SEO Managers guide for Baidu Search Engine Optimization 2024

Everything SEO Managers must handle for Baidu Marketing in 2024  

First of all, let’s remind the basics figures about Baidu. In China, over 900 million people use Internet. They generally use Chinese search engines, such as Haoso.com, Sogou.com, .. But among them all, it’s Baidu which is the most popular one.

Baidu has over 69% of China’s search market since 10 years, it also has 800 million monthly baidu users. Finally, this search engine makes nearly all of it’s revenue from operations in China. So Baidu is really a Must in China. Therefore, as a SEO Manager in China, you cannot avoid Baidu.

ADS  on Baidu , natural is the best in China 

Get your Baidu Account for SEM ads 

Basically, you can’t do SEM on Baidu if you don’t have an account there. Having a Baidu account will allow you to do every single step we will talk about in the following paragraphs. It will help you to improve your SEM on Baidu.

In order to do so, you must click on this link and fill out the blanks correctly. You can either sign up with a phone number or via e-mail. The following screenshot indicates you what you should land on when clicking on the link right above.

Once you’ve received Baidu’s confirmation email, you’re done. You will be able to activate your account.

Baidu, as China’s largest search engine, processes hundreds of millions of search requests every day. To secure a favorable position in Baidu’s search results, you need to understand Baidu’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ranking algorithm. In simple terms, SEO is about using a series of technical methods to improve the natural ranking of your website in search engines, thereby gaining more traffic and potential users.

Baidu SEO Ranking Algorithm:

1. Content Quality: This is the most critical factor for Baidu. Whether your website content is original, valuable, and meets user needs will directly affect your site’s ranking.
2. Site Structure: Baidu’s crawler has specific requirements for the architecture and layout of a website. A clear and concise website structure is conducive to search engine understanding and indexing.
3. Quality of External Links: External links, also known as backlinks, are another important ranking factor. Links from high-authority, high-quality websites can improve your site’s position in search results.
4. User Behavior: Baidu adjusts website rankings based on user search and click behavior. If your site attracts clicks and retains users for longer periods, it may rank higher in search results.

Baidu SEO Guide: Rank High & Increase your Sales in China

Baidu SEO Ranking Optimization Strategies:

1. Optimize Website Content: Ensure your website content is high-quality, valuable, and meets user needs. Also, maintain a frequent update schedule to make your site appear active and noteworthy to Baidu spider
2. Optimize Website Structure: Ensure your website structure is clear and concise for easy crawling and indexing by search engines. Also, use internal links wisely to improve page accessibility.
3. Get Quality External Links: Exchange links with high-authority, high-quality websites to increase your site’s external influence. Also, participate in discussions on social media and forums, sharing valuable content to guide users to your site, which can improve your ranking.
4. Optimize User Behavior: Analyze user behavior data to understand user needs and preferences. Then, optimize your website content and layout accordingly to improve user satisfaction and retention rates.
5. Technical Optimization: Ensure your website has good response speed and stability to avoid technical issues that can affect the Chinese user experience and search engine evaluation.

Baidu has a similar page-approach to Google. One big column on the left, and a tighter one on the right. Here, we typed in 美国旅游 (meiguo lvyou) standing for america travel. The SERP displays paid and related results on the right, and paid and organic results on the left.

On Baidu, like Google does, there are many websites related to Baidu.

With these different screenshots, we’ve done a “Baidu’s Open-Heart Surgery” for you to understand the search engine’s organization. On this particular keyword we typed in, you can easily see that there are many paid options (PPC).

50% of Baidu’s search traffic refers to its own related websites. Among these related websites the most famous ones are Baidu Zhidao, Baidu Lvyou, Baidu Baike, Baidu Tieba, baijiahao..

You can easily see here that Baidu first pages are quite often flooded with PPC ads.

 

 

Key SEO and Algorithm differences

In 2023, with the continuous updates and optimizations of search engine algorithms, the importance of Baidu SEO keyword optimization has become increasingly prominent. In this article, we will explore specific strategies and techniques for Baidu SEO keyword optimization in 2023 to help you improve your website’s ranking and attract more target customers.

Understanding the Principles of Baidu Search Engines

To excel in Baidu SEO keyword optimization, we first need to understand how search engines work. Search engines crawl web content through spider programs, then analyze and filter the web pages, and finally rank them based on keyword relevance. Therefore, we need to ensure that our website content is of high quality and meets user needs, while also setting keywords appropriately to improve the site’s ranking on Baidu.

