From Scripts to Subscribers: Mastering the Production of Engaging Educational Videos for YouTube

Easy Ways to Make a Great Educational Video for YouTube

Marion Dubois

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

YouTube is an app that makes it easy for teachers to carry out their work efficiently and conveniently. A teacher should start a YouTube channel because it is beneficial to their students and themselves. The materials or content dished on these channels helps give lessons and instructions in the absence of the teacher, give a detailed explanation and trigger the students’ interest.

Also, it archives all the lessons for a long time and makes them easily accessible by both the present, past, and future students. Students can quickly go back for a review for upcoming exams. Through feedbacks or comments, teachers can provide answers to students with the problem of clarity.

A teacher needs to know what an educational video is, what makes an excellent educational video, and how to make an educational video for YouTube before opening a YouTube channel. Now, let’s delve into it!

Part 1. What’s an Educational Video?

From the name “educational video,” you can coin out that it is a video made for the sole purpose of educating or passing out knowledge for the sake of learning. The primary purpose of these videos is to teach an audience about a particular problem or important topics they want to learn about.

Sometimes brands use this method to advertise their brand while being a source of information.

Part 2. What Makes a Good Educational Video?

An excellent educational video aids the learning process. It triggers learners in analyzing and evaluating concepts provided by the video. Videos are great educational tools that most teachers must adopt due to their role in facilitating the learning process.

To make a good educational video, you should keep the following points in mind:

• Keep your students engaged

An excellent educational video should be eye catchy and exciting to get your student’s undivided attention. You can achieve it in any way, one of which is that you need to put yourself into the teaching mode, which means that you should give out the impression of your excitement for the course content you are talking about. Ask them questions, let them feel involved in the process. Please don’t go ahead talking with a cold tune. It makes them tired of listening or seeing the video.

• Be sure to maintain a right-size of video length

It’s better shorter than longer. Have you ever seen a boring, long movie? It’s almost the same feeling you get seeing a long educational video.

The video should be straightforward to leverage the advantage of this form of learning. One needs to make this video of the right size for easy assimilation by the learner. Depending on the course topic, your video can be between 2 - 20 minutes long.

Most importantly, don’t try to do much and use more straightforward, understandable concepts.

• Stay focused

Making your videos focused and not running around many things helps it pass the information that plays a good role in video length management and engagement. Videos that try to divert from the topic may end up not hitting the nail on the head and not accomplishing their purpose.

• Center your interest on the student’s needs

Any educational content should be centered to meet the needs of the students. That goes beyond creating content, but covers the entirety of satisfying the needs of your learners.

Part 3. How to Make a Great Educational Video for YouTube?

The best and most recommendable video maker for making a great educational video is Wondershare Filmora.It is a video maker that enables you to create videos with effects like transition, filters, motion elements, and titles on your video.

Color grading and speed control of each clip on your video are possible using Filmora. You can apply other features like screen record, split-screen options, audio ducking, keyframing, motion tracking and more with an easy-to-use interface to fit the student’s interest.

To make a great educational video for YouTube, you can achieve this using Filmora. Follow the steps below.

Step 1. Launch Filmora and select the aspect ratio

Launch Filmora by double-clicking on the icon, and start working on a new project by selecting project aspect ratio.

Step 2. Create a new project and import footage

Click the “New Project” icon on the program’s welcome screen and wait for some time for the editor to load.

Then, move to choose your desired aspect ratio and click on the import footage icon located at the left corner of the video editor.

Step 3. Organize your project material

At the bottom of the “My Project” tab, click on “add a new folder”. In that new folder, arrange the footage alphabetically. This reduces time spent browsing files and increases efficiency.

Step 4. Preview and edit your video

Press the play icon to preview the video clip. Trim your video clip to the desired video size by dragging the end of the video clip left or right.

Then add customized text and add effects to the video if needed. An amazing effect can be added to each clip of the video to create an outstanding video.

Step 5. Export and share the video

When you’re okay with the already made video, click the Export button. Choose the YouTube option to upload it easily from the Filmora program.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, the process of creating an educational video requires that you pay attention to some things to create an excellent educational video that achieves the learning goal. Once you’ve learned what it means to make an educational video, how to go about it wouldn’t be something to worry about.

