The Best Guide to Baidu SEO Marketing in China 2021

10 Aug 2021 | Janie Zhou & Irene Geng

1. Introduction

Baidu is the most popular search engine in China by far, and it is a must-do in China. However, increasing your website’s ranking on Baidu necessitates a slightly different approach to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) than you may be used to with Google.

Baidu, or the “Chinese Google,” is the most popular Chinese Search Engine and the world’s fifth most visited website. As of 2021, it accounts for 71.9 % of the Chinese market. In China, Google accounts for only 4% of all internet searches. These two search engines are so popular; therefore, while learning Google SEO, you must not forget to learn Baidu SEO.

Baidu search engine is China’s largest search engine, with a market share of over 70% and over 195 million daily active users.

As a result, Baidu represents a massive opportunity for international businesses looking to target Chinese consumers at the beginning of their journey.

The goal of the Baidu SEO guide is to get the Website owners on the right track as soon as possible. Use a more rational and scientific way to improve the number of times your website appears in search engines, thereby increasing traffic and laying a solid foundation for rapid and healthy development in the future.

Through this guide, Website operators will obtain clear and formal search engine optimisation criteria, improve website traffic reasonably and sustainably, achieve long-term and steady development, and promote the industry’s healthy development.

2. What is Baidu SEO?

Baidu is a Chinese web service company founded in 2000 and has grown to be one of the largest internet corporations in the world. They provide a variety of services, the most notable of which is their premier search engine; Baidu is China’s version of Google.

Baidu became the most prominent Chinese search engine in China after the Chinese government banned Google in 2010. Baidu, like Google, provides music streaming, maps, images, data storage, and the best service for fast-growing businesses; the PPC campaign (pay per click ads).

Then, you need to know the structure of Baidu and how to do marketing on this platform.

Baidu, like Google, uses a two-column structure. On the right, you see a variety of related (often paid) results, while on the left is a combination of paid and organic results.

Another factor to consider is Baidu’s product integration into the SERP. These products boost national and local SEO, like Google’s “My Business” tool helps to improve local SEO. However, what are the most vital Baidu products?

● Baike, often known as the “Baidu Encyclopedia,” is China’s version of Wikipedia.

● Zhidao, or “Baidu Knows,” is a massive Q&A website that works similarly to Yahoo Answers and allows users to publish and participate in topics ranging from advanced questions to how to cook a Beijing duck.

● Tieba is a keyword-based discussion forum where members can follow specific “Bars” (吧) to help start discussions about a particular topic.

Maps, video search (like YouTube), news, and documents tabs are some of Baidu’s other services.

These services are beneficial to an SEO strategy and increase brand visibility and credibility.

3. Baidu SEO Guide

3.1 Preparation

● Registration of a Domain Name

They base the user’s first impression of a website on the domain name. Whether users can quickly remember the domain name is critical to the website’s development. When registering a domain name, they recommend a domain name that is easy for users to remember and generates trust since this can increase the rate of return and make it easier for users to recommend it to others.

● Web Server Hosting

The speed and stability of the webserver hosting have an impact on the user experience as well as search engine crawling. They recommend a server or space with stable service and fast speed.

3.2 Search Engine Oriented Website Development

The search engine is an ordinary visitor on the website. The way of crawling the website and the judgment of the value of the website/webpage are from the user’s point of view. Any improvement to the user experience is an improvement to the search engine. The optimisation of search engines will also benefit users.

They divide the construction of a search engine-oriented website into three parts: how to better allow search engines to include the content of the website, how to get a good ranking in search engines, and how to let users click on your website from numerous search results. Simply put, it is to include, sort, and display.

3.3 Website Operation

The goal of obtaining traffic from search engines is to improve the value of the website. The conversion rate is the percentage of search engine traffic transformed into the site’s core value.

