SEO is an important part of any digital marketing campaign. With the right Baidu SEO strategy in place, you can boost your website’s rankings and increase your visibility to reach new customers.

At Digital Marketing Institute, we offer a Baidu SEO course designed to help you create a sustainable and targeted strategy that meets your company’s needs.

In this guide, we’ll provide an introduction to the world of Baidu SEO and explore some of the most important tools available to you as a marketer. We’ll also share some helpful links if you want to learn more about using Baidu SEO tools.

Baidu seo tools

Any company wishing to set up in China must take into consideration the implementation of a suitable SEO strategy. With over 800 million Chinese Internet Users fond of e-commerce and the use of social networks, the competition is fierce and it is difficult to find a place in the rankings of Baidu. With 71.5% of market share in 2018 on search engines in China Baidu is undeniably the first Chinese search engine. That is the reason why every company that wants to involve in the Chinese market must take into account improving their Baidu SEO strategy.

Baidu is not Google (but you already know it right?)

Adopting the same SEO strategy for Baidu as for Google, isn’t a good idea, in fact despite their similarities, the Chinese search engines own some secrets, and these are important for establishing relevant and effective actions.

Cost-Effective Agency

KPI and Results focused. We are the most visible Marketing Agency for China. Not because of huge spending but because of our SMART Strategies. Let us help you with: E-Commerce, Search Engine Optimization, Advertising, Weibo, WeChat, WeChat Store & PR.Contact us

By studying the different SEO tools of Baidu, the content and design optimization of a website, as well as the factors influencing the algorithm of Baidu we will reveal 20 secrets of the mechanism of Baidu SEO

20 BAIDU SEO SECRETS

1 – HOSTING IN CHINA (basic but need to repeat)

The first important thing for a good SEO on Baidu is to be hosted in Mainland China, why? because of the Speed and user experiences.

What do users (and Baidu boots) should do when they see that?

Why host your website in China?

To gain visibility and ranking on the SERP Baidu, it is preferable that the website is hosted in China, because if Google does not take into account the country of hosting of the website it is not the case of Baidu (which is due to the Great Firewall). 

Moreover, being hosted in Mainland China, it is easier for Baidu to read the pages of the website and thus optimize the user experience (because it is faster), which is why these sites are favored.

Hosting is more and more important for SEO

ICP Licence (better to have one)

However, to be able to be hosted in China, you must hold an Internet Content Provider license (ICP) and for that, you must already have a Chinese business license. This is not mandatory, however, it will make the whole SEO process way easier.

If you do not have a Chinese business license, you should preferably host the website in locations such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and so on. Being closer to Mainland China will prevent a big loss in terms of Baidu ranking even though it will not be as fast as Mainland China.

Without an ICP license it is possible, just harder (or more expensive)

If you are really ambitious and do not want to be shut down, better to get one.

If you are on an e-Commerce Site, you have to get ICP e-Commerce (just harder to get)

Questions about your Domain Name …

The domain name is not that important, in fact, Baidu used to rank the « .cn » website higher than other websites, but it is NOT TRUE anymore

Avoid having different domains for the same website as this practice generates Baidu penalties on rankings.

Contact in China

Baidu also rank higher companies that already established « real » contact in China, meaning that they either have an office in China or a contact/ agent that customer can call or meet in China, and have a PPC account with verified company /contact

2 – BAIDU WEBMASTER TOOL

Baidu has created a tool allowing the website designer to manage the presence of their site on the Baidu SERP. This platform gives access to data such as the performance of your site, which optimizes the performance of your site. To do so, Baidu webmaster offers you several tools for example: submitting your content to Baidu so that it is indexed optimally, optimizing your website for mobile, conducting security tests for the website, etc.

3 – BAIDU KEYWORD PLANNER

Baidu Keyword planner is the Chinese version of Google Adwords, this tool goes together with the Baidu index, a tool that provides much information on keywords for companies wishing to invest in ads like PPC. The operation is quite simple, we search for a keyword and the Baidu keyword planner gives access to other relevant keywords through average daily search volume on computer support as well as mobile support, the competition level of a keyword, and the estimation of a bid price for a top keyword. It is also possible to substitute Baidu Keyword Planner with other tools like Zhangzhang (meaning « webmaster »), Aizhan (more focused on long-tail keyword), or Ciku (meaning « inventory »), trying different sites of keyword research may also be a smart technique to evaluate keyword popularity and competition.

