As we all know, SEO traffic from the search engines, such as Google is critical to any online business. The same logic applies to the business who want to enter China or already operating in China. But we need to focus more on Baidu, the biggest search engine in China. That's why Baidu SEO is in the centre of your Chinese SEO strategy. Here we have summarised top 10 Chinese SEO tips.
Tips 1: Informative Title tag
The information in the Title tag is the first thing your target Chinese searchers see.
Write 25 characters long with one of these items to attract the searcher's attention.
Use numbers - ex. odd numbers stand out better
Ask open-ended questions - ex. What is Baidu SEO
Include dates - ex. Baidu SEO (2021)
Add a call to action (CTA) - ex. watch, view, learn, buy
To land on page-one is not an easy task. Most Title tags do not draw the searcher's attention, which is a huge mistake you must avoid. It should include a price in the title tag, which is a value to draw the Chinese searchers' attention to look at your listing immediately.
Tips 2: Add Meta Description
Baidu ranks sites with meta descriptions higher than those without them. In the HTML source code, your text description will often show up in Baidu search results.
Write a value proposition statement to get Chinese searchers to click your link.
‹head›
‹meta name="description" content="Example of description" /›
‹/head›
Tips 3: Keyword tag is not necessary
In August 2012, Baidu’s engineer has confirmed that Baidu ignores the Meta Keyword tag. Chinese SEO experts said the Meta keyword tag is no longer relevant.
Tips 4: Add Canonical tag
Inside the Canonical tag, you tell Baiduspider that this is your preferred URL.
While there are four URLs of a similar page, it is best not to split the link juice. Keep it as one makes your page stronger.
‹head›
‹link rel="canonical" name="https://www.shmdesign.com/baidu-seo.html"›
‹/head›
Tips 5: Add Meta Language tag
Since Bing and Baidu do not support the Hreflang tag, applying the Encoding and (Meta) Content-Language attribute is necessary.
This tag tells Baidu to target users in the right region.
For mainland China, Baidu recommends this tag for simplified Chinese:
‹head›
‹meta http-equiv=“Content-Type” content="text/html; charset=gb18030" /›
‹meta http-equiv="content-language" content=“zh-Hans" /›
‹/head›
For Hong Kong and Macao, Baidu recommends this tag for traditional Chinese:
‹head›
‹meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=big5" /›
‹meta http-equiv="content-language" content="zh-Hant-HK" /›
‹/head›
For Taiwan, Baidu recommends this tag for traditional Chinese:
‹head›
‹meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=big5" /›
‹meta http-equiv="content-language" content="zh-Hant-TW" /›
‹/head›
Tips 6: Make your page reader-friendly
We recommend having 2-3 lines per paragraph with excellent colour contrast and sizable Chinese text sizes.
Chinese SEO is not about achieving the top ranking; Your goal is to provide the best user experience for your audience and help them access your contents.
Tips 7: Add a newsletter subscription
Newsletters or mailing lists are the perfect way to collect email addresses so that you can nurture prospects over time to become leads.
Invite your subscribers to come back to your site, let them familiar with your domain. Try to gain more direct traffic by letting Chinese users type your website URL can possibly improve your search visibility and SEO results.
Tips 8: Use internal anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. Baidu places a lot of weight on keyword usage in the internal anchor text link in my research.
Use this example below to create various anchor texts for your Chinese website.
Tips 9: Avoid blackhat SEO
Blackhat techniques refer to manipulative tactics to boost up search ranks. Baidu has an algorithm called Thunder, which heavily penalizes cheating and manipulating rankings.
Do NOT use these tactics:
Link farm networks;
Cloaking;
Stuffed keywords;
Invisible text;
Tips 10: Create 404 page
Page 404 can engage the visitors to continue surfing on your site after finding the broken link on your website. While broken links are appearing, they have a full-size negative impact on your Baidu SEO. It's recommended having a 404 page and guide your Chinese users to visit other key pages of the website.
