These days there are lots of ways to monetize your online publishing activity. You can produce a blog, create a podcast, or start a YouTube channel. You can embed ads in all these media and, as your content becomes more popular, you can develop a steady income stream. But many bloggers, podcasters, and Tubers are missing out on another revenue stream that supports all others: transcription. If you’re not transcribing your audio and video content, or subtitling your streams and casts, you’re leaving money on the table and failing to exploit a great way to expand your audience base. We’ll help you get started with transcription here.

How to Get the Best Transcription Services without Breaking Your Budget

Transcription may seem like a niche, but it’s big business. The U.S. transcription market is estimated at nearly $20 billion in 2019, growing at over 6% annually. Transcription is the process of rendering audio or video recordings as texts. Transcription can be in the same language or combined with translation to produce a translated transcription. From transcription, you can derive foreign language subtitles and same-language closed-captions.

To find the best transcription services, online research is advisable. If you’re looking to find the best transcription services, Tomedes shares insights on what makes for the best transcription in this article. The first thing to do is make an inventory of the media and content you’re offering that might benefit from transcription. If you have a Youtube channel, create a transcription for your blog, or for the description. Create transcriptions in other languages to reach foreign audiences. Then add captions or titles.

A similar strategy applies to audio podcasts. Adding a same-language transcription or a translated transcription not only saves time if a reader wants to quickly scan the audio content. It also improves Search Engine Optimization. Every word of your podcast or interview will be cataloged by Google to improve rankings.

Focus on Audio Transcription: How to Get the Best Results for Less

With audio, there are basically two routes to go. You can rely on automated transcription software to do the first cut and then manually go through it to fix all the areas. Or find a company that provides human transcription efficiently. In either case, to translate your transcription to additional languages, you’ll need to add that step for each language. By working with a translation company, you can combine steps with minimal hassle.

Automated audio transcription leverages speech-to-text technology. Rev has done a great job as a leader. You can just send an audio file to them, and within 5 minutes you’ll have a transcription. The catch is that the company estimates accuracy at 80% — that may sound OK, but it means that 1 out of 5 words is wrong. That means a lot of editing will be needed. Still, the company scores a 4.6 out of 5 customer satisfaction, so they must be doing something right. That may come from the firm’s “human” option.

Another interesting option for audio-to-text transcription service comes from Otter, which provides an integrated online transcription and editing platform which boasts being able to convert hours of audio into text within minutes, including the ability (in the premium version) of recognizing speakers, a key when transcribing multiple speakers. Peltarion offers speech-to-text as one of their use cases for their applications based on Artificial Intelligence machine learning. Trint offers an AI-power software application for audio transcription with some nice sharing and collaboration features for team uses.

If you have an audio recording and just need quick transcription services combining automation with human expertise with a premium on accuracy, your best bet is working with translation companies that support transcription. Tomedes and Rev both emphasize the human option, the latter boasting the availability of tens of thousands of transcribers working around the clock. Rates range from $1 to $1.50, but the cost may vary depending on language, audio quality, and other factors.

Remember that standard transcription assumes audio-to-text of the same language. If you want a translation too, don’t run the transcript through Google Translate. Avoid potential embarrassment and turn to a mother-tongue freelancer specializing in transcription or a translation agency that can provide a one-stop-shop for translating transcriptions to multiple additional languages.

Video Transcription as a Service: Where the Rubber Meets the Road

A professional transcription service is judged not by the easiest cases but by the more challenging ones. The audio quality of recording on video is usually not optimized, so rendering speech as text can be quite challenging. Some of the companies offering audio transcription like Rev and Tomedes can also handle video. Other companies specialize in the more lucrative video transcription space.

The main difference between audio and video transcription is that the latter allows the addition of captions and subtitles after transcription. The logical thing is to work with a transcript in one language and then work with translators or a translation agency with the experience to render the translated transcript as much more concise subtitles. It is possible to synch the full transcript with the video, of course. But the reality is that this can be distracting. Better to reduce the full transcript to essential captions and titles.

After you’ve tried working with transcription software and seeing how transcription services operate, you may well be tempted to offer this as a service yourself. It’s not rocket science: if you have bilingual capability, you can add the translation component as well. In any case, it’s an opportunity for bloggers and ‘casters at home to develop an additional side-gig which generates income and complements your existing activities, improving SEO while so doing. Transcription is truly a win-win add-on for your business.