How to rank on Baidu in four easy steps

Andrew Warren-Payne

Develop local insights and strategies

China is a massive country, and although it might look homogenous to outsiders, this is far from the case. 

With more than a billion people spread out over an area nearly 40 times the size of the UK, China is an incredibly diverse market.

Different regions in China have different government policies, economic situations, weather, culture and use of language. Therefore it is essential to have local knowledge with a deep understanding of local customer needs.

One faux pas made by many companies is to simply translate keyword lists in English (on Google) into Mandarin and expect success. This is far from the case. 

Know how you will measure success

As with any other marketing campaign, it is essential that you get the basics right with Baidu by establishing the right goals, KPIs and metrics. 

Without this, it will be impossible to measure return on investment and work out whether the efforts put into any search strategy have been effective.

For companies looking to get started on Baidu, they should make sure they have this part tightly defined before they invest heavily into this market.

Ensure you track the right metrics

In addition to setting KPIs, it is important to make sure that the appropriate technology is in place to ascertain whether certain KPIs and goals have been met.

Whether you choose to use Baidu’s analytics (Baidu Tongji) or another tool depends on your requirements, but either way you should make sure that the appropriate configurations have been made.

Get your Baidu keyword strategy right

As Eddie Choi summed up in his blog post on the search behaviour of Chinese internet users, it differs from that of other countries. As such, your keyword strategy should be locally tuned.

Out of the tools recommended in the report, two include:

  • Baidu Popular Search Ranking 搜索风云榜 (top.baidu.com) – provides the ranking of popular search items on Baidu.
  • Baidu Data Research 数据研究 (data.baidu.com) – provides industry-specific reports of in-depth consumer insights, search behaviour and more.

Have you got any tips you would like to share?

Has your company had any successes or failures on Baidu? What would you recommend for companies looking to use the platform? Have we missed anything out?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Baidu Search Best Practice Guide

Econsultancy

Econsultancy’s Baidu Search Best Practice Guide, sponsored by China Search International, provides detail on the key differences between Baidu and other search engines, what steps you need to take to get started and what you should do to ensure success.

This 38-page guide has been put together with the assistance of leading search practitioners within Asia who use Baidu to achieve results for their clients.

The report makes an excellent companion to Econsultancy’s SEO Best Practice Guide and PPC Best Practice Guide.

Areas covered include:

  • The Baidu Ecosystem – understanding the products and services that Baidu offers, along with the latest developments on the search engine.
  • Getting started with Baidu – how to open an account, what types of accounts are available and what legislation and regulation you should be aware of.
  • Best practices on the search engine – the importance of local insights and strategies, how you should measure success and what strategies and technology you should be using to make your campaigns as effective as possible.

Table of contents

  1. Foreword by China Search International
    1. About Econsultancy
    2. About China Search International
  2. Market Overview and Trends
    1. China’s internet and search landscape
    2. Baidu overview
  3. The Baidu Ecosystem
    1. Understanding Baidu’s positioning
    2. Baidu advertising products overview
      1. Paid search
      2. Brand Zone
      3. Baidu Content Network
    3. Latest developments
      1. Mobile
      2. Cloud computing
      3. Hong Media
      4. Brand Landmark
  4. Getting Started
    1. Opening an account with Baidu
    2. Types of Baidu accounts
    3. Legislation and regulation
  5. Best Practice
    1. What are the challenges?
    2. Best practice #1: Local insights and strategies
    3. Best practice #2: Measuring success
    4. Best practice #3: Tracking strategies
    5. Best practice #4: Keyword strategy
    6. Best practice #5: SEO
    7. Best practice #6: Technology selection
      1. Standard campaign management
      2. Web analytics
      3. Bid management
      4. What tools or software systems should I use?
    8. Best practice #7: Integration
      1. Search: paid search and SEO
      2. Social media
      3. Channels: other Baidu products and offline channels
    9. Best practice #8: Optimisation
      1. Keyword level
      2. Campaign level
  6. Appendix A: Baidu Products
    1. Baidu Tieba, Zhido and Baike
    2. Box computing
    3. Other products
  7. Appendix B: Paid Search Optimisation Checklist

Download a copy of the report to learn more.

A free sample is available for those who want more detail about what is in the report.

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Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

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Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.