Baidu SEO: Tips and Must Know About The Chinese Google

Why is Baidu SEO should still be an essential part of your marketing effort in China? Chinese consumers are particularly cautious when purchasing online or investing money in a service. The majority of this research is done on Baidu (China’s answer to Google), as a result of the Great Firewall and the language barrier. Not only for exposure but also for brand awareness you will have to make sure to be easy to find on Baidu. Let’s see Why and How to master Baidu SEO.

You may believe being on Baidu is overrated, that you have many others options to drive visitors on your website and that clearly spending resources on SEO won’t be that efficient. You would be wrong to believe that. Netizens, are still using Baidu to look for information on products, services, brands and companies.
In 2019, your goal with Baidu SEO should not only be to drive organic traffic to your website but also to spread information about you via the Baidu ecosystem and any websites where peoples are susceptible to look for genuine answers. This is what we call Undercover SEO.

BAIDU SEO VS GOOGLE SEO

If Baidu was created using Google as a base, it has evolved to be unique and is now very different in the way it works but also in the way peoples are using it.

THE MAIN DIFFERENCES:

• Because Baidu supports only Chinese mandarin language, it’s Keyword algorithm is very precise. If your content is not very specifics, you have no chance to rank.

• Repetition of keywords increases your ranking on Baidu.

• Avoid sensitive topics. In every aspect, it would be a very bad idea to post sensitive content.

• The homepage is very important for SEO

• Constant updating of your content is important. Posting regular, original content plays an important role in your website ranking.

WHY IS BAIDU SEO STILL EFFICIENT IN 2019?

There are many reasons leading peoples to think Baidu SEO is not a good investment. It takes time to rank, nothing new here, SEO is a slow process. It is hard to rank on your keywords because of the competition but not only. Remember that if your content is not ultra specifics your chances to rank are dropping quite significantly. Another reason would be that your website is not in mandarin and/or not hosted in China, HK or Singapore. This was only about ranking your website and getting traffic, which is, if you remember well, is not the top priority anymore.

UNDERCOVER SEO ON BAID

– BAIDU AS A TOOL FOR THIRD PARTY INFORMATION

Most of the foreign entity attempting to do SEO on Baidu do not understand the importance of its ecosystem as well as the reasons that push netizens to use Baidu. Peoples are looking for genuine information, answers to their question which they won’t find on your website.

– WHERE DO THEY LOOK FOR THIS KIND OF INFORMATION?

Because they want honest response to their questions, useful information, consumers and businessmen are going to look at what peoples say about you, if you are a legit company. Do you have social media? Are peoples talking about you on forum, is there any press release about you? Are your social media alive and peoples interacting with your brand/business etc

Use Baidu Zhidao (Q&A), use Baidu Tieba (Forum) , use Baike (the Chinese Wikipedia), be on the platform where peoples will be looking for information about you.

Not only it is an excellent way to let peoples know about what you stand for but being everywhere they are looking for you makes you look reliable, it gives you credibility and is perfect to build your e-reputation.

 

baidu tieba - seo tool

BAIDU SEO SOLUTIONS: OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE

We will optimize your website in two ways:

ONSITE SE

A) Title tag

  • Baidu gives a lot of importance to the title tag
  • Having an optimal positioning on the title tag is enough to position even with illogical content.

B) Meta

  • Baidu gives a lot of importance at the meta tag <meta description> and <meta keyword>.
  • We act on the choice of tag/meta according to the most research keywords on Baidu and on the competition.

C) Home Page in Chinese 

  • Baidu places importance to the home page of a website. Have pages that you absolutely want to rank? Link them to your homepage (it can be anywhere on the homepage)
  • Make the most out of the header and the footer.

  • D) 100% Chinese

    • Priority goes to websites that are 100% in Chinese, preferably hosted in China, ending with “.cn”.
    • Few websites will get this extension because you have to have a company register in China, and the procedure takes months.
    • Have a website in simplified Chinese, distinct from the English version. It needs to cater to the Chinese audience and adapted to mobile phone viewing.

     

    E) Host in China

    • Hosting locally, optimizes the browsing experience.
    • Baidu gives a generous bonus to the websites hosted in China and a penalty to the ones outside China. If the government wants to control the information, it is more efficient if they can contact the Internet hosting service.
    • To avoid “surprises”, the content on your website should stay far away from topics discouraged by the Chinese government.

     

    F) Interesting and quality content

    • To increase the number of visitors, you need interesting and SEO-friendly content for both Baidu and visitors. The Chinese search engine will give an essential importance to big websites, to websites with a huge amount of web pages.

    G) Users friendly

    • Optimize your website. You want it to be loading fast and working smoothly
    • Easy access to contact information (phone number, wechat QR code etc) and preferably a live chat.

    .

    OFFSITE SEO

    BACKLINKS : 80% OF SEO WORK IN CHINA

    • Baidu will prioritize websites with the most backlinks
    • Baidu appreciates highly trustful links from newspapers or government websites
    • The anchor link is not so important
    • The URL also doesn’t have a lot of importance
    • The origin of links doesn’t have a big influence
    • Research has shown that the “Like” button of Baidu has no influence on the SEO in China.

     

    We generally spend 80% of our time/budget “off site”, to guarantee a quality SEO on Baidu.

     

    BAIDU SEO: CASE STUDY

    DAMAC

    damac-wechat-account

    DAMAC Properties one of the leading luxury developers in the Middle East. They contacted-us to develop their network in China. Having a strong digital presence allowed them to be more visible and attractive to investors.

    Our solutions for Damac were the following:

    – Baidu SEO

    – E-reputation

    – Promotion on Real Estate Platform

    – WeChat and Weibo management + Quality Designs on Accounts + Events

    – New website

    Within the first few months of working with us:

    – Double traffic from SEO with 13 main keywords

    – Good position from off-site and on-site promotion

    – Top 1 on Juwai with 海外房产网 keyword

    – +1100 followers on Weibo and + 400 on WeChat

    – Over 120 leads in one month on contact page

     

     

    .

    SEO AGENCY IN CHINA

     

    KEY PLAYERS IN THE BAIDU SEO IN OUR AGENCY:

    1. Strategy is made by Olivier (You don’t know Oliver? click About Us)

    2. Philip will then manage and follow the project

    3. Our Chinese team will be in charge of the execution

    The Minimum duration for Baidu SEO is 6 months of service. The reason for that, is that less than 6 months, you’ll be wasting your money, and we will be wasting our time.

     

    REMINDER : KEY FIGURES REGARDING CHINESE INTERNET

     

    • The number of Chinese Internet users is still increasing: more than 800 millions in 2018
    • 610 millions Chinese Internet users shopped online in 2018.
    • Few foreign websites rank visible on Baidu

     

    Baidu SEO expertARE YOU LOOKING FOR A PROFESSIONAL SEO AGENCY SPECIALIZED ON BAIDU ?

    If you have a serious project, do not hesitate to contact us, we will be more than happy to listen to you and guide you.