Thus, with the steps mentioned above, how to make a great educational video for YouTube has been answered. Now, you can go ahead and make amazing educational videos by yourself.

Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

YouTube is an app that makes it easy for teachers to carry out their work efficiently and conveniently. A teacher should start a YouTube channel because it is beneficial to their students and themselves. The materials or content dished on these channels helps give lessons and instructions in the absence of the teacher, give a detailed explanation and trigger the students’ interest.

Also, it archives all the lessons for a long time and makes them easily accessible by both the present, past, and future students. Students can quickly go back for a review for upcoming exams. Through feedbacks or comments, teachers can provide answers to students with the problem of clarity.

A teacher needs to know what an educational video is, what makes an excellent educational video, and how to make an educational video for YouTube before opening a YouTube channel. Now, let’s delve into it!

Part 1. What’s an Educational Video?

From the name “educational video,” you can coin out that it is a video made for the sole purpose of educating or passing out knowledge for the sake of learning. The primary purpose of these videos is to teach an audience about a particular problem or important topics they want to learn about.

Sometimes brands use this method to advertise their brand while being a source of information.

Part 2. What Makes a Good Educational Video?

An excellent educational video aids the learning process. It triggers learners in analyzing and evaluating concepts provided by the video. Videos are great educational tools that most teachers must adopt due to their role in facilitating the learning process.

To make a good educational video, you should keep the following points in mind:

• Keep your students engaged

An excellent educational video should be eye catchy and exciting to get your student’s undivided attention. You can achieve it in any way, one of which is that you need to put yourself into the teaching mode, which means that you should give out the impression of your excitement for the course content you are talking about. Ask them questions, let them feel involved in the process. Please don’t go ahead talking with a cold tune. It makes them tired of listening or seeing the video.

• Be sure to maintain a right-size of video length

It’s better shorter than longer. Have you ever seen a boring, long movie? It’s almost the same feeling you get seeing a long educational video.

The video should be straightforward to leverage the advantage of this form of learning. One needs to make this video of the right size for easy assimilation by the learner. Depending on the course topic, your video can be between 2 - 20 minutes long.

Most importantly, don’t try to do much and use more straightforward, understandable concepts.

• Stay focused

Making your videos focused and not running around many things helps it pass the information that plays a good role in video length management and engagement. Videos that try to divert from the topic may end up not hitting the nail on the head and not accomplishing their purpose.

• Center your interest on the student’s needs

Any educational content should be centered to meet the needs of the students. That goes beyond creating content, but covers the entirety of satisfying the needs of your learners.

Part 3. How to Make a Great Educational Video for YouTube?

The best and most recommendable video maker for making a great educational video is Wondershare Filmora.It is a video maker that enables you to create videos with effects like transition, filters, motion elements, and titles on your video.

Color grading and speed control of each clip on your video are possible using Filmora. You can apply other features like screen record, split-screen options, audio ducking, keyframing, motion tracking and more with an easy-to-use interface to fit the student’s interest.

To make a great educational video for YouTube, you can achieve this using Filmora. Follow the steps below.

Step 1. Launch Filmora and select the aspect ratio

Launch Filmora by double-clicking on the icon, and start working on a new project by selecting project aspect ratio.

Step 2. Create a new project and import footage

Click the “New Project” icon on the program’s welcome screen and wait for some time for the editor to load.

Then, move to choose your desired aspect ratio and click on the import footage icon located at the left corner of the video editor.

Step 3. Organize your project material

At the bottom of the “My Project” tab, click on “add a new folder”. In that new folder, arrange the footage alphabetically. This reduces time spent browsing files and increases efficiency.

Step 4. Preview and edit your video

Press the play icon to preview the video clip. Trim your video clip to the desired video size by dragging the end of the video clip left or right.

Then add customized text and add effects to the video if needed. An amazing effect can be added to each clip of the video to create an outstanding video.

