reach 

Subtitles can increase social reach and increase social engagement by 40% and make 80% more likely to watch your video until the end. In short, they make you perform better in all measures. Subtitles increase the amount of time someone watches a video, the overall view time and increases the number of clicks in a video. 

How do you effectively create subtitles for your videos 

Whenever you create subtitles for your videos, you can do them in the following ways: 

  • – Manually: When using audio to text converter, it allows you to either automatically or manually transcribe your videos. Manually doing so is time-consuming, but if you want to increase accuracy levels, you can consider it. However, you’ll need to know how the interface of the software works. 
  • – Automatically: Automatically adding subtitles to your video is less time-consuming, but at the same time has a lower accuracy rate than manually adding subtitles. Each software has a different level of accuracy, so you must read the details before you choose which software to use. You never want to risk a low accuracy rate over time because it might change the meaning of the video’s content. 
  • – Add descriptions if you need to: If your video contains something that your viewers need to know more about, include it in the description. You always want to be clear and avoid any misunderstandings. 
  • – Limit the length: Don’t make your subtitles too long. You don’t want your viewers to get distracted by them. If you want your viewers to not get distracted by the subtitles, make sure to keep them short, so that viewers don’t lose focus. 

The final cutdown 

These are the six reasons you need subtitles in your videos and why they are important. Nowadays, almost all videos have subtitles in them. Not only do they make translations easier, but they also allow you to reach a broader audience, breaking internal boundaries and making your content accessible to everyone. 

About The Author: 

Tony Ademi is a freelance SEO content and copywriter. He has been in the writing industry for three years and has managed to write hundreds of SEO-optimized articles. Moreover, he has written articles that have ranked #1 on Google. Tony’s primary concern when writing an article is to do extensive research and ensure that the reader is engaged until the end.