How to add subtitles to a WordPress or Jetpack VideoPress video

The most used CMS in the world, WordPress is the web tool to do it all. First known for its text management solution, it has become a multi-purpose platform as updates and plugins piled up.

You can now easily embed videos in your pages, either through the WordPress tool or a plugin such as Jetpack VideoPress. In each case, however, the way to proceed is not the same.

This is why we explain how to do it without losing time.

Why add subtitles on WordPress Videos ?

As you probably already know, adding a video on the pages of your website has many benefits.

You can give product demonstrations, tutorials, customer interviews that engage your site visitors. You make your site more human and interactive.

But with these videos you have to face new issues, especially related to the accessibility of your videos. Some users with hearing or visual impairments find it harder to read and understand your content.

In addition to these reasons, there are also interesting benefits to consider from subtitling:

• Make your videos accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people.
• Broaden your audience to many languages and nationalities with translated subtitles.
• Increase the engagement and view rate of your content. The visual support brings a better comprehension and memorization of the message.
• Boost your website SEO (closed-captions and textual transcripts increase the semantic density of your pages)

If you're convinced, here's how to go about it on Wordpress.

WordPress and VideoPress Subtitles: the different ways to do it

There are several ways to implement your videos on WordPress. Either you can host them on your own server. Or you can use a plugin that hosts and manages them for you. Or you can use hosting services such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion.

Knowing that the first way can take up bandwidth and space, and thus slow down your site (videos need much more data stream than images and texts), one of the best solutions is to use the Videopress Jetpack plugin.

Here we show you how to proceed to add subtitles in your videos for both types of solutions.

Implant the VTT file in your WordPress video

Since December 2020, version 5.6 of WordPress has incorporated advanced accessibility options for its video features. You can now easily add the HTML5-based track function that encodes subtitles within your video.

To do this you need to have a VTT subtitle file to upload it to the platform. We explain how to do this in the following.

Encode subtitles into your Jetpack VideoPress video

If you are using Jetpack, unfortunately to date you cannot add subtitle files directly into your uploaded videos. However, there is another way to do it : embed subtitles in your video and then host it with VideoPress.

For both of the above ways, our subtitling solution can help you get the job done easily. Here's how.

How to use an automatic subtitle generator?

Checksub is a solution particularly adapted to the creation of subtitles on WordPress. We have created and improved it so that webmasters save time on their subtitling work. It includes some interesting features:

• An advanced speech recognition API
• A collaborative interface with subtitlers and translators to manage your video project
• An automatic translation engine to translate your video, with 128 different languages available.
• A powerful and easy-to-use online subtitle editor

Here's how to generate a VTT file or encode subtitles in your Wordpress video.

1# Upload your video on the interface

To get started, log in to the Checksub platform. By logging in, you will have direct access to the platform to upload your video. Select your content and indicate its original language. You can also choose between several languages to perform translation if necessary.

To try the platform, you have one hour free. If this is not enough, you can buy credits at a low price.

The API will then perform the speech recognition and provide you with the result in a few minutes.

2# Check and optimize the transcription

When the result is ready, you can click on the language of your video and access the dedicated subtitle editor to check and optimize the synchronization.

Here are some tips to optimize this task:

• Cut your sequences into 2 sentences of equal length. It is often easier to cut your text into sentences. Go to the configuration button "Cut my text into sentences".
• Arrange the text sequences at the exact moment the speaker starts speaking. If the speaker is speaking fast, you can try to remove a few words but not the beginning or ending words.
• Always display the characters when the speaker's lips move (important for those who read with their lips).
• Be sure to display a subtitle at the beginning of a scene and remove it at the end of the scene.
• Repeat several readings by yourself to check the fluidity of your subtitles.

3# Export the VTT file or encode the subtitle

If you are satisfied with the result, then you have two options.

Either you download the VTT file, by going to the "export" button and then VTT. You can then directly add it on the Wordpress platform by pressing the "Track" button.

Or you can convert the subtitle in the video, by clicking on "Export" then "Video Exportation". You can then customize the appearance of the subtitles as you want, and download the subtitled video. Then you can upload it to JetPack VideoPress.

How to use a professional captioning service?

As you can see, with such a solution you can get subtitles in no time. It can still take a lot of effort though, especially if you have a large volume of content.

We are well aware of this, which is why you can contact our professional subtitling services directly from the interface. These experts will take care of your video projects and deliver them on time.

You won't have to worry about that anymore and you'll get a flawless result. Don't hesitate to call on these services!

There you go, we hope we helped you put subtitles on your WordPress videos. Who knows, your website traffic will soar with that !