Step 5. Export and share the video

When you’re okay with the already made video, click the Export button. Choose the YouTube option to upload it easily from the Filmora program.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, the process of creating an educational video requires that you pay attention to some things to create an excellent educational video that achieves the learning goal. Once you’ve learned what it means to make an educational video, how to go about it wouldn’t be something to worry about.

Thus, with the steps mentioned above, how to make a great educational video for YouTube has been answered. Now, you can go ahead and make amazing educational videos by yourself.

Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

YouTube is an app that makes it easy for teachers to carry out their work efficiently and conveniently. A teacher should start a YouTube channel because it is beneficial to their students and themselves. The materials or content dished on these channels helps give lessons and instructions in the absence of the teacher, give a detailed explanation and trigger the students’ interest.

Also, it archives all the lessons for a long time and makes them easily accessible by both the present, past, and future students. Students can quickly go back for a review for upcoming exams. Through feedbacks or comments, teachers can provide answers to students with the problem of clarity.

A teacher needs to know what an educational video is, what makes an excellent educational video, and how to make an educational video for YouTube before opening a YouTube channel. Now, let’s delve into it!

Part 1. What’s an Educational Video?

From the name “educational video,” you can coin out that it is a video made for the sole purpose of educating or passing out knowledge for the sake of learning. The primary purpose of these videos is to teach an audience about a particular problem or important topics they want to learn about.

Sometimes brands use this method to advertise their brand while being a source of information.

Part 2. What Makes a Good Educational Video?

An excellent educational video aids the learning process. It triggers learners in analyzing and evaluating concepts provided by the video. Videos are great educational tools that most teachers must adopt due to their role in facilitating the learning process.

To make a good educational video, you should keep the following points in mind:

• Keep your students engaged

An excellent educational video should be eye catchy and exciting to get your student’s undivided attention. You can achieve it in any way, one of which is that you need to put yourself into the teaching mode, which means that you should give out the impression of your excitement for the course content you are talking about. Ask them questions, let them feel involved in the process. Please don’t go ahead talking with a cold tune. It makes them tired of listening or seeing the video.

• Be sure to maintain a right-size of video length

It’s better shorter than longer. Have you ever seen a boring, long movie? It’s almost the same feeling you get seeing a long educational video.

The video should be straightforward to leverage the advantage of this form of learning. One needs to make this video of the right size for easy assimilation by the learner. Depending on the course topic, your video can be between 2 - 20 minutes long.

Most importantly, don’t try to do much and use more straightforward, understandable concepts.

• Stay focused

Making your videos focused and not running around many things helps it pass the information that plays a good role in video length management and engagement. Videos that try to divert from the topic may end up not hitting the nail on the head and not accomplishing their purpose.

• Center your interest on the student’s needs

Any educational content should be centered to meet the needs of the students. That goes beyond creating content, but covers the entirety of satisfying the needs of your learners.

Part 3. How to Make a Great Educational Video for YouTube?

The best and most recommendable video maker for making a great educational video is Wondershare Filmora.It is a video maker that enables you to create videos with effects like transition, filters, motion elements, and titles on your video.

Color grading and speed control of each clip on your video are possible using Filmora. You can apply other features like screen record, split-screen options, audio ducking, keyframing, motion tracking and more with an easy-to-use interface to fit the student’s interest.

To make a great educational video for YouTube, you can achieve this using Filmora. Follow the steps below.

Step 1. Launch Filmora and select the aspect ratio

Launch Filmora by double-clicking on the icon, and start working on a new project by selecting project aspect ratio.

Step 2. Create a new project and import footage

Click the “New Project” icon on the program’s welcome screen and wait for some time for the editor to load.

Then, move to choose your desired aspect ratio and click on the import footage icon located at the left corner of the video editor.

Step 3. Organize your project material

At the bottom of the “My Project” tab, click on “add a new folder”. In that new folder, arrange the footage alphabetically. This reduces time spent browsing files and increases efficiency.

Step 4. Preview and edit your video

Press the play icon to preview the video clip. Trim your video clip to the desired video size by dragging the end of the video clip left or right.

Then add customized text and add effects to the video if needed. An amazing effect can be added to each clip of the video to create an outstanding video.

