Baidu is China’s number one and most popular search engine, with approximately 63 percent of the country’s market share. Google is less popular in China than Baidu, so if your traffic comes from the Chinese market, it pays to optimize your site for Baidu.
Baidu is constantly improving their services, but still far behind Google when it comes to technology that evaluates and indexes the most relevant and authoritative content. However Baidu uses the same SEO rules that you would for Google. Getting good rankings in Baidu requires understanding the search engine optimization guide that works with the Baidu search engine. You won’t hear any talk of Pandas or Penguins, but you will notice that their decision making is very nationalistic in nature.
Tips to get decent rankings with Baidu:
1. Right Keywords:
You need to find the right Chinese keywords to optimize for, Chinese has many dialects and the same words have different meanings in different dialects. You should stick to it and not only for keywords but for content as a whole. When generating tons of content in Chinese, follow the official guidelines for what content is acceptable in China because there are strict rules there and if you don’t obey, this could cost you not only your good rankings with Baidu.
2. Domain Names:
You can use a .com, .net, or .cn extension with it. For even better results, host your site on a Chinese host because this gives you an additional bonus with Baidu.
3. Site Structure:
Your site should have a clear structure and clear navigation that makes it easy for users to find content. Maintain link consistency, on every page of the website there should be a link back to the home page. Do not use complex JavaScript-based links or flash.
4. Crawlability:
It is recommended that you use text instead of flash, images, JavaScript etc. to display important content or links. The Baidu spider cannot recognize text that is contained in these formats. Do not use iFrame when presenting web content, the content displayed in iFrame will be ignored by the Baidu spider.
5. Webmaster Tools
Baidu recommends the use of a sitemap and that you submit it to the Baidu webmaster platform. Use Ping to notify Baidu of new content. Most blogging services support real time notification using the ping method
6. On-Page Optimization:
The Baidu search engine will judge your Meta description, if it’s not a match, Baidu will extract related snippets from your content. Page title actually has larger impact on ranking on Baidu than Google. Many of the on-page optimizations you can make for Google will translate to Baidu, such as building keyword rich page titles and URL structures.
7. Baidu Search Engine marketing:
Baidu offers a platform similar to Google AdWords called Baidu Phoenix Nest, if you want to bid on a keyword and are willing to pay the most for it, you get the top spot. It doesn’t matter whether your ad text is relevant or if you have optimized the landing page experience. You paid, so you get to play.
These are only the high points of the differences between Baidu and Google for Search. There are many smaller variations that are worth understanding if the Chinese market is important to your business.
