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Youtubers spend a lot of time making creative and entertaining videos. Now, imagine watching a YouTube video with no sound effects. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Sound effects bring your videos together, and that is why one should smartly incorporate them throughout their YouTube videos.
You may find several sound effects on the internet, but sadly, you cannot use them all. Why? Because they are not royalty-free. It is vital to use royalty-free music. You might be wondering why? We'll get back to it, but first, let's discuss why you need sound effects to begin with.
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Why Do You Need Sound Effects In Your YouTube Videos?
Improves the Ranking of your Videos
When you add sound effects to your videos, it automatically improves the video’s ranking. How? When you have exciting sound effects, your video will get more views.
The more views you have on your video, the higher its ranking is going to be. YouTube is just like other search engines, and if you want your video to show up high on the search results, you must add sound effects.
If you have interesting sound effects in your videos, you will be able to keep the attention of your viewers for longer. If they watch the entirety of your video, they will likely share it. The more shares you have, the higher your ranking is.
Decreases the Bounce Rate
It is very easy for online audiences to lose interest in a video and jump to the next one. This leads to an increase in bounce rate. People spend time watching a particular video before jumping off to the next one.
This time is calculated and used to see if people find your video worth watching. If you have a high bounce rate, you need to do something to retain the interest of your audience.
An excellent way to make sure your audience sticks to your video is by incorporating sound effects. If your video features exciting sound effects, you will be able to maintain your audience's attention, and that will decrease your bounce rate. This will also ensure that your video ranks high on the search engines.
Keeps the Viewers Engaged
It is a great success for YouTubers if people manage to stay engaged with their videos. While making videos with high-quality content will keep the audience engaged, so is using sound effects.
You can use different sound effects that will grab the attention of your audience and keep them entertained. When watching a video, our sense of sight and hearing is engaged. The video should indeed be pleasing to the eye, but it should also be engaging for your ears.
When combined, these aspects make for more interesting videos, keeping the audience invested for as long as possible.
Bonus Read: 11+ Ways to Make Your Videos Feel More Personal
Fills In the Gaps
There can be several gaps in your videos. You might not have video content or any narration for them. In that case, sound effects can come in handy. You can fill in the gaps with exciting sound effects.
These gaps are usually there because you are transitioning from one segment to the other. To make these transitions as smooth as possible, you can include sound effects.
Will Make Narration More Interesting
If your YouTube video includes a narration, it can get boring. Listening to someone speak is not very entertaining. To make your videos more fun, you can add different music effects in between your narrations. This will help your audience maintain their attention to what you're trying to say.
Can Add A Comical Element To Your Videos
You can find all sorts of sound effects online, ranging from sad ones to laughter. If you want your videos to tickle the funny bone of your audiences, you can add funny sound effects so your audience understands your punch lines and laughs with you.
Using sound effects can also make the video more comical than it is. So if you think that your jokes are a little flat, you can add sound effects to make them sound better.
Evokes Emotional Responses
Sound effects can also evoke emotions. If you are making a video and would like to evoke a reaction, using sound effects would be an excellent idea. They will help your audience feel the emotion you are trying to portray in a greater depth.
These reasons are plenty to convince you to use sound effects in your videos. However, as we mentioned earlier, it is vital to use royalty-free sound effects. There is a good reason for this, let's take a closer look at what that is:
What Do Royalty-Free Sound Effects Mean?
In simple words, royalty-free or copyright-free sound effects mean that a single entity does not own them. There is no one to claim its copyrights and is free for the public to use.
There is a common misconception that royalty-free music is free. This is not true at all as royalty-free sound effects are anything but free. If you contact any company that deals in sound effects you will still have to pay them a license fee to access their music.
You can find royalty-free music of all variations on such websites. For example, you can get nature-based sound effects, the hub dub of traffic, and even different whooshes and transitions.
What Happens If You Don't Use Royalty-Free Sound Effects?
YouTube takes copyright claims quite seriously. Their laws have been kept strict to benefit both the abusers and the victims of infringement. The consequences of infringement include the removal of your video, and the story does not end there. You might also get a strike. You are only permitted three strikes for infringement. If you get three or more strikes, you can get your channel completely taken off YouTube. Here are two consequences that are most commonly seen:
- Takedown Notice
If you find out that someone might be using your sound effects in their videos, you can send them a takedown notice. This notice is issued by YouTube when you launch a complaint. YouTube then investigates the claim, and if the complaint is justified, the video is taken down.
- Content ID Match
YouTube automatically checks all videos posted to the platform against its library of sound effects to identify if any sound is copyrighted. YouTube will file a copyright claim on behalf of the owner if the software finds a copywritten song.
With every strike you get, YouTube demands you to complete an online course. The course teaches you about all the copyright rules and regulations that you need to follow. They give you all the necessary information, and after that, they ask you to fill out a little quiz to make sure that you have retained the information provided to you in the course.
If you fear that the strike you mistakenly got is going to affect your record, then you have nothing to worry about. The strike automatically vanishes after some time if you don't get any more of them. It usually takes six months for the strikes to disappear on their own.
Whether your video gets deleted or not is to be decided by the copyright holder. You are at their mercy to see whether your video will get deleted or the copyright holder will pardon the violation.
The copyright holder can decide if they want to remove your video, they can also decide if it is to be flagged in some regions or monetized. If your copyright holder chooses to monetize your video, you might lose all your monetary proceedings to them. If they want, they can also put up ads on your video.
Users are permitted to appeal their strike if they are completely sure that they made no mistake. If you are not entirely sure, it is better to keep to yourself and wait till the strike disappears of its own accord.
Final Word
Instead of dealing with all these issues, it is best if you stick to royalty-free sound effects. You can use them freely without having to worry about your video getting flagged. You can look for different companies that offer these sound effects for a reasonable price. Do not skip on them entirely, as they are essential in making your videos as interesting and enjoyable as possible.
It is important to remember that too much of anything can be bad, which is why you must not flood your YouTube video with sound effects. Instead, it would be best to use them where you think it's needed. If you need any help with your video making, you can reach out to websites such as StoryXpress, and they can help you convert short videos and pictures into full-length videos.
