While it might seem surprising, audio transcribing services have been around for quite a while. The first record of audio transcription comes from Ancient Egypt, although they were sketches carved into stone rather than articulate words on a screen. Audio transcriptions have come a long way since then! Today, professional language service providers transcribe audio using modern and effective methods.

Choosing to transcribe audio carries any often overlooked benefits, too! This article highlights the many benefits of audio transcriptions and why you should transcribe your recordings.

1. Audio Transcriptions Help with Searchability

Audio content isn’t as easily searchable as written text. You cannot scan through recordings, and finding the exact segment you’re looking for can be difficult. When you transcribe audio, you automatically make the content more searchable. Users can now use the audio transcriptions to seamlessly find specific words or phrases.

When transcribing services include timestamps in the transcript, the searchability factor becomes even more beneficial. With the time stamp, viewers can find what they’re looking for and then listen to the audio file at that moment. This is particularly advantageous for longer audio files such as podcasts, lectures, sermons and webinars.

2. Audio Transcriptions Help You Repurpose Your Content

Brands and businesses looking to be relevant online must continuously create engaging and purposeful content. Considering how many competitors are currently online, brands need to stand out from the pack. Being unique, however, requires creativity and many resources!

Audio transcriptions are an easy way to help you repurpose your content and fulfil this requirement. Rather than transcribe audio into text to supplement recordings, transcribing services can transform audio content into eBooks, website pages, and infographics. These types of content are unique and a great way to produce more while doing less.

3. Audio Transcriptions Help with Translation

The first step towards translating any audio content is first to transcribe audio to text. Translating written content is a lot easier than directly translating your videos and recordings. A translation agency can then render the text file into another language.

Translations make your audio files more accessible to wider audiences – if they cannot understand the audio, they can obtain the information by reading the translated audio transcriptions. Most professional translation agencies offer transcribing services and translation services as a package, providing access to a written version of your audio file in various languages.

4. Transcribing Audio Improves Learning

Audio transcribing services have been known to improve learning in an academic setting. Universities can transcribe audio lectures, for example. This helps students avoid the need to frantically write or type every word they hear. They can simply enjoy their lectures, focusing on the moment. After classes, use the audio transcription to help solidify the information and better comprehend the lesson.

If transcription is not offered by your school, choosing to transcribe your recordings can be advantageous as a student. Not everyone learns the same way! If you find it difficult to learn simply by listening and prefer reading content, having an audio transcription can help your learning process.

5. Audio Transcribing Service Help to Save Time

Using transcribing services can help you save time. This may seem counterintuitive, given that an extra step is necessary to produce content. However, certain professions can benefit from the efficiency provided. For example, educators can employ transcription companies to transcribe audio from lectures into text, saving time in their lesson preparation process.

Journalists also record interviews with their sources. These recordings offer them a record of their research. However, without an audio transcription, they lack an effective way to find specific quotes in the recording. Employing transcription companies to transcribe audio to text can streamline a journalist’s workflow.

6. Audio Transcriptions Can Help with Legal Compliance

While engaging in audio translation might seem like an afterthought, there are legal ramifications for choosing not to do so. Specific laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act mandate that public places be accessible to everyone. According to the law, the internet is a public place. So, video and audio files aren’t exempted from being made accessible.

You need to transcribe audio or add video subtitles to make it possible for people who are hard of hearing to understand. Not only does this avoid legal ramifications, but investing in audio transcribing services prevents you from cutting out a significant part of your audience. It can be economic suicide for a brand to marginalise a section of the population in today’s climate, making this a crucial service for businesses.

7. Audio Transcriptions Improve SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) deals with creating website content that shows up on search engines. It ensures that your website is listed when specific key phrases are searched. Since its inception, Google and other search engines have been biased toward text content. Search engines find audio and video difficult to understand, so they don’t appear as much in search results.

With audio transcribing services, you can seamlessly transcribe audio into easily crawlable text content. This is slightly different from a standard audio transcription as you must follow SEO best practices, including headings with targeted keywords, bulleted lists, bolded target keywords, internal and external links where applicable, and images with alt text and keywords.

With these practices implemented, your audio transcription can be indexed and crawled. Your page can now rank higher on Google, helping drive more website traffic and secure more sales.

Professional Transcription Services You Can Trust!

Investing in audio transcription is beneficial for businesses in all industries! From driving more website traffic to appealing to a broader target market, a single audio transcription can significantly impact revenue and overall business success. Unfortunately, it can also take much time to transcribe audio – something that all busy business owners are short of.

If you want the benefits of transcriptions without the time investment, we can help. We offer professional transcribing services for all recordings and audio files. We have provided professional transcription services to many UK and international institutions such as NHS, CRDF Global and more.

As a translation agency, we can also transcribe your audio files into other languages. This is an excellent option for businesses wanting to expand globally or connect better with the multicultural UK population. Our company is member of the Association of Translation Companies in England as well as SDL LSP Partner Programme. Contact us today to discuss your audio transcription project.