For content-based websites, loyal users are the core value, and the goal is to convert search engine users into loyal users. For social networking sites, registered users are the core value, and your goal is to have users on your platform register and participate in activities. For e-commerce websites, selling things is the core value, and your goal is to sell to customers. When calculating search engine revenue, the conversion rate should be the most crucial metric to consider.

● Analysis of search engine traffic

The follow-up behaviour of the search engine user on the website determines whether they will be a loyal user. Analysing user behaviour can provide a foundation for service improvement.

● Website Credibility

Website credibility refers to the degree of trust users give to your website. Trust on the website is the basis for the user’s activities on the website.

● Continuously Strengthen the Brand Concept

On the Internet, brand building is based on high-quality content and services in exchange for users’ trust in the content of the website, allowing users to change from being a passing search engine to a committed user. When faced with various search results, proper brand promotion while addressing user needs will not only help users in deciding which one to click but have a significant impact on word-of-mouth communication.

3.4 Bad Practices and Punishment

● How does Baidu define bad practices?

Any use and enlargement of the strategic flaws of search engines, The use of malicious means to obtain rankings inconsistent with the quality of web pages that cause search results and user search experience to decline will be regarded as bad practices by search engines.

The specific methods are inexhaustible. The Internet is developing dynamically, search engines are also developing dynamically, and the bad practice is naturally developing dynamically. The basic defining rule is whether the proliferation of this behaviour will affect the search system and harm the user’s search experience.

Here are some of the forms of bad practice we have discovered recently:

Use vulnerabilities in normal websites to hack websites, secretly put cheating content, obtain traffic through search engines, and use Trojan horses to steal user information.

Fake the official website of a well-known company, and there is no guarantee for users to make transactions on their website.

Use bsp, bbs, classified information and other channels to publish the customer service phone numbers of well-known companies. After the user makes the call, the user defrauds the user’s money.

● What is the punishment for these bad practices?

Any behaviour that harms the interests of users, and the quality of search engine results will be punished by search engines. Fraud is constantly evolving, and handling it is constantly changing, but the principle of “the lighter is punished lightly, the severer is punished severely” principle will always be maintained.

● Can the punishment be lifted after correction?

The purpose is to keep the Internet clean, not to punish people. Baidu welcomes websites that quit deceit. It has a well-established mechanism for detecting dishonest websites automatically and regularly. Most websites that have corrected deception will be automatically released from punishment after a certain observation period expires.

4. What’s the Difference between Baidu SEO and Google SEO?

4.1 Ranking Advantage of Own Products

Enter any popular keyword, and the ranking of Baidu’s own products will appear on the Baidu homepage. Even if these own products have not done any SEO, they can still rank on the home page. Google treats its own products equally. If it violates the Google Webmaster Guidelines, even if it is its own product, Google will ban it. The demoted rights of Google Japan and Google Chrome are good examples.

Therefore, to do a good job of Google SEO, you must strictly abide by the Google Webmaster Guidelines, and there are no shortcuts. To do a good job in Baidu SEO, if you want to achieve short-term results, it will be a good idea to try to take advantage of Baidu’s own platform.

4.2 User Behaviour on the Home Page of Search Results

After studying and comparing Baidu and Google homepage maps, a research institution found that there are still differences in the behaviour of Baidu and Google users.

In Google, users usually only need half the time of Baidu users to find the information they want (30 seconds for Google and 55 seconds for Baidu), and most users only look at the first three results.

On the contrary, in Baidu, users usually sweep the content on the search results from beginning to end. At the same time, we noticed that on Baidu’s heat map, red dots indicate clicks, which appeared in large numbers on the Baidu search box and related searches at the bottom, instead of the web pages of search results.

This situation largely relates to the quality of the search. Baidu’s search results are relatively chaotic. In many cases, users simply cannot tell which are paid ads and which are natural search results. And usually, the content of paid advertisements does not meet the needs of users well, so users may choose to refine the search keywords again or go to the bottom to see related recommendations to find the content they want again.

Therefore, Baidu users spend an average of 55 seconds, almost twice the search time of Google to find the information they want.