Keyword Selection Strategy

1. Identify Target Keywords: First, clarify the theme of your website and its target audience, then select keywords related to the site’s theme. These keywords should have high search volume and low competition to enhance optimization effectiveness.
2. Long-Tail Keywords: In addition to target keywords, focus on long-tail keywords. These are relatively longer, more specific search phrases that usually have lower competition but can still attract a significant number of potential customers.
3. Monitor Search Trends: As time changes, the popularity of some keywords may also change. Therefore, we need to keep track of search trends and adjust our keyword strategies timely to meet market demands.

Site Architecture and Functionality

Baidu isn’t as developed as Google is. It doesn’t take Flash or Javascript in consideration. Therefore, you must absolutely provide HTML alternative versions of your content. Moreover, you mustn’t use iFrame and Frame. You must also type Pinyin whenever you can and be sure of keeping your URL short.

On-Page Titles + Meta Data

Your title tags and meta data must be carefully done. Your title tag mustn’t exceed 80 characters. Further more, Baidu still takes in consideration meta descriptions and meta keywords for ranking issues. The Meta description character limit is 200, whereas meta keyword’s is 100.

Backlinks Campaign : so important for Baidu SEO

If you want to rank good on Baidu, you must absolutely incorporate some links to your website.

Backlinks are a very important factor when it comes to ranking on Baidu.

On your website, when you publish articles as if you were an online media, you must feature some quality backlinks from famous and serious websites. For instance, you can relay some quality backlinks coming from The Guardian, Reuters, The Economist…

An other solution to improve your ranking on Baidu is to build some long-term partnerships with similar websites than yours. You can offer them to publish some backlinks referring to their website, and they can do the same thing relating to your website. For example, you can ask them to agree on a twice-a-week publication which would include your backlinks. This is a very interesting opportunity to increase your SEO in a good way.

Social Media Optimization (new in 2024)

Establishing a presence on social media can increase your website’s exposure and attract more traffic. Ensure to use keywords and links on social media to enhance the effectiveness of Baidu SEO keyword optimization.

On-page Content

Of course, you mustn’t, in any way, translate your on-page content thanks to Google Translator. You must be sure that your content is original and unique. You must also be careful that it has as few spelling mistakes as possible. Otherwise, people visiting your website will not trust what your write.

You must also be sure of updating your information. Baidu will always favor a website updating its content to another which would not. Thus, when a new information has emerged about something you wrote in your articles, do not hesitate to update your information by posting a new article about this information. Baidu’s robots will focus on your quality content and then you will benefit from a higher ranking.

Hosting your website in China

Baidu will always advantage a website which is hosted in Mainland China, on a CN domain. Website hosted in Europe or America for example, usually take a much longer time to upload. So if you want your viewers to stay on your website, you must be sure of having a quick loading website. However, if you struggle with hosting your website in China, you can choose to host it in Hong-Kong. It is a good way to keep on the track of Baidu ranking race.

Baidu’s related websites

As we wrote above, 27% of Baidu’s search traffic will bring to its own related websites. Among these parent websites Baidu Zhidao, Baidu Lvyou, Baidu Baike, Baidu Tieba.. are the most famous ones.

• Baidu Zhidao 百度知道

Baidu Zhidao is a Q&A parent website to Baidu. Every single netizen can browse through this V3 verified website in order to get some information about whatever subject they want. If they want to provide some further information they can ask a question which hasn’t been posted yet, and answer it themselves, or create another account to do so.

• Baidu Lvyou 百度旅游

Baidu lvyou is a tourism parent website to Baidu. It is similar in many ways to the western website Trip Advisor. There, Chinese people can rate the different touristic places they’ve been to. These ratings will allow other Chinese tourists who are potentially interested in these places to make up their mind much more easily.

• Baidu Baike 百度百科

Baidu Baike is a knowledge parent website to Baidu. It is similar in many ways to the western website worldwide known: Wikipedia. Thus, on Baidu Baike Chinese netizens can search for further information about some people they like or are interested in. Here you can check the Baidu baike concerning the famous basket ball player : Yao Ming.

Master Baidu’s keywords thanks to Baidu Zhanzhang

Baidu has its own webmaster tools. Though, its interface is only available in Chinese. This Baidu Zhanzhang tool will ensure your website to be indexed in Baidu’s SERP. This crucial characteristic is often put aside by Western websites trying to catch the Chinese’s attention, some of them can be very famous Western brands.

