Given that Google has lost its presence in China due to internet regulations, marketers in the west need to learn and play by the rules set by Baidu if they want to have at developing a winning Chinese SEO strategy. (If you’d like to learn more about other Chinese search engines check out our other blog here: Top 5 Chinese Search Engines You Need to Care About
In the rest of this section, we will share the most fundamental differences you will have to be aware of (which means essential changes you will have to make to your site!) if you want to get indexed and enter the playground of baidu seo:
When getting ready for Baidu SEO, the first essential step is to have an all-Chinese website for your business. And that’s because almost all of Baidu’s users search using keywords in Chinese and an English site is NOT eligible to rank for these search terms.
It sounds like stating the obvious, but there’s a catch. SIMPLIFIED Chinese is way more effectively read and preferred over other characters including traditional Chinese.
Aside from that, Baidu also identifies Mandarin grammar better than other Chinese languages even if they are written in the same characters.
So if you already have a website in traditional Chinese targeting Taiwan or Hong Kong audience, you will need to translate your content into simplified Chinese (and also to Mandarin if otherwise!) when launching it in China.
Although Baidu has made it clear that its algorithm will not discriminate against foreign sites, it does takes the speed at which your page loads as an important factor for ranking like any other western search engine.
Since most websites hosted overseas load incredibly slow and can even be blocked, your site ranking and the actual user experience could be hugely affected by where the site is hosted. Also, if your website is inaccessible for web users in China, it can’t be indexed either.
To tackle this problem, the best practice we recommend is to host your page within mainland China if possible. But you will need an Internet Content Provider License (ICP) to host in China, and a Chinese business license is essential for you to apply for an ICP.