Summary: Did you know that you can translate your YouTube video title, description, tags, and subtitles into a huge range of other languages? It's a great way to reach a global audience and grow your views and subscribers.
As a YouTuber, you have the potential to reach a global audience with your content. Because as access to the Internet and cheaper mobile devices increases across the world, millions of new viewers are tuning into YouTube to watch a staggering range of topics and creators.
Even if you publish content in your native language, you can translate your video into a huge number of other languages. That way you can reach audiences in many different countries, and therefore grow your views and subscribers. And who doesn’t want that?
Find Out Where Your YouTube Viewers and Subscribers Come From
First of all, let's first find out where your audience comes from so you can make decisions about what languages to translate your content into.
Click on your YouTube profile image and then go to the new Studio.
From here click on ‘Analytics’ and then click on the ‘Audience’ tab at the top of the screen.
Below the graphs, you should see a ‘Top Countries’ panel showing you where in the world your audience watches from.
With this information, you can start to translate videos into that country's native language.
How to Translate a Video Title & Description on YouTube
To do this go to the ‘Video’ section of the YouTube Studio.
On each video in this list, you will see an edit button that will take you to that video's details page.
Down the left-hand side you will see a subtitle section, click it, and this will show you all of the current subtitles and translations for this video.
We already know that 11% of vidIQ’s YouTube Channel audience are from India, so let's do a Hindi translation for some of those viewers. To do this:
Click the ‘Add Language’ button and use the drop down menu to select the language you want to translate into. Now this language is being created. Click ‘Add’ under the title and description column, a pop up box will now display showing the video's original language for the video title and description and an empty box for your translations and this is where we insert a little magic.
Once you have the vidIQ extension installed (it's free, just click here), you will see this translate button that with a single click will translate both the video title and description into your chosen language.
Make any edits to the texts you need to and then click the publish button so that now when viewers use YouTube in that language, your title and description will be correctly translated for them.
If you want to translate video tags, you can do that too. Go to the details section for the video and then scroll down until you see all of your tags for that video. Again with vidIQ installed, you will see a translate button that allows you to choose a language to translate all of your existing tags into as quickly and as efficiently as you've just seen.
There is a caveat with video tags however, in that irrespective of language, tags share the same tag space on YouTube. So you can't have a set of English tags and a set of Hindi tags, they are all lumped together and with 500 characters to play with, that's not much room.
How to Translate Subtitles for a YouTube Video
The next question that you may be asking is what about subtitle translations for your entire video?
The challenge we've had with subtitle translations is that the AI needs to listen to you in your native language and translate that into text, which isn't always perfect. Then it needs to take all that text and turn it into a new language and by the time you've gone through all of that process, the translations can be a little garbled. To say the least.
The best option available to you right now is to use a professional service such as Rev. We use Rev to transcribe our videos in English, then convert those transcriptions into other languages.
This service can be pricey, so this suggestion is for larger channels who are getting millions of views a month and have a large audience in other languages. When you're talking about four or five percent of people watching in France, Spain or Italy, that can add up to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views for those types of channels.
Or if you want to go even further, you can do this. In the video below, I am speaking Spanish. Now, I have to be honest with you, I have no idea what I’m saying because I don't speak Spanish myself. But the guys at Unilingo do. They take your channel and translate the whole thing into a brand new channel with everything including your voice translated perfectly into that language. That's why we call this YouTube channel vidIQ en Espanol.
When you can provide audio in a new language, it takes translation to the next level. Over the last year, we have been creating and translating content that will provide real value to our Spanish speaking vidIQ audience and just like any channel, it has required a lot of hard work and a lot of patience. But just like any channel, when it does the right things consistently, YouTube will begin to reward you with more views, more subscribers, more exposure.
So as your channel begins to grow and your audience starts to widen, think about the languages that those people speak and how you can help them with your content.
Want To Get More Views on YouTube?
If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and get more views on YouTube then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps click here to install now!
And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the vidIQ Academy and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.
Carla Marshall is the Head of Content Marketing at vidIQ. She has 10+ years of experience in video marketing, social media management, content marketing, DRM, and SEO. She was previously Editor in Chief at ReelSEO.com, and as a journalist and video marketer, she's covered news stories, creator journeys, and digital-first publishing initiatives across all the major online video platforms. She is YouTube Certified and a judge for the Shorty Awards, as well as the UK, US, Canadian, Global, and EU Search Awards.