Step 5. Export and share the video

When you’re okay with the already made video, click the Export button. Choose the YouTube option to upload it easily from the Filmora program.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, the process of creating an educational video requires that you pay attention to some things to create an excellent educational video that achieves the learning goal. Once you’ve learned what it means to make an educational video, how to go about it wouldn’t be something to worry about.

Thus, with the steps mentioned above, how to make a great educational video for YouTube has been answered. Now, you can go ahead and make amazing educational videos by yourself.

Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

YouTube is an app that makes it easy for teachers to carry out their work efficiently and conveniently. A teacher should start a YouTube channel because it is beneficial to their students and themselves. The materials or content dished on these channels helps give lessons and instructions in the absence of the teacher, give a detailed explanation and trigger the students’ interest.

Also, it archives all the lessons for a long time and makes them easily accessible by both the present, past, and future students. Students can quickly go back for a review for upcoming exams. Through feedbacks or comments, teachers can provide answers to students with the problem of clarity.

A teacher needs to know what an educational video is, what makes an excellent educational video, and how to make an educational video for YouTube before opening a YouTube channel. Now, let’s delve into it!

Part 1. What’s an Educational Video?

From the name “educational video,” you can coin out that it is a video made for the sole purpose of educating or passing out knowledge for the sake of learning. The primary purpose of these videos is to teach an audience about a particular problem or important topics they want to learn about.

Sometimes brands use this method to advertise their brand while being a source of information.

Part 2. What Makes a Good Educational Video?

An excellent educational video aids the learning process. It triggers learners in analyzing and evaluating concepts provided by the video. Videos are great educational tools that most teachers must adopt due to their role in facilitating the learning process.

To make a good educational video, you should keep the following points in mind:

• Keep your students engaged

An excellent educational video should be eye catchy and exciting to get your student’s undivided attention. You can achieve it in any way, one of which is that you need to put yourself into the teaching mode, which means that you should give out the impression of your excitement for the course content you are talking about. Ask them questions, let them feel involved in the process. Please don’t go ahead talking with a cold tune. It makes them tired of listening or seeing the video.

• Be sure to maintain a right-size of video length

It’s better shorter than longer. Have you ever seen a boring, long movie? It’s almost the same feeling you get seeing a long educational video.

The video should be straightforward to leverage the advantage of this form of learning. One needs to make this video of the right size for easy assimilation by the learner. Depending on the course topic, your video can be between 2 - 20 minutes long.

Most importantly, don’t try to do much and use more straightforward, understandable concepts.

• Stay focused

Making your videos focused and not running around many things helps it pass the information that plays a good role in video length management and engagement. Videos that try to divert from the topic may end up not hitting the nail on the head and not accomplishing their purpose.

• Center your interest on the student’s needs

Any educational content should be centered to meet the needs of the students. That goes beyond creating content, but covers the entirety of satisfying the needs of your learners.

Part 3. How to Make a Great Educational Video for YouTube?

The best and most recommendable video maker for making a great educational video is Wondershare Filmora.It is a video maker that enables you to create videos with effects like transition, filters, motion elements, and titles on your video.

Color grading and speed control of each clip on your video are possible using Filmora. You can apply other features like screen record, split-screen options, audio ducking, keyframing, motion tracking and more with an easy-to-use interface to fit the student’s interest.

To make a great educational video for YouTube, you can achieve this using Filmora. Follow the steps below.

Step 1. Launch Filmora and select the aspect ratio

Launch Filmora by double-clicking on the icon, and start working on a new project by selecting project aspect ratio.

Step 2. Create a new project and import footage

Click the “New Project” icon on the program’s welcome screen and wait for some time for the editor to load.

Then, move to choose your desired aspect ratio and click on the import footage icon located at the left corner of the video editor.

Step 3. Organize your project material

At the bottom of the “My Project” tab, click on “add a new folder”. In that new folder, arrange the footage alphabetically. This reduces time spent browsing files and increases efficiency.

Step 4. Preview and edit your video

Press the play icon to preview the video clip. Trim your video clip to the desired video size by dragging the end of the video clip left or right.

Then add customized text and add effects to the video if needed. An amazing effect can be added to each clip of the video to create an outstanding video.