4 – BAIDU FENG YUN BANG 

Baidu Feng Yun Bang is the Chinese version of Google Trend, which allows at a glance to get an idea of what is happening on the internet and therefore to be inspired by popular keywords. The site allows on the homepage to have access to the news according to keywords, according to places, or according to categories of the domain (fashion, finance, travel, technology, …).

In addition, the tools used to analyze data by province/city allow you to get into the details of recent events and trends in development.

5 – BAIDU INDEX 

Baidu index provides access to very practical tools for optimization of SEO strategy including keyword research. It is possible to access keyword popularity and relevancy studies, all illustrated by a bubble chart (the size indicating the popularity of the keyword and its color representing the search trend of that word).

Baidu Index also allows you to have access to the searched keywords before the studied keyword, and the sought keywords after the studied keyword (this is what is called respectively the “source keyword” and the “destination keyword” “).

With Baidu Index, you also have access to relevant new keyword appearances with your own keyword and track the popularity of these new keywords.

Linked to this, it is also possible to graphically analyze the trend of keywords and compare these trends according to location criteria: provinces or cities in China for example, or social criteria such as age or gender.

In sum, the Baidu index is a tool that effectively contributes to the development of SEO strategy for a company.

6 – IMPORTANCE OF SITE’S HOMEPAGE 

Baidu places much more importance on the homepage of the websites than on the internal pages, it is, therefore, essential to optimize the homepage to improve your organic SERP ranking.

7 – USE SIMPLIFIED CHINESE ON YOUR WEBSITE

Because Baidu is ineffective at reading foreign languages, it is important to favor simplified Chinese when creating your site. The reading of the site by Baidu will be more effective and will generate content of optimal quality with a better rendering. This will also increase traffic on the website.

8 – CONTENT DISTRIBUTION

Because Baidu indexes web pages quite quickly, it is important that keywords and important content be placed at the top of the page (home page and internal page). The company may focus on the content, the body of text, and keywords rather than the design of the pages (which would take longer to load). This goes hand in hand with the frequent renewal of content.

9 – BAIDU LIKES FRESH CONTENT

Recent and frequently updated website content are those most often valued by the Baidu algorithm. The freshness of the content of the websites influences the ranking of the website in the SERPs of Baidu. Moreover, the more recent the site, the more the newness of the content influences the ranking. Fresh content also relies on making sure that your content is engaging to users.

10 – CENSORSHIP CONTENT

To have a high ranking on the SERP Baidu, it is obvious that we must pay attention to the content of the website. Because China is known to censor “sensitive” content (against the government, content reserved for adults, inappropriate). It is therefore important to be careful that the content is not subject to censorship.

Especially since the content considered inappropriate in China does not necessarily correspond to Western criteria.

11 – MAKE PEOPLE INTERESTED IN YOUR CONTENT

Baidu’s algorithm takes into account the passage time of each user on a web page. That is to say that if a user stays a few seconds on the pages, it is that it does not necessarily correspond to his expectations and this will influence the ranking of this site in the SERP.

Because the number of available websites is constantly increasing, information is more and more abundant, it is key to know how to hold the attention of users. For that, you have to know how to give the relevant information in a clear and precise message.

12 – PLEASE BAIDU, MAKE YOUR CONTENT UNIQUE

This might be obvious but your content must be yours, original, unique. But it also means that it is important to be responsive to other sites that can do what is called “content scraping” and that may penalize your site if you lack vigilance.

13 – LONG TAIL KEYWORDS (IMPORTANT IN 2021)

For the strategy it is important to think of a “long-tail keyword”, unlike the classic keyword, they are much longer and therefore generate less traffic on the pages. However they can generate quality traffic, and as they are less sought on the search engine, they give more chances to small structures (like startups) who are often very low on the SERP for very popular keywords.

Long-tail keywords are a good way to stand out against the strong competition on highly exploited search engines like Baidu.

Moreover, choosing long-tail keywords for a pay-per-click advertising strategy is smart because the costs are obviously more accessible because these words are less exploited.

14 – META TAGS ON BAIDU

If the meta tag has little influence on Google’s SERP ranking, they are important when setting up an SEO on-page strategy on the Baidu search engine.

