Organizations in all industries already understood the importance of webinar marketing. With such online events, they can connect with their audience in a more direct way. They can share in-depth information that offers tons of value for the consumer. After an insightful webinar, they are more attached to the brand than ever.

These are only a few of the reasons why webinars are great marketing tools:

• They are easy to plan and carry out;
• They can help you promote any new product or service through a direct presentation;
• The participants will announce their presence, plan their time, and show their commitment to the brand;
• Webinars have a huge potential for sharing knowledge, which is important when you want to establish the brand’s reputation.

But when business owners and marketers plan webinars, they often skip an essential point: the transcript is just as crucial as the webinar itself.

When you share the video for people to watch later on, the transcript will make a huge difference in terms of SEO.

How?

These are only a few of the reasons why webinars are great marketing tools:

The Connection between Transcripts of Video and SEO

1. Transcription Creates Link-Building Opportunities

Links are the building blocks in the landscape of SEO. Moz gives a clear definition: “Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own.” Links help Internet users to navigate through pages relevant to their search. Search engine bots also use these links to understand the connection between your site to other sites with high authority.

But a link-building strategy also includes internal links between the posts on your own site.

Why are we mentioning links in the context of SEO webinars?

The webinar transcript is written content. It gives you tons of space to link to high-authority websites, as well as to internal pages. You’ll treat this content just like you treat any blog post in terms of linking. You will not spam with links; you’ll use them scarcely, only when they are relevant to the user’s experience.

Webinar transcripts also allow other websites to link to yours. When someone wants to use your webinar as a source of information, they won’t have time to go through the entire video, and it will be difficult for them to transcribe the parts they want to quote. The transcript makes the content ready for them. It’s easier for content developers to conduct research when they have the facts in writing. They can scan the content to find the exact piece of information that they need.

2. Search Engine Bots Love Text

Even when you have the perfect webinar in the video, Google’s bots won’t know what it’s about if you don’t offer a description. You can do this through a video description, but you’ll convey the quality of the webinar only if you provide the content as text.

The video description will provide Google’s bots with a brief context. The transcript offers much more. It gives you the potential to include keywords and long-tail phrases in context. With that, the transcript makes the video search more effective. When someone searches for a specific phrase, they will find your webinar in Google’s results.

You can conduct a simple experiment: run a website rank checking before providing the webinar transcript. Then, include the transcript and run the checkup again. Will you notice any difference?

3. Interactive Transcripts Improve the User’s Experience

We have to keep in mind that not all viewers of the webinar are native speakers of the language used in the video. For non-native speakers, transcription means a lot. If they don’t catch a word or a phrase, they will easily understand it by reading the text. They can use a translation tool, too.

Transcripts enhance the experience of native speakers as well. If you watch a TED talk while reading the transcription, you’ll notice that you’re paying more attention to the point that the speaker makes. When you want to skip the introduction or return to an important point, you’ll click on that spot and the video plays the relevant part.

What does this have to do with SEO? The search engine will appreciate every attempt to improve a user’s experience. When you make it comfortable for the user to follow the webinar, they will interact with your website and they will spend more time there. Google will take notice.

4. Webinar Transcripts Lower Bounce Rates

The previous point brings us to this one.

A transcript enhances user engagement on your site. Along with the video, it will keep a visitor’s attention. They will scan through the text to check the most important points after listening to the entire webinar. When they listen to something they already know, they won’t bounce off because the transcript will show that something interesting is to follow.

Another advantage of a transcript is that it keeps users who are not able to listen to a video at the moment. Maybe they are in a room with someone else who’s doing their own thing. Perhaps they are at work and want to follow the webinar as part of their responsibilities but without disturbing their colleagues.

We mustn’t forget hearing-impaired visitors. They don’t have an opportunity to follow the webinar if you don’t provide a clear transcript. With the text, you’re keeping a broad category of users on your website by enhancing their experience.

Maybe you’ll find it interesting: SEO for E-learning: Why Is SEO Important And Benefits for Startups?

Let’s Wrap It Up: Do You Need Webinar Transcription?

The simple answer would be: yes, it’s best to include a transcript to each webinar that you publish online.

You already have the text. If the webinar did not have a clear text that guides the speaker, you could easily hire a writer to complete the transcript for you. Then, you’ll make it interactive, so the user will easily find the right spot in the text and the video.

This is a simple method that can improve your SEO strategies. The transcript gives you space for keywords and link building. It conveys the quality of your content to the search engine’s bots, and it keeps visitors longer on your website.

That should be enough for all of us to consider including transcripts when featuring webinars on our sites.