Transcription Services for Bloggers » general transcription

3 Reasons to Create Transcripts of Your Video/Audio Contents

Carey — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:14:33 +0000

Gigaom recently lists three reasons (well, BTW, I have 11 here!) why you need to create transcripts of your videos or audios online.

Increase the chances of your content being found online
Make your content accessible to more people
Make repurposing your content easier

The article written by Terri Griffith further lists how to get transcripts -

Professional transcriptionists
crowdsourcing
automatic captioning

I think the author is spot-on on all the points.

Podcast Transcription: Transforming Your Message into Money

Carey — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 23:23:41 +0000

Everybody has a message for everyone.

We all have something valuable to teach others. A message that will help others – to better their lives – financially, physically or spiritually.

And, we all should be able to do just that – help others.

But, more often than not, we’re unable to do that because free advice is ….free. You don’t get paid for giving free advice.

Therefore, it’s good, for both parties, to learn to transform our message into passive income generation tools. It’s your obligation even, to keep making money from your expertise so you can carry on spreading your message.

Information products like ebooks are a hit online because the expert gets paid for his valuable insights and knowledge. While consumers get better products in their hands.

As an expert, you should be able to transform your expertise into passive income sources that brings in the money around the clock. And, as has been proven again and again, information products are doing just that online.

We all know that having free contents on your blog and trying to make some money off Google Adsense doesn’t actually help anyone – either you or your audience. You don’t have the financial security to devote all your time to creating highly quality advice nor does your fans perceive value in your free contents.

Transcription services providers, like TFB, help content producers transform their messages into money. We transcribe your free podcasts for a reasonable price which can then be re-purposed into ebooks, articles and other information products that mints you money passively.

Having your message in different format allows you to reach more and varied audiences and consumers.

Podcast transcription helps you transform your message into money. Money you earn passively with minimal effort.

So, if you love what you do and want to do as long as you can, be smart about it and start utilizing podcast transcription services to transform your message into income.

Rock Your Blog – Podcast Blogger Wanted!!

Carey — Mon, 23 May 2011 04:40:16 +0000

If you are a podcast blogger wanting to bring more readership and engagement to your blog, you’re at the right place and right time.

I’m looking for a podcast blogger who is willing to share “before” and “after” stats of his or her blog for a case study. The purpose of the case study or experiment is to find out how podcast transcripts affect the traffic of a blog.

What is Rock Your Blog?

Rock Your Blog is an experiment or case study where TranscriptionistForBloggers provides free transcription services to a willing podcast blogger for 4 podcast episodes.

Requirement

podcast blogger with anything between 500 – 5,000 visitors a day
a blogger who wants to rock his blog
must be willing to share his blog stats or better yet, document and post updates of this experiment on his blog.
Link and credit this blog for every transcript on his blog.
Share his/her earnings details of before and after the experiment (not requirement but would be nice!)

The relevant stats would be:

Visitors per day
Pageviews
Time on site
Page per visit
No. of subscribers (Email and RSS)

What will I get out of this?

As a podcast blogger, you will get free transcripts of your podcasts for the duration of the experiment – I think 4 podcast episodes would be more than enough.

If you are a growing blog and want to increase your reach and influence in the blog-world and can fulfill the requirements, please drop me a line with PODCAST in the subject line. My email is – careytranscripts AT gmail.com

I can promise you right now we will Rock Your Blog! You do wanna RYB, doncha?

Excellent Podcast Transcription Service: How to Find One

Carey — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 20:02:57 +0000

Every law firm, blogger, writer, journalist, real estate firm or company is spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing the right podcast transcription services company.

While there are hundreds of podcast transcription services companies to choose from, not all of them will meet your standards or your needs. That’s the truth.

Some questions that may arise when choosing the right podcast transcription company include:

Whether you are willing and allowed (by law) to outsource (to a podcast transcription services company outside your country) or to use a domestic podcast transcription services company?
Whether to use a podcast transcription company that employs only native speakers or not?
Your primary reason(s) for hiring a podcast transcription company in the first place – whether to reduce cost, workload, stress, working hours, to enjoy a more work-life balance, get more work done, need more expertise in documentation, your required turnaround time (TAT), the level of expertise required, etc.

Before you hire a podcast transcription company, consider all the factors listed above and weigh your options. Below are a few tips to help you choose an excellent podcast transcription services company.

