For a sample of what closed captioning looks like, you can click on the viewing options button at the bottom-right of your video player in YouTube.

YouTube closed captioning button

Most people know that it’s important to label your video with keywords in the title and tags to help with the search engine optimization, but there’s another thing that can also help google index your videos so it’s easier for people to find them. What is the magic ingredient I’m talking about? Captions. Not only do they help out your hearing-impaired audience, but they also provide even more keywords for google to draw from. Here’s how I added captions for my video, “FCP Muscle Memory.” I’m copying the steps below from YouTube’s support page and will be adding in my comments in RED to explain how I’ve been able to make this process work for me.

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Here's the .txt file I used for the transcript to my video "FCP Muscle Memory"

Here's the .txt file I uploaded for the transcript to my video "FCP Muscle Memory"

Once you have the files, log into your YouTube account to upload them: AND TO CREATE YOUR FILE, TYPE OUT THE WORDS THAT ARE SPOKEN IN YOUR VIDEO USING A STANDARD WORD PROCESSOR AND SAVE THE FILE AS A .TXT DOCUMENT

  1. Mouse over the ‘Account’ link in the upper right corner of every page.
  2. Click ‘My Videos’. You will then be directed to a page showing your uploaded videos.
  3. Find the video to which you’d like to add captions/subtitles, then click the ‘Captions’ button.
  4. Click the “Add New Captions or Transcript” button.
  5. Click the ‘Browse’ button and find the caption/subtitle or transcript file to upload THIS WILL BE THE .TXT FILE MENTIONED ABOVE. If you are uploading a transcript (no timecodes), select “Transcript file”, otherwise, select “Caption file”. I RECOMMEND KEEPING IT SIMPLE AND SELECTING THE “TRANSCRIPT” OPTION.
  6. Select the appropriate language. If you wish, you can also enter a track name. I HAVEN’T EXPERIMENTED WITH THIS, BUT I DEFINITELY SEE THE VALUE IN UPLOADING YOUR TRANSCRIPT IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES TO APPEAL TO AS BROAD OF AN AUDIENCE AS POSSIBLE.
  7. Click the ‘Upload File’ button.