Step 5. Export and share the video

When you’re okay with the already made video, click the Export button. Choose the YouTube option to upload it easily from the Filmora program.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, the process of creating an educational video requires that you pay attention to some things to create an excellent educational video that achieves the learning goal. Once you’ve learned what it means to make an educational video, how to go about it wouldn’t be something to worry about.

Thus, with the steps mentioned above, how to make a great educational video for YouTube has been answered. Now, you can go ahead and make amazing educational videos by yourself.

Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Marion Dubois

Mastery in Captioning: A YouTube Creator’s Handbook

How To Add Captions to YouTube Videos

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

By captioning your YouTube videos you help to make them accessible to more potential viewers. Subtitles are useful to viewers who have hearing impairments, whose first language is different from yours, or who are unable to watch your video with sound. Closed captioning can also be useful for you as a YouTuber because it helps with your SEO, or search engine optimization. Practicing better SEO can get your videos ranked higher in search results. Google and YouTube both index subtitles and transcripts much like they do your video’s description, unless you use automated captions.

This article will first explain how you can turn on subtitles for the videos you watch and then walk you through adding captions to your own videos.

How To Turn On Captions on YouTube

In order for you to be able to view subtitles for a YouTube video the uploader of the video will need to have added them, unless you change your account settings to display automatic captions.

To toggle subtitles on and off click on the Closed Captioning icon in the bottom right of your video player.

If the creator of the video has not added captions then you can enable automatic captions by going into your Account Settings and selecting Playback. Check the box next to Always Show Captions, and then check Show Automatic Captions by Speech Recognition. These captions may be flawed, but you will still be able to see the more accurate user submitted captions on videos that have them. The Always Show Captions feature may be useful not only to the hearing impaired, but to users who do not speak the same language as the video producer.

If you want to change the language of the subtitles click on the settings icon (the one that looks like a gear) next to the closed captioning icon and choose your language next to Subtitles/CC . If the language you want is not there select Auto-Translate and then pick a language. Google Translate will be used to generate subtitles in your chosen language.

Adding YouTube Captions in 4 Steps

1. Go to Video Manager in your Creator Studio and then look at your videos. Decide which one you want to add captions to.

2. Click on the drop-down menu next to the video you want to add captions to and choose Subtitles and CC.

3. Select Add New Subtitles or CC.

4. Choose whether to create your captions, upload a file that has them, transcribe your video, use automatic captioning, or use captioning software.

Create Subtitles or Closed Captions will allow you to create your subtitles on YouTube.

Upload A File allows you to upload a pre-made subtitle file from your computer. Supported file types include SubRip (.srt) and SubViewer (.sbv). You cannot use a word or PDF document for your subtitles.

Transcribe and Set Timings is where you can type a transcript of your video and set timings to sync it to your video. This differs from Create Subtitles or Closed Captions in that your transcript is all typed in to one text field.

Use Automatic Captioning will automatically use speech recognition technology to create captions. You can edit these auto-generated captions later if there are mistakes.

Use Captioning Software or Services is what you choose if you want to use a program or service to create the subtitles for your video.

The easiest way to add subtitles to your videos is to use Automatic Captioning. However, Automatic Captioning is imperfect and may result in your viewers getting a sloppy, skewed, interpretation of your video. Automatic captions are also not indexed by YouTube and Google the way subtitles you create or upload are. This means that they will not have any value to your SEO strategy. If you do not input your own captions or transcript you are missing out on an opportunity for better search engine rankings. Automatic Captions are great if you do not have time to input subtitles and need a temporary solution, though.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

By captioning your YouTube videos you help to make them accessible to more potential viewers. Subtitles are useful to viewers who have hearing impairments, whose first language is different from yours, or who are unable to watch your video with sound. Closed captioning can also be useful for you as a YouTuber because it helps with your SEO, or search engine optimization. Practicing better SEO can get your videos ranked higher in search results. Google and YouTube both index subtitles and transcripts much like they do your video’s description, unless you use automated captions.

This article will first explain how you can turn on subtitles for the videos you watch and then walk you through adding captions to your own videos.