How to Know if its right for you?

1. A podcast transcription service that specializes in your industry.
There are podcast transcription service companies in almost every field. Choose one which specialized in your industry. If you are a law firm choose a legal podcast transcription company. If you are a blogger choose a podcast podcast transcription company or freelance transcriber. This will go a long way in your relationship with each other. The quality of their services will more likely be excellent. Besides, having an in depth knowledge and expertise in your industry, the podcast transcription may be able to add more value.
2. A reliable podcast transcription service company.
A reliable podcast transcription company means one which meets and exceeds your expectations in terms of quality, turn around time (TAT) and volume of output. Check if they can provide services 24/7.
3. One recommended by others.
A podcast transcription company that comes highly recommended by other firms in your industry or colleagues should be considered a potential partner in your business. A reliable podcast transcription firm with a good track record with past and present clients is rare but not impossible to find.
4. Reasonably priced.
A podcast transcription company should be reasonably priced for your business to utilized their services. You should be able to save cost.
5. Podcast transcription service that understands search engine optimization (SEO)
For online content producers, one thing that can never be overemphasized is SEO. A podcast transcription service that understands and implements SEO in the transcripts can go a long way in helping the ranking of its customers.
6. Podcast transcription service with a blog/site and understand online marketing and blogging, naturally.
Personally, I would be hesitant to hire a company that doesn’t understand the field(s) I’m working in. As a content producer that utilizes online marketing techniques, maintains a blog and uses social media I would naturally favor transcription company doing their own online marketing, blogging and social media campaigns.

How to find an excellent podcast transcription firm?

1. Ask around.
Ask others who have used podcast transcription services companies before for their recommendations and tips. Maybe they can even point you to an excellent podcast transcription company.
2. Search online.
Use the Google search and find your industry’s top most podcast transcription company. Contact them and see what they offer. How prompt they respond to your queries is an indication of their customer care services. Most podcast transcription companies have at least a week’s trial period for you to take advantage of. See if they are really up to their claims!

What about you?

How you do find a podcast transcription service company over others? How do you find one that meets your needs and expectations? What would you recommend to other looking for their first podcast transcription company to work with or one looking for a better podcast transcription company? Fire away in the comments!
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5 Qualities of Highly Successful Podcast Transcriptionists

Carey — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 19:49:10 +0000

Today I am intrigued, as I look around me, to see what sets highly successful podcast transcriptionists apart from other podcast transcriptionists. Are they different from you and me? What qualities do they have that we don’t?

I can see a lot of common attributes in them. In order to be more successful in the podcast transcription industry as a transcriber one has to practice and cultivate these, what I call, 5 qualities of highly successful podcast transcriptionists.

A successful podcast transcriptionist has an eye for detail. She notices errors and hear sounds/words which others don’t. She focuses all her attention in what she does and pays more attention to quality than to quantity.

A successful podcast transcriptionist has loads of patience. I easily get annoyed and upset when the dictation is bad – background noise, muffled sound, too high pitched, too low pitched, talk too fast, talk too slow. When I get annoyed, it shows in my quality – it dips. Successful podcast transcriptionist are cool with whatever kind of dictations they get.

Successful podcast transcriptionists are lifelong learners. Every single day they are excited to come into office and process a bunch of audio dictations. They often share any new things learnt with friends and family. They often research new topics of interest that come up during a dictation and thus, learn a new thing or two.

Successful podcast transcriptionist are passionate about podcast transcription. They are often caught talking about their work and sharing inside jokes with colleagues. They enjoy transcribing and listening to audio dictations. They always look for ways to improve their work and how they work. Successful podcast transcriptionists love podcast transcription. Period. (Some even blog about podcast transcription almost everyday!)

Successful podcast transcriptionist are good communicators – written and spoken. Every Tom, Dick and Harry can become a podcast transcriptionist, but to be highly successful they have to have highly developed communication skills. Often podcast transcriptionists with poor communication skills suffer in terms of salary, promotions and don’t earn the trust of management. It’s often the good communicators who get away with better perks and allowances. Successful podcast transcriptionists don’t shy away from communicating their doubts, fears and insecurities therefore getting their issues addressed.

Over to You?

