As predicted, online video is taking over the Internet and it shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, Cisco predicts that video traffic will be 82 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021, up from 73 percent in 2016. If video isn't already a part of your HVAC company's marketing strategy, then it's about time you get ready for your closeup! And, once you are using video, don't overlook the importance of creating a caption or transcript file for each and every video that you want to be found online.  

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Creating a ".srt" file with your video's captions can be easy, if a bit time consuming. But, since being ranked on the first page of Google search is so important for businesses like HVAC contractors with local customers and plenty of competition, you don't want to skip this crucial step because caption files will improve your video's performance and boost its SEO value. Here are a few reasons why:

Search is Still King

Search is still the #1 driver of traffic to sites with content. And, when it comes to big-ticket items like HVAC systems, you better believe your customers are involved in some deep dives. Since video is such an effective marketing tool, you need to give your video its best chance of ranking highly in search and attracting potential customers to your website.

Without a transcript, all search engines know about your video are the title, descriptions and tags that you give it. Uploading and adding a text version of the dialogue enables search engines to crawl and index your video's content and rank it accordingly in search results, just like they do for your website and blog. And, just like your website and blog, the more keywords you use in your video - the better. 

Captions Increase Attention and Audience

It's obvious that using captions with your video opens up its audience to those who might be deaf of hearing impaired. However, it may not be so obvious that most people who watch video online do so from a mobile device or another situation where listening to sound is inconventent. For instance, as much as 85 percent of Facebook video views happen with the sound off. 

Whomever may be drawn to your video will likely watch more of it because there are captions. Facebook also performed a study that found that captioned videos lead to a 12 percent increase in view time. Considering the current state of human attention spans, this is a pretty big boost.

Captions Lead to Better Engagement

Since captions are credited for increased view times, it goes hand-in-hand with better engagement. The more time someone spends on your site, the more search engines will notice, which could lead to a more authoritative page rank. 

When it comes to sharing your captioned videos on social media, they also tend to garner more likes, shares and comments. The more engagement that your video receives, the more likely your social media platform of choice will serve your content to other users. After all, they're also in the business of keeping users attention. 

What's best way to go about captioning your online videos?

Creating a caption or transcript file is pretty easy with YouTube's closed caption editor

Since a .srt file is basically a plain text file, anyone with a computer can make one using either Notepad (for PC) or TextEdit for (Mac). However, creating caption files this way can be quite time-consuming and if you make any error in the format of your file, it may not be accepted via upload by video services like YouTube, Wistia, etc. 

You can also hire a service to caption your videos for you, but our preferred method is creating .srt files with the help of YouTube. Once your video is uploaded, YouTube will automatically "listen" to your video and create captions that you can then go in and edit before publishing. YouTube will also allow you to download your captions in the correct .srt format that you can use to upload to other video services.

Creating captions using YouTube can still be a bit time consuming, but so is creating video in the first place. You've already put all that time and energy into shooting and editing your video, make sure you're getting the most out of them online by making sure they're properly captioned.