How To Turn On Captions on YouTube

In order for you to be able to view subtitles for a YouTube video the uploader of the video will need to have added them, unless you change your account settings to display automatic captions.

To toggle subtitles on and off click on the Closed Captioning icon in the bottom right of your video player.

If the creator of the video has not added captions then you can enable automatic captions by going into your Account Settings and selecting Playback. Check the box next to Always Show Captions, and then check Show Automatic Captions by Speech Recognition. These captions may be flawed, but you will still be able to see the more accurate user submitted captions on videos that have them. The Always Show Captions feature may be useful not only to the hearing impaired, but to users who do not speak the same language as the video producer.

If you want to change the language of the subtitles click on the settings icon (the one that looks like a gear) next to the closed captioning icon and choose your language next to Subtitles/CC . If the language you want is not there select Auto-Translate and then pick a language. Google Translate will be used to generate subtitles in your chosen language.

Adding YouTube Captions in 4 Steps

1. Go to Video Manager in your Creator Studio and then look at your videos. Decide which one you want to add captions to.

2. Click on the drop-down menu next to the video you want to add captions to and choose Subtitles and CC.

3. Select Add New Subtitles or CC.

4. Choose whether to create your captions, upload a file that has them, transcribe your video, use automatic captioning, or use captioning software.

Create Subtitles or Closed Captions will allow you to create your subtitles on YouTube.

Upload A File allows you to upload a pre-made subtitle file from your computer. Supported file types include SubRip (.srt) and SubViewer (.sbv). You cannot use a word or PDF document for your subtitles.

Transcribe and Set Timings is where you can type a transcript of your video and set timings to sync it to your video. This differs from Create Subtitles or Closed Captions in that your transcript is all typed in to one text field.

Use Automatic Captioning will automatically use speech recognition technology to create captions. You can edit these auto-generated captions later if there are mistakes.

Use Captioning Software or Services is what you choose if you want to use a program or service to create the subtitles for your video.

The easiest way to add subtitles to your videos is to use Automatic Captioning. However, Automatic Captioning is imperfect and may result in your viewers getting a sloppy, skewed, interpretation of your video. Automatic captions are also not indexed by YouTube and Google the way subtitles you create or upload are. This means that they will not have any value to your SEO strategy. If you do not input your own captions or transcript you are missing out on an opportunity for better search engine rankings. Automatic Captions are great if you do not have time to input subtitles and need a temporary solution, though.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

By captioning your YouTube videos you help to make them accessible to more potential viewers. Subtitles are useful to viewers who have hearing impairments, whose first language is different from yours, or who are unable to watch your video with sound. Closed captioning can also be useful for you as a YouTuber because it helps with your SEO, or search engine optimization. Practicing better SEO can get your videos ranked higher in search results. Google and YouTube both index subtitles and transcripts much like they do your video’s description, unless you use automated captions.

This article will first explain how you can turn on subtitles for the videos you watch and then walk you through adding captions to your own videos.

How To Turn On Captions on YouTube

In order for you to be able to view subtitles for a YouTube video the uploader of the video will need to have added them, unless you change your account settings to display automatic captions.

To toggle subtitles on and off click on the Closed Captioning icon in the bottom right of your video player.

If the creator of the video has not added captions then you can enable automatic captions by going into your Account Settings and selecting Playback. Check the box next to Always Show Captions, and then check Show Automatic Captions by Speech Recognition. These captions may be flawed, but you will still be able to see the more accurate user submitted captions on videos that have them. The Always Show Captions feature may be useful not only to the hearing impaired, but to users who do not speak the same language as the video producer.

If you want to change the language of the subtitles click on the settings icon (the one that looks like a gear) next to the closed captioning icon and choose your language next to Subtitles/CC . If the language you want is not there select Auto-Translate and then pick a language. Google Translate will be used to generate subtitles in your chosen language.

Adding YouTube Captions in 4 Steps

1. Go to Video Manager in your Creator Studio and then look at your videos. Decide which one you want to add captions to.

2. Click on the drop-down menu next to the video you want to add captions to and choose Subtitles and CC.

3. Select Add New Subtitles or CC.

4. Choose whether to create your captions, upload a file that has them, transcribe your video, use automatic captioning, or use captioning software.

