Baidu search engine gains over 75% marketing share in China. And it’s the biggest Chinese language search engine in the world. The population of China is up to 1.41billion (2021), you can do the math, you will know Is Baidu SEO worth? In this article, I will show you how to use Baidu SEO to get a better rank on Baidu and promote your products or services.
Baidu App has 622 million monthly active users (July 2021)
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search engine optimization(SEO). To get a high ranking on search results and more traffics (Organic traffics). The optimization of website construction, HTML code, high-quality content, keywords, backlinks, etc.
In other words, all you want is to get more clicks from search engines (no-paid). To achieve that goal, you need your website to rank as top as you can, so that your site will get more traffics.
How to say Baidu SEO in Chinese?
In case you want to search for Baidu SEO on Baidu search, you should know how to say it in Chinese. ”Baidu SEO“ translate into Chinese “百度优化” or “百度SEO“. If you do need to search for SEO tips for yourself. You just need to enter those keywords. (I’ve double-checked that for you, the Baidu search engine doesn’t show any valuable tutorials. Most of them are ads).
We all know that SEO standards are always changing and mysterious. The search engines won’t tell you in detail, even Google. However, Baidu is worse!!!
It is not easy to get a high ranking on Baidu search. Why would I say that? Because Baidu search.it is the biggest and best search engine in China. But it doesn’t mean it is a good search engine like Google search. Here is why.
Why Baidu ranking is worse
- Baidu rank Baidu’s platforms high
Because, the products of Baidu like Baidu knowledge(百度知道), Baidu documents (百度文库), Baidu video百度视频, Baidu baijiahao(百度百家号), and Baidu buyer&sourcing(百度爱采购).
If you don’t know how to use Baidu for searching then you might need this Baidu search.
We can accept it if the contents are high quality. But Baidu always ranks its own platforms high with low quality. This is unacceptable and this insane thing has been many years. You might wonder why don’t we use other search engines?
Firstly, Google withdrew from China in 2010. So we can’t use Google anymore. Even we can use Google, I don’t think Google is better than Baidu. Because Baidu is the largest Chinese language search engine, indexed webpages far more than Google. And Baidu is a local search engine, it knows what the Chinese need most.
Secondly, the Baidu search engine is uncompetitive in China right now. Baidu gets over 75% marketing share, others (360 search, Sogou search, Shenma search, Sougou search, etc) share the left.
NOTE: Baidu displays their own platforms is not good for users, BUT it’s a good option for SEO. I will show you later.
- Too many Ads
Back in the day, the first page is all ads displayed, quite annoying. And Baidu even didn’t review the ads, some of them are fraud or illegible business.
- Low quality contents
It’s quite often to see search results not meet your needs, even on Google search. Maybe it’s because the keywords are not matched. But in Baidu, you will see the title exact match you search for, however, the content is totally not showing up as the title described. Or the content is extremely short, only a few words there. (This could be the website creator using some black-hat SEO strategies)
Does that mean you should ignore the Baidu search engine?
Of course not, I just tell you some Cons of Baidu, doesn’t mean Baidu is useless, not worth it. Because Baidu lost users in recent years, and new laws related to making things right. So Baidu is taking it seriously and trying to control the bad side of Baidu search engines.
In other words, Baidu is getting better now than a few years ago.
Baidu SEO
SEO strategy may differ from each search engine. But there do have some the same tips because they’re all webpage under the same coding system.
Your website structure has to be user-friendly and easy to be found and crawled by Baidu search engine. You need to optimize website structure, contents, links, etc.
- Search engine and use friendly design
Your website structure needs to be friendly to the Baidu search engine. That is, easy to be found, to be understood, and clawed. The menu(菜单), category(目录), linking page(链接页), navigation(导航), homepage(主页), and URL(网址) should be clear.
If you’re a website designer, you must already know what I’m talking about. So I won’t describe them in detail. But I need to talk about the RUL. Because Baidu is focusing on the Chinese language, so there will be differences you might don’t know.
- URL Structures
A URL should make sense to users and search engines, not just some random digits or letters. Look at my URL “chinahelp4u/baidu-seo”, you might find out it must be relevant to Baidu SEO. It should make sense to users and search engines.
I need to point out that the URL shouldn’t change too often. I strongly recommend using permalinks. Maybe people told you it’s ok, you can set a redirection properly. Yes, you should. if you have already changed the URL, but it will affect your website speed, and it will affect Baidu clawing your website with too many redirections.
And most ranking-high Chinese websites use Chinese Pinyin in URL. For example, the most trusted shopping website JD.com, I clicked on its subdomains referring to “supermarket” but it doesn’t use “supermarket.jd.com” in the URL, instead of “chaoshi.jd.com/”. That is using Chinese Pinyin(chaoshi). And Tmall uses that too.
So if your website is targeting China only, then you might consider using Pinyin in the URL. At least it won’t affect your website at all.
- Domain and hosting
The domain should be short and easy to remember. Your website’s domain can use either English or Chinese Pinyin. That‘s all depends on you. For global business, you may need a “.com”. But if for Chinese users only, you can use a “.cn” domain. No matter use “.com” or “.cn” it won’t affect Baidu SEO.
However, the hosting will be a problem. My website hosting server is located in the US. One day, I can’t open my website suddenly. I figured out that my website was blocked by the great firewall in China. So I contacted them to remove my website from the block list.
From my story, you should think about it carefully to use hosting services. If possible, I highly recommend you use Chinese hosting services, like Aliyun, Huawei cloud, or Tencent cloud. They are the top 3 Chinese website hosting services in China.
- Title, description and H1 tag
Title and H1 tag are both important for Baidu search SEO. As for which one you should focus on more. Basically, the title tag will show up on the search result. like this.
