How To Generate Transcript From YouTube Videos In 3 Simple Ways

66% of users feel either frustrated, let down, excluded, or upset by inaccessible entertainment - one of the most common issues being no captions. And this can significantly affect the reach of your YouTube channel.

But here's the good news: you can make your audiences less frustrated, watch more of your videos, enjoy your content, and even reach bigger audiences from any country on YouTube with a transcript.

(We mean the claim!)

In this guide, we will teach you how to do just that, you will get a handy strategy on how to get a YouTube transcript as a copy and paste or download as an SRT file (captions file) for use on YouTube or any other platforms.

Additionally, you can get this free checklist on how to use YouTube transcripts to boost your podcast reach.

What Is a YouTube transcript?

A YouTube transcript is a textual representation of the spoken content within a YouTube video. It captures the dialogue, as well as other significant audio cues, in a readable format.

Here are some key features of what a YouTube transcript typically includes;

• Timestamps: A feature that aligns the text with specific moments in the video, allowing perfect sync of the subtitles with the moments in the video, making it easier for viewers to follow along or jump to specific parts.
• Speaker Identification: For videos with multiple speakers, YouTube transcripts may identify who is speaking at each point, providing clarity on the dialogue.
• Text Formatting: YouTube transcripts may use text formatting such as bold or italics to emphasize certain words or phrases. It can also include notations for non-verbal sounds such as laughter, music, sound effects, and other significant audio cues, which provide additional context to the viewer with hearing impairments.
• Multilingual Support: YouTube transcripts can be created in multiple languages, either through translation of the original transcript or by providing subtitles in different languages.

Having understood what a YouTube transcript is, now why is it important for your video?

Why should you use a YouTube transcript?

There are several reasons to invest in YouTube transcripts, we mentioned below some key factors that make a transcript crucial for your YouTube success.

Accessibility For People With Hearing Impairments

According to 3Play Media, over 5% of people in the world's population have disabling hearing loss. That's up to 360 million people that (if any of them use YouTube) your videos could become accessible to them and others who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Transcripts could also help viewers who prefer reading to listening or those who are in noisy or quiet environments where they cannot play audio and enjoy your content.

Searchability On Search Engines

Transcripts are a crucial part of your YouTube SEO. With specific keywords mentioned in your transcript and indexed by the YouTube algorithm, your videos can rank for several search terms mentioned in your transcript that you originally did not optimize your video for.

This is called Latent Semantic Indexing, an algorithmic process used by search engines to understand the relationship between terms and concepts in content.

Here's an example of this;

Notice how none of the search terms appear in the video title or description. That's because those words are included several times in the transcripts of the video.

This underscores the SEO benefits of transcript in making your video more robust and understandable to the algorithm and YouTube search engine.

Educational Use

As a transcript is the written version of what you said in your video, YouTubers who are educationalists or offer content that teaches people, transcripts are useful for these purposes, allowing viewers to follow along with the content more easily, take notes, or reference specific parts of the video.

Translation

Transcripts can be translated into different languages, making your video content accessible to a broader audience across any language you translate your transcript on.

How To Get a YouTube Transcript in 3 Ways

1. YouTube's Built-in Feature

Some of your YouTube videos already have their transcripts automatically generated using the built-in transcript feature on YouTube. But the downside of this is that it may not be 100% accurate and important audio cues could be missed out.

For example, it could miss out on the right spelling of names, significant audio cues, and other important audio elements of a video that audiences with hearing impairments or non-native speakers might need to fully understand the context of your content.

We recommend that you manually check the transcript generated by YouTube, review it, and edit the errors. However, the editing process could be a long stretch, time-consuming, and draining. That's where the next step comes in.

2. Podsqueeze's Transcript Generator

Unlike the hassles that surround YouTube's built-in transcript, Podsqueeze eliminates the editing and the manual input you'd have otherwise encountered when you leave your video's transcript to be automatically generated using YouTube's built-in transcript feature.

You can get a human-level accuracy of your transcript using the Podsqueeze transcript generator. Here's how you can do that;

• Sign up for a Podsqueeze account.
• Click on ‘Convert New Episode’
• Upload your video file and click "Generate Content"
• In just a few minutes, your video will be converted to text.

Just like that, you can get a transcript that is refined, high-quality transcript, free of filler words, and that you can upload to YouTube in minutes.

You can then copy the transcript generated from Podsqueeze and paste it directly to YouTube or download the transcript as an SRT file that can be uploaded as subtitles to YouTube or any other platform.

3. Manual Transcription

Although difficult to work out, manual transcription is also an option for getting your YouTube transcript. It just requires a lot of effort and manual input like playing and pausing the video frequently, typing out the spoken content in a text document, then using a word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs to format the transcripts, and then uploading on YouTube for your specific video.

For many YouTubers, that's too much stress and we recommend going with the automated way of generating transcripts with an AI tool like Podsqueeze.

Best Practices For Creating Quality Transcripts

These are handpicked practices, tips, and recommendations from experts on what to keep in mind when creating a YouTube transcript. It could also work for your content across other industries like podcasting, online courses, education, advertising, entertainment, etc.

1. Proofread and Edit

Regardless of the tool you used to create/generate your YouTube transcript, always proofread to check for errors, misspellings, wrong speaker names, misinterpreting hard accents, etc. This is important to make your transcript serve as an understandable language for those who lack hearing or have hearing impairments.

2. Timestamps and Chapters

Always include timestamps and chapters periodically to make viewers follow along with the video, jump to specific sections, and also chapters get your videos discoverable than what you had originally optimized them for. For example, here’s a video of the tech YouTuber, MKBHD ranking for a search term because he has ‘matching chapters’

3. Avoid Filler Words

The ums, uh, etc in your videos could make viewers frustrated if there's too much of them. And these filler words are not ideal to be in a transcript. You want to remove any filler words - making the transcript more readable.

4. Include Non-Verbal Clues

Verbal cues are important as they convey more than just texts on the screen. Non-verbal cues in transcripts make your video more appealing to viewers who prefer reading substitutes. Some verbal cues include [applause], [music playing], etc.

5. Automate Repetitive Tasks

As YouTubers, time is always a factor that plays a crucial role in determining the success of your channel. That's why you should automate as much as possible any repetitive tasks like formatting, use YouTube auto sync for syncing the transcripts, and video transcription tools like Podsqueeze for getting the whole transcript and a lot more.

6. Translate To Multiple Languages

Many audiences on YouTube prefer local content. To reach these audiences, you need to translate your transcript to the languages of the demographics you want your video to potentially reach.

You can use tools like Google Translate, DeepL Translator, Microsoft Translator, etc to accurately translate your transcript.

Level Up Your YouTube Growth With Podsqueeze

YouTube transcripts can help open up your content to new demographics and audiences and steer the growth of your channel in the right direction.

YouTube and the video industry in general are ever-growing, and this calls for swift reaction from YouTubers and video creators alike to adapt their strategies, approach, and how they perform their business to the growing trends in the video landscape.

Among the changing dynamics of the YouTube sphere is the way you promote your video. Creating a YouTube channel and wishing it miraculously grows isn't how YouTube works. To make YouTube a profitable venture, you need to be proactive with marketing and promoting your videos.

That's why we've built Podsqueeze, an AI co-pilot for your YouTube's growth. It can help generate all the content and assets you need to promote your channel and videos.

From optimized titles, topic idea generation, video description and key points, transcript, short videos, and even social media posts to promote your videos, everything has been built in mind with Podsqueeze.

Create an account today and see how Podsqueeze can help your channel grow. That's all from us now - good luck with your channel!