Create Subtitles or Closed Captions will allow you to create your subtitles on YouTube.

Upload A File allows you to upload a pre-made subtitle file from your computer. Supported file types include SubRip (.srt) and SubViewer (.sbv). You cannot use a word or PDF document for your subtitles.

Transcribe and Set Timings is where you can type a transcript of your video and set timings to sync it to your video. This differs from Create Subtitles or Closed Captions in that your transcript is all typed in to one text field.

Use Automatic Captioning will automatically use speech recognition technology to create captions. You can edit these auto-generated captions later if there are mistakes.

Use Captioning Software or Services is what you choose if you want to use a program or service to create the subtitles for your video.

The easiest way to add subtitles to your videos is to use Automatic Captioning. However, Automatic Captioning is imperfect and may result in your viewers getting a sloppy, skewed, interpretation of your video. Automatic captions are also not indexed by YouTube and Google the way subtitles you create or upload are. This means that they will not have any value to your SEO strategy. If you do not input your own captions or transcript you are missing out on an opportunity for better search engine rankings. Automatic Captions are great if you do not have time to input subtitles and need a temporary solution, though.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

By captioning your YouTube videos you help to make them accessible to more potential viewers. Subtitles are useful to viewers who have hearing impairments, whose first language is different from yours, or who are unable to watch your video with sound. Closed captioning can also be useful for you as a YouTuber because it helps with your SEO, or search engine optimization. Practicing better SEO can get your videos ranked higher in search results. Google and YouTube both index subtitles and transcripts much like they do your video’s description, unless you use automated captions.

This article will first explain how you can turn on subtitles for the videos you watch and then walk you through adding captions to your own videos.

How To Turn On Captions on YouTube

In order for you to be able to view subtitles for a YouTube video the uploader of the video will need to have added them, unless you change your account settings to display automatic captions.

To toggle subtitles on and off click on the Closed Captioning icon in the bottom right of your video player.

If the creator of the video has not added captions then you can enable automatic captions by going into your Account Settings and selecting Playback. Check the box next to Always Show Captions, and then check Show Automatic Captions by Speech Recognition. These captions may be flawed, but you will still be able to see the more accurate user submitted captions on videos that have them. The Always Show Captions feature may be useful not only to the hearing impaired, but to users who do not speak the same language as the video producer.

If you want to change the language of the subtitles click on the settings icon (the one that looks like a gear) next to the closed captioning icon and choose your language next to Subtitles/CC . If the language you want is not there select Auto-Translate and then pick a language. Google Translate will be used to generate subtitles in your chosen language.

Adding YouTube Captions in 4 Steps

1. Go to Video Manager in your Creator Studio and then look at your videos. Decide which one you want to add captions to.

2. Click on the drop-down menu next to the video you want to add captions to and choose Subtitles and CC.

3. Select Add New Subtitles or CC.

4. Choose whether to create your captions, upload a file that has them, transcribe your video, use automatic captioning, or use captioning software.

Create Subtitles or Closed Captions will allow you to create your subtitles on YouTube.

Upload A File allows you to upload a pre-made subtitle file from your computer. Supported file types include SubRip (.srt) and SubViewer (.sbv). You cannot use a word or PDF document for your subtitles.

Transcribe and Set Timings is where you can type a transcript of your video and set timings to sync it to your video. This differs from Create Subtitles or Closed Captions in that your transcript is all typed in to one text field.

Use Automatic Captioning will automatically use speech recognition technology to create captions. You can edit these auto-generated captions later if there are mistakes.

Use Captioning Software or Services is what you choose if you want to use a program or service to create the subtitles for your video.

The easiest way to add subtitles to your videos is to use Automatic Captioning. However, Automatic Captioning is imperfect and may result in your viewers getting a sloppy, skewed, interpretation of your video. Automatic captions are also not indexed by YouTube and Google the way subtitles you create or upload are. This means that they will not have any value to your SEO strategy. If you do not input your own captions or transcript you are missing out on an opportunity for better search engine rankings. Automatic Captions are great if you do not have time to input subtitles and need a temporary solution, though.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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