Logical … Yes I know, but need to be said

Which therefore requires integrating relevant keywords in titles, body text, and images when designing the website in HTML code. 

15 – BAIDU SERP AND RICH SNIPPETS

While Baidu and Google SERPs were largely similar in the past, Baidu has distinguished itself in recent years by adding rich snippets to enrich the SERP. These snippets are most of the time the property of Baidu and it is not uncommon that the first page mostly constitutes Baidu’s rich snippets. This might be one of the reasons SEO strategies in China must be correctly built.  

Baidu’s SERP displays organic results (link or rich snippets), ads, search-related content, and more.

Baidu has different forms of rich snippets, among those are frequently used:

• Baidu News : is the information channel of Baidu (it is the Chinese version of Google News), it uses the content from other websites to allow users to find every informations in the same place.
• Baidu Baike: who represents the Chinese version of Wikipedia
• Baidu Music: allows users to search and listen to music directly from the Baidu search page
• Baidu Map: allows directly to have a preview of the location on a map, or the desired route.
• Baidu Zhidao : which is a question / answer site, it is a good site to answer questions (but it is also a good tool for optimizing an SEO strategy).
• Baidu Images 
• Baidu Tieba : which are communities gathered around forums and questions and/ or topics.
• Qunar 2: (Simplified Chinese: 去哪 人 meaning “Where to go?”) Allows you to book trips directly from the Baidu result page

It is also possible to find rich snippets that Baidu (unofficially) designed for some big companies that are partners with them.

These Baidu properties are very useful for users but they are also part of what makes Baidu SEO strategy such a challenge. That’s why it’s important to see how these rich snippets can affect your business (through your keywords): A booking service for travel will be impacted differently than a video tutorial site for example. So when doing your research about keywords, you should check the space that is still available once the rich snippets are displayed.

16 – BAIDU TRUST  (More important than EVER)

Baidu trust Is a service of Baidu that allows verifying the level of reliability of a website. The service gives different levels ranging from V1 to V3. This is what we called a Blockchain-as-a-service. 

Websites wishing to benefit from this trust and confidence label must apply to Baidu to have their site verified. 

Obtaining this certification improves the ranking on the SERP, the image of the site and also makes it possible to increase the time of passage on the site of the users.

17 – BACKLINKS (the weak point of Baidu)

To gain traffic on a website and climb in ranking on the Baidu SERP, the consideration of backlinks is important. 

To be effective on the search engine of Baidu, it is necessary to value the quality backlinks (quality content, unique, entertaining, on an optimized web page) but especially favored the sites in simplified Chinese. Baidu’s algorithm favors Chinese sites over foreign sites. You have to be creating backlinks that look natural otherwise abusive link spamming could lead to penalties from Baidu.

With Baidu SEO, Backlinks Quantity Matter

However the amount of these backlinks is also important in the establishment of SERP ranking, so you must find the right balance to get quality backlinks but also have enough for these to have an influence on your ranking.

Backlinks are the base of Any SEO campaign in China

2nd on request Digital Agency check here, 

Our Chinese Website HERE for your reference

Other Keywords “Advertising Agency.” we are Not bad.

18 – BAIDU MONEY PLANT ALGORITHM 绿萝

Just like the “Pomegranate Algorithm” the Money plant Algorithm aims to encourage websites to optimize their customer experience to gain places in the SERP ranking. 

However, this algorithm is aimed at the websites practicing the so-called “link spamming” which consists of posting links to blogs, forums, websites that have no connection with the content of the web page.

19 – BAIDU POMEGRANATE ALGORITHM

Pomegranate Algorithm is one of the reasons why the design of a website needs to be optimized and designed for the customer experience. This algorithm is aimed at sites that degrade this experience with the over-use of advertising, or by using advertisements that are considered “pure” content on the website. These websites will be penalized in the rankings on the Baidu search result pages.

20 – BAIDU ICE BUCKET ALGORITHM AND MOBILE OPTIMIZATION

Another condition to be properly classified on Baidu is to have a website properly optimized for use on the phone.

The Ice Bucket algorithm has been set up in this way, meaning that websites that are too slow for phone use will be penalized in their rankings, sites that can not be used on the phone will be sanctioned by the algorithm. The algorithm is aimed at pages that are blocked by ads, or that can not open without downloading an application, etc.