What other qualities do you notice of successful podcast transcriptionists? Do you have any or some of these qualities? If you are an employer, how do you encourage your transcribers to better themselves and therefore their work?
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Free Legal Transcription: Outsource Legal Transcription

Carey — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 04:57:01 +0000

We are now offering free legal transcription. (We, because, a team of experienced legal transcribers have joined me in this venture! YAY!)

For new clients, any legal transcription work will be free for one week or 5 hours of audio dictations, which ever comes first.

The best part is, there is no obligation to hire us even after that. But, of course, we’d like to think that you’d love to continue working with us by then!

To save money and time with your secretarial work/documentation, contact us at carey AT transcriptionistforbloggers DOT com.

How to Optimize your Podcast Transcripts for Search Engines

Carey — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 05:17:47 +0000

The reason behind providing transcript of a podcast or a video on one’s blog is two fold – providing your readers an alternative means to consume your content while optimizing your blog for search engines.

Readers who want to skim through your content are given the choice to do so; instead of subjecting them to listen to the whole of your podcast.

Search engines index your transcript (or blog post) and rank your page in order of what it believes is most relevant.

Hence, it is very important to optimize your podcast transcript for search engines to drive more traffic to your blog. This can be achieved with little or no effort.

Below are a few suggestions:

SEO Optimized Headline

Many podcast bloggers fail to optimize their podcast headlines. It doesn’t have to be clever or over the top. Keep it relevant and descriptive.

Take for example this headline Podcast: Donna Spencer on Geek Girl Blogs.

I’m sure there is a better way to writing the headline. It is an interview podcast so Podcast Interview with Donna Spencer is relevant and descriptive. If the person interviewed is considerably well-known and you want to capitalize on their name!

Other alternatives -

Donna Spencer on How to Organize a Conference from an Experience Design perspective

Donna Spencer on How to be a freelancer & balance work & family life

My point is, there are many ways to write a headline.

If your podcast blog is about interviews like BlogcastFM then Podcast Interview with Donna Spencer might be good enough. If your podcast blog is about freelance and business, you might want to try Donna Spencer on How to be a freelancer & balance work & family life.

Podcast transcripts don’t have to be verbatim

Most transcription service providers will transcribe audios or videos verbatim. That is, they will type up whatever is recorded on the audio or video including filler words like ah, um, etc. Although it’s a sign of a good transcriptionist, that is not your objective. You are not publishing your podcast transcript to show the world how accurate your podcast transcription provider is!

Podcast transcripts need not be verbatim. It is important to realize that you can edit the transcript and make necessary changes. That’s the basic premise for optimizing podcast transcripts for search engines. Remember, as your spoken words are reproduced as written words some paragraphs may be too long, some too vague, etc. Get to the point – your readers will appreciate it. The best way is to almost summarize your podcast! If you are utilizing the services of a transcription provider you should instruct them of your needs.

An exception would be an interview podcast – even here I would filter out filler words and false starts.

Keywords

Are your targeted keywords appearing too often or not? Where are they most prominent?

The best way to optimize podcast transcripts for search engines is to incorporate relevant and targeted keywords. These Keywords may be lacking in your recordings as search engine optimization may not occupy your thoughts while you record our podcast.

When speaking we don’t normally use nouns over and over; it is replaced by relevant pronouns. But if such noun is your keyword, it is wise to change all or some of the pronouns to nouns in your transcript.

For example: Transcriptionistforbloggers.com is my blog. It is my online shop for selling my transcription services to bloggers or any one who needs help. It is also an outlet to learn from and connect with others.

The above second and third sentences both start with it. If need be, it can be changed to Transcriptionistforblogger.com in both instances.

Add relevant headings and subheadings

To signal a change in the topic do provide headings and subheadings on to your transcripts. They also make it more interesting and easier to read/skim through.

I normally turn away when I see large chunks of texts without any heading, subheading or bullet points. I bet you do too.

Almost the same thing as above, do format your transcript to good presentation.

Add images

You’ve heard this one before. Add pictures to your post. In this case, add relevant interesting image(s) to your podcast transcript. And optimize your images!

Below is what Chris Pearson has to say about How to Optimize Your Images for Google.