However, if your target keyword isn’t clear on the title tag and H1 tag. Baidu may choose either the H1 tag or the title tag as the title. In this case, you might try to make the title and H1 tag share the same Chinese characters.
- Alt attributes(Alt text)
You should always add alt text to images you uploaded so that the Baidu search engine knows what’s this picture talks about. It is extremely important to build a friendly search engine website.
- Outbound links (友情链接)
We all know that websites need some outbound links for SEO practices. However, the Baidu SEO is so from other engines did. If you go to check out the Baidu search results. Click on each website. You will find there are many outbound links listed on the bottom of the page (footer).
Baidu takes outbound links as a ranking factor.
- Backlinks
You must be familiar with backlinks. It’s one of the most important SEO factors. You should build high-quality backlinks as much as you can. It will help your website’s ranking and be indexed more frequently by the Baidu search engine. Especially a new website.
- Mobile friendly
Smartphone has been used widely between 10 to 60 years old people in China. So, Baidu released Baidu App and encourage users to download Baidu App. It’s kind of forcing users to use the Baidu app when they want to see the full content. It will pop up a download alert when you use Baidu search engine.
This is an insane and annoying thing. We can’t do much about it. But for website designers, you really should create a mobile-friendly website. Otherwise, you will lose lots of Baidu organic traffics.
Ok, I only point out some major Baidu SEO trips for you, others are almost the same as Google SEO, you can google for that if you need. Now I’m going to talk about the Baidu SEO strategies that no people know.
Use Baidu’s other platforms for Baidu SEO
The reason why I recommend you use Baidu’s other platforms for Baidu SEO is that Baidu always put their own subdomain or platforms’ contents ranking top. What you need is to rank your website as top as possible, so that to gain more traffics. No matter from which platforms.
Those platforms are owned by Baidu. Actually, they’re subdomain of baidu.com.
1. Use Baidu knowledge(百度知道) for Baidu SEO
Baidu knowledge (zhidao.baidu.com) is kind of similar to the “How-to” guide. If you want to find an answer of “how-to”, “where-is”, “should-I”, then the Baidu results may show the contents of Baidu knowledge on the first page (Normally ranking at top 3).
2. Use Baidu jingyan(百度经验) for Baidu SEO
Baidu jingyan (jingyan.baidu.com) is also a “how-to” guide, but more professional than Baidu knowledge. “经验” means experience. So this is the place for sharing your experience with others.
What’s the difference between Baidu knowledge and Baidu jingyan?
You can just write very short content (even just a question mark) on Baidu knowledge. In other words, you can write low-quality content on there. (Like a comments community)
However, Baidu jingyan needs you to write high-quality content with images or videos. The low-quality content won’t pass the review.
3. Use Baidu baijiahao(百度百家号) for Baidu SEO
What’s Baidu baijiahao (baijiahao.baidu.com)? It’s like a blog platform owned by Baidu. You can post content on there. You don’t need to buy a domain or hosting service. Because the domain of it is a sub-domain of Baidu. If you’re a WordPress user, then you will know WordPress has such a thing too.
You need to create a Baijiahao account. And then writing content there. I was confused about why Baidu search shows the website’s URL in Chinese like this.
It is confusing me for a while, and then I figured out, that’s the content from Baidu baijiahao! So unfair!
But if you use baijiahao properly then it’s a good tool for you to SEO your website. Don’t you think?
4. Use Baidu haokan (百度好看视频) for Baidu SEO
If your website has videos, or you want to promote your brand or products through video. Then don’t forget to upload videos to Baidu haokan (haokan.baidu.com). If someone searches for that keyword, then Baidu will your video in the Baidu search results
Like I said, those platforms are owned by Baidu. They are all sub-domain of Baidu. It will help your website rank high.
5. Use Baidu tieba(百度贴吧) for Baidu SEO
Baidu tieba (tieba.baidu.com) is a post community (Like a Chinese version of Reddit). You would never know how popular it is, back in the day. But now, few people use it anymore because of ads display all over and bad user experience. However, it’s a subdomain of Baidu so the content will display at top of Baidu results. So it is still worth you to try it.
Besides, those subdomains of Baidu platforms are all user-generated platforms. You just need to follow the rules, use them properly. It will be a really good tool for you.
Now, let’s see if there are any other platforms you can use to get more organic traffics from Baidu.
Use zhihu.com (知乎) for Baidu SEO
Zhihu is a Chinese Quora. Compared to Baidu’s subdomain platforms, Zhihu has much more high-quality content. Generally speaking, I will search for answers on Zhihu first. You just need to filter out the answer by “Likes” or “comments” on Zhihu to find the best answer. And sometimes, the content of Zhihu may rank higher than the Baidu subdomains’.
I search for website optimization on Baidu, the top 3 are ads, the fourth is Baidu baijiahao, and the next one is Zhihu.com.
Use news platforms for Baidu SEO
News platforms will get ranking better in Baidu. You must be curious is that possible to post content irrelevant to the news? Yes, it is possible.
I saw many search results on Baidu are coming from news platforms, and content is irrelevant to the news. And I digged a little deeper, figured out that it’s coming from a post account of news platforms. Those news platforms will help you rank your website on Baidu better. They are Tencent news(腾讯新闻), Souhu news(搜狐新闻) and Wangyi news(网易新闻).
Those News platforms have user-generated posts. Users can post content on there, no need to be New content. There will be a statement at the bottom of the content. created by the News platform.
Ok, these are the Baidu SEO strategies, guide you on how to get Baidu organic traffics as much as you can. If you have any questions please comment below, or contact me.