However, things always have two sides. The poor search experience makes Baidu users more inclined to browse the entire SERP page. So, for Baidu SEO, our keyword strategy can be more than the top three. According to the different word categories, set high-ranking strategies for these words.

For example, in navigation search, such as “a certain brand, a certain brand’s official website”, users of these words get directed to your website and be ranked first on the homepage; also, you can assign most of the resources to these words. If you encounter an information search, such as “how is a brand product, evaluation, recommendation”, etc., use the strategy of multiple rankings evenly distributed in each position of the search result page, and you can get attention and clicks.

4.3 Index of the Page

Judging from the speed of the page index, Google is faster than Baidu, and only a small number of external entries can follow the link to your website and build an index. But Baidu is different. New sites will not be indexed immediately, or even for a long time. After the new website has passed Baidu’s assessment period, Baidu will start to index your website.

Of course, although Google’s indexing speed is faster and has many pages, Google still has a review and screening mechanism, therefore some websites have several pages when they are first indexed, but after some time, they reduce. However, Baidu generally passes the review of your website content for a period before starting to index your website.

4.4 Strategies for the New Website

Both Baidu and Google have their own audit standards for the new website. Google has a Google sandbox, and Baidu has its own review period. From the perspective of the duration, it is not good enough, and both are 3-6 months.

The difference is that after the review period, the base for Google’s criteria for judging keyword rankings is the quality of the page itself and the recommendation of external links. It will not affect the ranking of a specific page because your site is new. Baidu will still consider the DR of the entire site, so it is difficult for a new website to obtain rankings of hot and difficult words from Baidu. In Baidu, after being reprinted through big websites, the traffic and rankings are robbed by big websites. For Google, a new website can get the ranking of hot words.

4.5 Compliance with Robots Agreement

Google fully complies with the robots agreement. Once the robots block Google spiders, Google will not crawl and index the website. However, Baidu does not seem to abide by it. After you set up the robots protocol for the website, Baidu Spider will sometimes bypass/ignore the file and continue to crawl your space files.

4.6 Judging Criteria for External Links

Google and Baidu have different criteria for judging external links. For Google, external links are more like external recommendations. They are not limited to the links that you can click directly in the tag. Recommendation factors from the social side can also affect rankings.

For Baidu, links are links not directly related to social. At the same time, Baidu will also recognize links not written in the tag (Google does not accept this). Regardless of the form of the link, if the content recommended is valuable, it will be counted as an external link and passed on.

In addition, the importance of external links differs from Baidu and Google. Google usually believes that external links are important signals for the website, even more than on-site SEO optimisation.

Because Google is fully capable of indexing and identifying a website, the data recommended by users is what Google looks at. But Baidu is different; the importance of external links is not as large, and the recommendation mechanism of China’s Internet is not mature enough, so the credibility of external links is not high. Baidu’s website indexing and recognition capabilities are not as strong as Google. Therefore, for Baidu SEO, it is important to do a good job in site optimisation, especially keyword deployment, website structure combing, including navigation, and internal chain mechanisms.

4.7 Content Update

Baidu seems to pay more attention to content updates than Google. A website or page with continuously updated content is friendly to Baidu. You can try to search for some popular keywords in unpopular industries to see the similarities and differences of the top ten websites in the search results. You will find that the content of Google’s top ten websites is rarely updated, and if you want to rank on the Baidu homepage, the website must have a massive content update mechanism. Baidu gives fresh content a much higher weight than Google.

4.8 Original Identification Mechanism

Internet reprinting and plagiarism are commonplace. For search engines, the ability to recognise originals is vital. Baidu has done an unsatisfying job in this regard. Baidu pays more attention to “where does this content appear”, while Google pays more attention to “where does this content come from”. They are fundamentally different. The former looks at the “backer” and the latter seek the “origin.”