China is pursuing its economic development, and e-business is evolving. For the good SEO of a website in China Baidu can’t be avoided. Although having good knowledge of Google SEO is a good start taking into account the specificity of the Chinese search engine is key to successfully coping with strong rising competition.

Need a competitive Baidu SEO agency?

• We are a Great SEO agency
• Oriented Results and performance.
• We have super competitive Pricing, and already thousands of “First pages” for our Clients.

Learn more about us and our Baidu SEO/SEM Services

Baidu strategy

• Baidu’s mobile ecosystem to focus on two pillars of “servitization” and “humanization” under new strategic layout
• Baidu App has grown to 558 million monthly active users (MAUs), with 4,200,000 Baijiahao accounts
• Baidu App releases a new slogan, “Baidu for a Better Life”

BEIJING, April 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU and HKEX: 9888) today held the 2021 Wanxiang Conference in Aranya, China, an annual event for the company’s Mobile Ecosystem Group (MEG). During the event, Baidu MEG unveiled its new X+Y strategy to advance intelligent search through “servitization” and “humanization”, and Baidu App announced a new brand slogan, “Baidu for a Better Life”, as Baidu strives to support content creators and developers, deliver a superior end-to-end experience to users, and diversify its income stream.  

Speaking at the event, Baidu Executive Vice President Dou Shen explained the context and purpose of the X+Y strategy: “As Internet infrastructure continues to be perfected, information flow in society is constantly improving, leading to demands for faster, closed-loop services from users. Based on this trend, Baidu is implementing a strategy of ‘humanization’ and ‘servitization’ which will allow users more immediate access to the information and services they need. Especially for key industries like healthcare, live streaming, short video, and education, Baidu will construct its own closed-loop mobile experiences.”

According to data released by Baidu at the conference, Baidu App now has 558 million MAUs, among which daily logged in users accounted for over 75% in March 2021. The app also features 4.2 million Baijiahao accounts, with Smart Mini Programs encompassing 271 industries that have 416 million MAUs. Baidu Smart Mini Programs is the only open-source platform of its kind in the industry. Baidu’s health platform is home to 300,000 doctors and medical experts, with peak-day healthcare related search queries reaching 190 million in 2020, with a daily high of 850,000 online consultations.

Under the new strategic layout, X, referring to the horizontal axis, is comprised of Baidu App, Baidu short video platform Haokan, iQIYI, Baidu Post, and other user portals. The main goal of these products is to serve as platforms for users to meet their diverse needs in different scenarios, while expanding the scale of users. Y, the vertical axis, is mainly aimed at expanding the range of content and services offered to users with information-focused channels like Baidu Wiki and Baidu Knows, as well as major verticals like healthcare, live streaming, e-commerce, and education.

Based on the strategic business layout of X+Y, and the core technologies of intelligent search and intelligent recommendations, Baidu is aiming to achieve servitization and humanization of the entire mobile ecosystem to enhance the user experience. Humanization aims to amplify the talents of each creator by directly connecting them with relevant users in the ecosystem and fostering more authentic connections between people, which will also meet the needs of users more quickly. For example, Baidu provides opportunities for users to directly communicate with content creators, service providers, and merchants in search results and address more potential service needs along with relevant content, through following, messaging, and live video. Servitization aims to provide users with closed-loop services, so that users can get what they wish to see in a fast and convenient way, without leaving the original app. Baidu has been transforming from offering simple search to comprehensive one-stop services.

Search has always been the core advantage of Baidu’s mobile ecosystem. With the support of AI technology, human-machine interaction in search contexts is becoming more intelligent and the application scenarios of voice search and image search are increasing. With the new X+Y strategic layout and focus on servitization and humanization, Baidu will deliver a better end-to-end experience for users and also strengthen the commercial value of search.

About Baidu

Founded in 2000, Baidu’s mission is to make the complicated world simpler through technology. Baidu is a leading AI company with a strong Internet foundation. Baidu is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “BIDU”, and on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code “9888”. Currently, one ADS represents eight Class A ordinary shares.

SOURCE Baidu, Inc.

Conclusion

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Check out other publications to gain access to more digital resources if you are just starting out with Flux Resource.
Also contact us today to optimize your business(s)/Brand(s) for Search Engines