Expand your reach globally with translation tools

YouTube connects creators like you with millions of viewers all over the world. It's easier than ever to offer a multilingual experience on your channel and reach a worldwide audience.

• Make your content available around the world

  On average, two-thirds of a channel's views come from outside the creator's home country. Even if you've never considered building an international audience, your channel is likely to have a large number of viewers who speak a different language or live in a country other than your own. Increasing the accessibility of your channel could lead to growth in watch time, reach and engagement in new markets.

  YouTube has built-in tools to help you do this. You can add captions and translated titles, descriptions and subtitles to your videos. And there are tools available to help you crowdsource translations. It's easier than ever to set your channel up for new audiences from around the world.

  How do you know if your channel is ready for a worldwide audience? You can start by checking your ‘Build an audience’ tab in YouTube Analytics to see where your audience tunes in from. If you see a lot of watch time coming from countries whose residents speak languages other than your own and think that your content would be interesting to them, try out YouTube's suite of translation tools. If you don't see a globally diverse audience in your demographics, keep reading – and also take a look at our lesson on content strategies that may have more international appeal.

  See it in action

  • 
    Steps for adding translated titles and descriptions to your videos
    YouTube's Help Centre offers instructions for adding localised titles and descriptions to videos and playlists.
  • 
    Tyler Oakley explains why adding closed captions and subtitles is so important
    In this video, he encourages all creators to add closed captions and translated subtitles to their videos and asks his community for help with this task.

• Use built-in translation tools

  YouTube offers a suite of tools that can help your channel be more accessible:

  Closed captions (cc) are written transcripts of a video in the language spoken that display visually on screen. They can increase your channel's reach by giving viewers the option to read words instead of listen. This can be beneficial to audiences who are hard of hearing, are watching in a loud environment or don't want to turn the sound on. They're easy to add to your channel. Auto-generated captions are also available in some languages and viewers can turn them on and off.

  Subtitles are translations of captions. They offer audiences who do not speak the language of a video the option to read a translation of the words spoken. You can translate and write subtitles yourself or crowdsource them from your community by enabling Community contributions.

  Translated titles and descriptions can lead to greater discoverability by viewers who speak other languages because they are indexed in search results. Translating your title and description works best when you have corresponding subtitles in the same language too. (Once an audience who speaks another language finds your videos, you want to keep them watching!)

  There is always potential to reach a new market and multiple tools to help you get there. Often, the easiest (and cheapest) way to add translated subtitles, titles and descriptions (if you don't speak another language) is to enable Community contributions. If you speak another language, try adding subtitles and translated metadata yourself. This chart explains the options:

  	Captions	Subtitles	Translated titles and descriptions
  Do it yourself	Write captions yourself	Translate subtitles yourself	Translate titles and descriptions yourself
  Enable Community contributions	Crowdsource captions from Community contributions	Crowdsource subtitles by enabling Community contributions	Crowdsource titles and descriptions by enabling Community contributions

• Consider your audience

  These tools can help expand your channel's reach – but they're not a secret formula for overnight success. Try using insights from YouTube Analytics to make sustainable and strategic choices that can help your channel to grow internationally over the long term.

  Remember, once an international audience finds your channel, you'll want to keep them coming back for more. While it's ok to translate one-off videos, it can be more beneficial to translate an entire series.

  Also, consider whether audiences who speak another language might need subtitles to understand your video. Some video formats, like music, toy unboxings or do-it-yourself, can be easily understood without subtitles. On the other hand, video types like vlogs or news could benefit greatly from subtitles.

  After you've implemented translation tools on your channel, check YouTube Analytics again to see how well your channel is performing in foreign markets and other languages. Try comparing the watch time from the original language of the video with all of the translated languages. Also, check your Translations data.

  Expanding the reach of your audience globally lets you foster a diverse, international community on your channel and can ultimately help result in greater engagement and monetisation opportunities.