4.9 Popular Events Effect Speed

Google processes hot information relatively quickly and can often find the location of news sources very accurately. Baidu relies more on big websites to get popular information. Once there is hot content on a small website, but it is not immediately discovered by a big website, it is difficult for Baidu to discover it in a short period of time.

5. Baidu SEO Tools-WordPress Baidu SEO Plugin

The SEO collection plugin is currently the most complete and powerful Baidu SEO collection in the WordPress market. The plugin also provides a variety of push methods and is easy to use, and has an ultra-lightweight code design, whether it is an old site or a new site. The use of this plug-in has a greater effect on Baidu search engine optimisation.

5.1 Home Page Keywords

WordPress only has the title setting of the website title, keywords, and description. They add this function to increase the weight and distinguish the fields.

5.2 Baidu Actively Pushes

Through the configuration of the plug-in, Baidu actively pushes the access key, has the function of batch push, and regular automatic batch push, without the trouble of manually submitting URL links every day.

5.3 Automatic Push

Configure Baidu’s active push function through the switch button. Automatic push is a tool launched by Baidu’s search resource platform to increase the speed of new web pages on the site. Install web pages that automatically push JS code. When the page is accessed, the page URL will be immediately pushed to Baidu.

5.4 Sitemap Push

The sitemap push function is also one of the URL submissions functions of Baidu webmasters. It automatically reads HTML pages such as articles, lists, and other pages to generate sitemaps, and will rank the weight of the article according to the degree of the article’s oldness. The maximum is 1.0 that is assigned to the homepage. Also, 0.9 is the latest article, other old articles 0.5, and so on. It will also generate HTML and XML maps to facilitate bloggers to copy the sitemap address, submit the address to Baidu’s webmaster platform, which saves time for manual generation and updates the sitemap, and improves optimisation efficiency.

5.5 Picture Alt Tag Padding

It is mainly beneficial to website optimisation because search engines will deduct and weight pictures without Alt tags. We cannot add Alt tags to every picture, and this function can reduce labor costs. The tag automatically reads the title and related keywords, which can be optimized in batches, reducing the trouble of manual addition, thereby increasing the weight of the website.

5.6 In-site Chain

People familiar with website optimisation know that the internal chain is king and vital, and the external chain is the emperor. Therefore, the editor developed a plug-in function that you can automatically add according to the specified keywords. Internal chain, one-click batch addition, so there is no need to add or change thousands of articles.

6. Baidu SEO Case-Chris International Art Education

● Brand introduction:

Chris International Art Education is an educational institution that specialises in portfolio training for international art students. Currently headquartered in Beijing, Chris International Education Consulting Co., Ltd. invites European and American art education experts to come to China to give lectures so that domestic art students can enjoy world-class art education before studying abroad and provide students with professional courses of the same quality as famous European and American schools.

At the same time, Beijing Chris International Education took the lead in establishing a contemporary art education model in line with international standards, introducing international professional courses from art schools in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and other countries.

The team of all-returned professional teachers adopts the tutor system, small class system, one-on-one teaching methods and cultivates hundreds of art professionals in line with famous European and American art colleges every year. It has also become a necessity for domestic art students to gain access to internationally renowned colleges. The birthplace of preparatory courses.

● Website: www.chrisdn.com

● Industry: The education industry

● Cooperation Content: entire site optimization project (starting from 0 traffic)

● Final KPI Effect:

Number of Baidu keywords: 18

Homepage keywords: portfolio training, London University of the Arts in the UK, American art study abroad, art study abroad, art study abroad, art study abroad fees, art study abroad, Beijing art study abroad, landscape study abroad portfolio, art study abroad agency, art design Portfolio, British Architecture Ranking

7. Conclusion

In dominating over 70% of the Chinese market share, why would you not choose Baidu?

There are, of course, competitors within China and Asia, but none of them come close to matching Baidu’s reach. It is like the situation with Google in the West, with their market share being so monumental. Speak to the Enlybee team and find out in detail how you can unlock more opportunities with Baidu SEO marketing. https://bit.ly/2U8lzEM

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