You need to sign up with your Baidu account, as shown above, to access this Baidu zhanzhang tool. You will then face the main interface.

This tool will allow you to optimize your website on Baidu. So that Baidu is much more favorable to your website. Baidu Zhanzhang will also help you to have precise information about particular keywords searches and content marketing strategies. It will allow you to know more about keyword trends in many different scales such as: city, province, time period…

Thus, you can really focus on the target you aim, in order to be very proficient in this area.

This will allow you to have a very good SEO for your website, and your viewers will be much more focused when they visit your website. This tool will also allow you see if the keywords you’re looking for are now trendy or not. This will then help you to manage your keywords settings, so that you have the best keywords possible. The better are your keywords, the more visits you will get on your website!

For instance, if you search for “latest TV shows”, you will be able to see the popular TV shows which are the most typed on Baidu.

Therefore, using Baidu Zhanzhang is a great opportunity for you to master the keywords on Baidu.

Don’t forget to go Mobile!

In China, most people use their cellphone. They use it to purchase stuff from Taobao, to buy some food, some tickets for the cinema… WeChat recently reported it had close to 700 million monthly active users! Therefore, you cannot go past adapting to mobile use if you want to have a good share of these numerous mobile users. Also, as you can see in the infographic featured at the beginning of this article, Baidu has over 657 million monthly active mobile search users. Thus, there is a huge market where you can be really proficient.

Regular Content Updates:

Regularly updating content can maintain the vitality and attractiveness of your website and also attract the attention of search engines. Regular updates also show your target audience that your site is actively maintained and evolving.

The first step for your website is to be mobile-friendly. You must have a good user experience on your website. People should easily go through your different pages without waiting too long. Otherwise they would instantly go away. Baidu has a full mobile optimization guide in Chinese. Check it out!

If you already have a mobile website, you must get Baidu to recognize it as such, and to crawl it accordingly. In order to do so, you must type in the correct meta tags. Baidu’s mobile user agent is similar to Baiduspider, so you must add the following meta tag into your desktop pages. In this way, your desktop pages will be crawled for mobile utilization.

Here is the meta tag:

<meta name=”mobile-agent”content=”format=[wml|xhtml|html5]; url=url”>

Willing to improve your SEO results on Baidu? Contact us !

• Our agency has a real and proven expertise
• in the field of Search Engine Optimization.
• We have helped many partners to increase
• their visibility on the most famous search engine in China: Baidu.

Don’t hesitate to contact us, our experts will provide you some services adapted to your needs.

By the way, we better like mails …

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About US

GMA (Gentlemen Marketing Agency) is a dynamic marketing agency specializing in SEO on Baidu, China’s largest search engine. With a focus on crafting tailor-made strategies for businesses looking to penetrate the Chinese market, GMA stands out for its in-depth understanding of local digital trends and consumer behaviors. Here are five compelling reasons to collaborate with GMA:

1. Cost-Efficient Solutions: GMA offers competitive pricing and cost-effective strategies. They understand that budget optimization is crucial for businesses, especially in the competitive Chinese market, and therefore provide solutions that maximize return on investment.
2. Result-Driven Approach: Their strategies are designed to deliver tangible results. GMA prioritizes measurable outcomes like increased website traffic, higher search rankings, and enhanced brand visibility, ensuring that clients see a real impact from their SEO investments.
3. SEO Expertise on Baidu: GMA has a team of experts who specialize in Baidu SEO. They stay up-to-date with the latest algorithm changes and SEO trends, ensuring that their clients’ strategies are always ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving Chinese digital landscape.
4. Localized Insights and Strategies: Understanding the nuances of the Chinese market, GMA offers localized strategies that resonate with Chinese audiences. This includes content optimization, keyword research, and cultural adaptation, which are essential for success on Baidu.
5. Comprehensive Services: Beyond Baidu SEO & SEM Agency (China) we provide a full suite of digital marketing services. This includes social media marketing, content creation, and online reputation management, offering a holistic approach to digital marketing in China.

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In summary, GMA is not just a Digital marketing agency but a strategic partner that combines cost-efficiency, results-driven strategies, expert knowledge, localized insights, and comprehensive services to help businesses succeed in China’s unique digital ecosystem.