Making your online videos more accessible with text overlays.
Have you seen some recent Nike ads? After NBA legend Kobe Bryant died, Nike produced a blacked-out ad with running words on them, highlighting Bryant’s career highs and lows with only text and background audio. There were no visuals on them except the words “Laker Forever,” “Fadeaways Forever,” “Dad Forever,” and “Mamba Forever,” among many other things.
Such was a powerful ad that Nike did it again with a recent statement. But on social media, the retail giant isn’t the only one using captions to send a message across. The Tasty cooking series has been doing that, as well as many other online video contents.
Aren’t you aware that captions have become an invaluable piece of video consumption? An SEO company will tell you that if you are going to produce video content, you better put text overlays on it. It’s more than just about people getting accustomed to seeing these captions.
It’s more than just following what others are doing or what seems to be trending these days. Text overlays have a purpose, one that has been often overlooked by many websites: accessibility. Adding subtitles to your videos is the simplest way to ensure that everyone who wants to understand your videos better can do so.
Greater Reach:
People on the Internet are consuming videos like crazy. In February, YouTube said that over five billion videos are being watched every day. But your videos have an even greater advantage if it has captions because some 350 million people worldwide who are deaf or hard of hearing will understand it. Your video can also reach non-English speakers both in and out of the country.
Those who watch videos without audio (either because they are commuting or working) will also benefit from captions. Remember that 65% of online videos are being watched through mobile devices. A large number of web users are even scrolling through these videos without any intent to turn on the sounds. Captions will allow them to watch the videos without turning the volume on.
Better Comprehension:
Captions help viewers remember concepts better. They’re able to grasp complex topics and retain information when they read the captions. There are fewer misunderstandings with what you hope for them to do when the words are clearly written on the screen. Even if they don’t have to, people still prefer to watch videos with subtitles. Netflix has propagated this practice even further. Simply put, people understand videos with subtitles better.
Improved SEO:
Subtitles are great for search engine optimization, too. Videos alone are being favored by Google over other types of content on the web. But by using a keyword strategy in the script and the transcript of that script (which should be posted on the description part of the video), you are improving your video’s chance to rank high on search engine results. This means your page is one of the first links that web users will see when they use the keyword in their queries.
Text overlays are an important component of online videos. This is not a passing trend. It is here to stay.