Baidu SEO: Get Noticed In the Chinese Market

By Misha Kalhin, Senior Project Manager

This article is for website owners whose web traffic comes from China, or for someone who plans to market their product in PRC.

In order to make your web content visible to the rapidly growing Chinese market, you need to optimize your website for Baidu, the country’s leading search engine. The good news is that all of the SEO best practices that you are already following for Google are a good starting point for Baidu.  Your site’s performance on Baidu searches will also benefit from quality content, good site infrastructure, relevant links, and URLs, <h1>, <title> tags that contain relevant keywords. However, Baidu’s search engine has some unique behaviors that you must also address.

Baidu SEO tips
Here are a few tips on how to optimize your website for Baidu searches:

• Some “SEO Tricks” still work. Baidu tends to be one step behind Google’s advances in their crawler algorithm updates. For instance, meta keywords can still boost your ratings in Baidu and Baidu does not weigh the quality of inbound links like Google does. Be warned, though, that over time, Baidu’s algorithms will probably reduce the value of those techniques.

• Use a mix of English and Chinese for keywords. Including the best key words in your content is just as critical for Baidu SEO as for Google.  The challenge in Baidu is that you must consider the way Chinese searchers use keywords. Most people in mainland China use simplified Chinese characters (简体字) in their writing and in their searches. Frequently, though, Chinese people will use an English word rather than it’s Chinese translation.   For example, the Chinese word for email is 电子邮件, but Chinese people rarely use that word, using the English word “email” instead. Specialized business terms are most likely to remain as English or a mix of English and Chinese.  Your keywords need to mirror the words and spelling that your target Chinese audience actually use.

• Use Baidu’s Keyword Tool.  For everyone who has done SEO, Google Keyword tool is crucial for finding what content is in demand, which keywords get the most monthly searches, and how high the competition is.  For Baidu SEO, there is an equivalent Baidu Keyword Tool. Be sure to look up both all-Chinese and combination Chinese-English keywords to determine the best keywords to use for improving search results for your pages. (The example below shows keyword phrase “agile 开发“which means “Agile development.”)

• Hosting in China. Though not the most heavily weighted factor, Baidu crawlers prefer websites that are hosted in China, and preferably the ones that have .cn domain name. Amazon Web Service’s recent announcement that they are opening a China data center could make transition to China-based servers easier for Western companies.
• Social Media is an important part of SEO.  The common Western social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are not available to the Chinese web audience. Instead you need to consider the popular Chinese social media:
  • Renren: Facebook equivalent. Over 35 million users, mainly college students. Getting noticed by Renren users can boost your business popularity.
  • Weibo: Twitter equivalent. Over 500 million registered. A great way to notify the public about new updates.
  • WeChat: Mobile messaging app that is growing in popularity both in China and in the West. Over 270 million users. WeChat includes a number of powerful extensions, such as the “Official Account”, which can be used as a marketing tool, and a payment service that allows purchase directly through WeChat. Since the lines between web and mobile are being increasingly blurred, using WeChat can become a great way to do digital marketing and mobile commerce.

Web and Mobile Development and SEO at Dextrys
The Dextrys team is experienced in all aspects of web design, web development, and SEO. For more information on how we could meet your web needs, contact Misha Kalhin at misha.kalhin@dextrys.com