Every standards-compliant, Google-sensitive image reference should contain 5 key items:

A src attribute specifying the URL of the image

A width declaration in which the width of the image is specified in pixels

A height declaration in which the height of the image is specified in pixels

An alt attribute that describes the content of the image—this is the #1 element of image-oriented SEO

A title attribute that contains text to be displayed when the user hovers his/her mouse over the image

So, what are you waiting for?

Is there anything you might want to add? Does your podcast transcriptionist work with you on these? Or, do you do it yourself?

photo credit: iancapstick

What do You Think of TranscriptionVendors.com? Good or Bad

Carey — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:21:40 +0000

I stumbled across Transcriptionvendors.com today and wanted to know more about working with them.

If you’ve had any experience working with them, please share your experience.

It seems to me like a decent enough place to work on, seeing some reputed transcription companies in their list.

Having said that I have reservations.

First, you have to pay $25 just for the test.

Secondly, to work with them you then pay $250 as regular member and $1,500 as premium member, annually.

Not only that 10% of your earnings through them is paid to them again!

Finally, how is it any different from working for another trancription company if you work through them.

Please share your opinion and experiences with working on TranscriptionVendors.com in the comments below. It will be appreciated!

DIY: Podcast Transcription (Without Dragon Naturally Speaking)

Carey — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:39:40 +0000

As a freelance podcast transcriptionist, I should not be telling you this.

By this, I mean how to transcribe your own podcasts. Or, rather how to effortlessly provide transcripts of your podcasts.

Most podcast bloggers cannot afford to hire a podcast transcription service or a freelance podcast transcriptionist. So, doing it ourselves is always the most preferred option amongst bloggers.

To provide transcripts of your podcast simply do this: prepare your podcast script beforehand and then provide that script as the transcript. Simple and effective.

Most podcast bloggers do not sit down and type out their podcast script before recording. In my humble opinion, this is a costly mistake.

By NOT preparing your podcast script beforehand you are waiting for a disaster to happen sooner or later.

Not preparing podcast scripts means not carrying out enough research and your podcast is susceptible to incompleteness on the subject matter. It may also simply mean not knowing how and where to start and end your podcast. It is unprofessional. Period.

And, in the end, you won’t even have a ready transcript for your podcast.

Instead, take some time, before you begin recording your podcast to draft out a script for your podcast. Proof and edit the draft for any grammatical errors, pay attention to the structure and flow of your script.

Only when you ready your error free script start recording your podcast.

You will then have a ready transcript to go along with your podcast. Or, simply another article to post on your blog or as a guest post.

Without spending your hardearned money on a software like Dragon Naturally Speaking or on podcast transcrition services, you should be able to provide your readers quality transcripts easily.

Are you still wondering why you should provide transcripts of your podcasts?

Podcast transcriptions help your blog’s SEO, linkability, monitization, reach, etc, and these are but a few of the benefits of podcast transcription.

One Blogging Tip Probloggers Did Not Tell You

Carey — Sun, 16 May 2010 09:04:44 +0000

If you’re anything like me, you have searched high and low for blogging tips and how-tos to improve your blog, only to read the same tips over and over again.

One blogging tip Probloggers fail to mention is providing transcripts of your audios or videos. Simply called podcast transcription.

What most probloggers writing about how to blog will tell you include -

Content is for your customers (not other bloggers)

You should repurpose your contents and multiply your contents because search engines love new contents.

You should post new contents regularly and consistently

Have your own product if making money online is a goal for you

etc etc

All these tips on how to blog can be addressed by providing transcripts of your audios or videos.

By utilizing the services of a podcast transcriptionist (hint! hint! me?) you can provide the much needed content (written text) for your blog. Written text is search-engine friendly and easier to SEO-optimized than MP3s and videos.

Remember that some people prefer reading to watching or listening to a podcast. They can always reference the transcipt when listening to a podcast in their own time.

The hearing impaired and customers for whom English is their second language (at least 1/3 of your customers??) will definitely prefer the transcript over the audio.

Don’t confuse your need to let your customers hear you and see you (podcasting) to how they prefer understanding and capturing ideas.

How you utilized your transcripts is limited only by your imagination. Provide it for free downloads. Compile a host of transcripts into an ebook. Turn it into a blog post. Send it to another blogger for a guest post.

If you are confinced podcast transcription is certainly good for you and you blog, write to me! Let’s us take you to the next level. Seriously.

photo credit: TarahDawdy