How to Add Custom Subtitles on YouTube (EASY & FREE!)

In this video, I show how to add closed captions (sometimes called subtitles) to a YouTube video.

00:00 Navigating to the closed captions section of YouTube Studio
00:45 Editing automatically generated closed captions
02:28 Creating new closed captions
04:42 Transcribe and auto-sync
05:55 Custom vs automatic closed captions

By adding subtitles (or closed captions), you can improve the traffic to your videos. This is because the YouTube algorithm gives preference to videos with custom closed captions (even if your audience doesn't use them.) However, they MUST be custom.

I have a quick way to turn YouTube-generated captions into custom captions (which I show in this video.)

There are several ways to add closed captions (subtitles) to your YouTube videos:

Auto-sync captions: YouTube uses speech recognition technology to automatically generate captions for your videos. To enable this feature, go to the "Captions" tab on the video editor, and click "Auto-sync captions."

Add captions manually: If you want to add captions manually, go to the "Captions" tab on the video editor, and click "Add new captions or CC." You can then type or paste your transcript and synchronize it with the video.

Import captions: You can also import captions from a .srt or .vtt file. Go to the "Captions" tab on the video editor, and click "Add new captions or CC." Select "Import captions" and select the file you want to import. Once you have added captions to your video, viewers can turn them on or off by clicking on the "CC" icon on the video player.

As always, thank you for watching!
#youtube #subtitles #captions