It's true that Google can't read the actual content of a video - but they are getting there slowly but surely. First they'll be able to match audio wave forms, then pick out frames as essentially a selection of image sequences.

What Google can do however, is work out when there is a video on page, what size the frame is, how long the content is and how it's encoded/embedded. For additional information - like you say, transcripts, Schema and video sitemaps can be used.

Therefore, to a certain extent, you can get away with putting duplicate video content across your site and showing different meta elements in the video sitemap - but only if you don't host with YouTube. Google  can work out, using the aforementioned methods, whether or not YouTube videos are direct duplicates and prevent you from uploading them.

Nonetheless - videos are always "good" content, by virtue of being a rich media type.

Hi Michelle,

So, my answer here is essentially - "Test some stuff out and see what works." There is no algorithmic preference for the exact placement of video on a page and so the decision should be based on user experience, the kind of videos that you are embedding and the focus of the pages in question.

If you have lots of nice unique product-promoting videos, then my temptation would be to suggest putting them prominently on the page, ideally above the fold, but certainly somewhere eye-catching that drives potential customers to click through and watch.

However, if your videos are essentially going up to support existing articles and enhance the overall quality of the page from Googlebot's perspective, but don't add a great deal to the user experience - then you want to make sure the videos are not too prominently placed.

While putting videos below the fold is one option in this instance, something else you can do to reduce the space they take up is reduce the player frame-size, so they fit in a sidebar, or somewhere away from the main body of content.

Ultimately you need to play to your strengths and the typical audience use cases you deal with. If your videos are really good and convert well - emphasize them, if your videos are somewhat low quality and are just there to offer SEO benefit, then don't emphasize them so much.

Phil

Hi Jennifer,

In short - the answer to both your questions is No. What you're doing is absolutely fine

With YouTube Closed captions - you can upload multiple files - covering multiple languages/descriptive transcripts/speech transcripts. All sorts if you really want to. There is no difference from an SEO perspective between the "captions" model with timecodes or simply the text "transcript". Both are ultimately read like copy text for the video.

The YouTube video embed on an external site is read as an independent media element with the uploaded transcript file as meta-data applied to that media. Even if the on-page copy contains the identical text, it appears as a different form to the engines and is valuable to users as well - there is no "duplicate content" risk, as the content is presented in totally different formats.

I would continue with what you're currently doing - which sounds good :).

Phil

Im afraid i haven't yet found one that is remotely good outside of Wistia (but that's paid).

I'd suggest using excel to put together the elements and then turn the output into plain text - shouldn't be too painstaking, but you will need some element of manual input - i.e. defining the URL, content location and thumbnail location at a minimum.