SEO: the guide for your Chinese e-Commerce website

With a market share of around 70%, Baidu can reach around 700millions of Chinese consumers (source). Do you want to launch an e-commerce platform? Baidu is certainly the right platform to get in contact with a lot of potential buyers. Haoso, with 25% of market share is the new challenger of Baidu. 

Google is totally out, with 0,4% of market share. 

 
SEO strategy plays a vital role in the success of a website’s promotion whether in China or elsewhere. Chinese search engine dominates the Chinese Internet market (logic). it is hard for a foreign company to get the trust of a Chinese search engine and need to follow a lot of rules. 

Baidu a big challenge for International websites

You have to know that many International sites do not have good visibility on Baidu, because they have not really understood how Chinese search Engines work.

Baidu (or haosou) works totally different Google, you need to take the culture of the country, the language, the technic and Design of the Websites. 

A lot of changement are needed for Baidu SEO !

It is clear that to be trusted by consumers in China you need to be present on Baidu. Is a Brand invisible on Baidu has a problem no? or maybe because Chinese people do not like it?

A good translation in Chinese is very important but not anyhow. As we speak many dialects in China, use simple and basic characters. The key is to be accepted by millions of users.

 
The trust of your website indexed in Baidu will depend in part on its homepage. Baidu gives a big power to the homepage. You have to put all your main keywords on the home. 

To be well ranked in Baidu and receive a bonus, we advise having a fast loading website (and also have to localised your server in China or Hong Kong ) 

You need to seduce Baidu !
 

To be better ranked in Baidu’s result, you must first think about relooking your website and put the right Chinese title and content. Some actual designs have to change dramatically. The visual and technical requirement for more enticing graphics for the European and the world.

We need to increase the popularity of your e-Commerce Website

In 2015, a company that wants to stand on Baidu will likely need to use specialized web agencies in SEO, or an experienced SEOer (Chinese Search Engine Optimizer)  to design their site, make the right Changement and host your website in China or Chinese friendly area. 

Usually, we start by an audit of your website to identify the negative factors inherent in natural search. In some cases, a thorough analysis of market competition is needed to determine the right positioning of the site regarding your target.

Finally, we will advise making usual changes, like edited content and URL rewriting. This last condition is essential for success.

Step2 the SEO campaign

After making sure your website is optimized onsite) for Baidu, we can move to step 2. 

Usually, SEO takes Time and the best result comes after 2 years. Baidu can help your e-Commerce website, however, there are also a number of rules, specific to China, set around censorship from the Chinese government.

When planning your SEO strategy for Baidu, there are four main elements you need to take into consideration.  the right content; no technical mistakes; avoid censorship laws and link building (a lot) .    

What kind of Content is suitable for my e-Commerce website ?

 Baidu, much like other Search Engines, doesn’t like duplicate content, so keep an eye on repetition across your website and use canonicals whenever needed and possible. The official language in China is simplified Chinese, and good grammar is important for Search Engines, so make sure you have a good translator.

Quantity matters, it is better to have a lot of pages articles, with fewer words for each article, rather than having a few long content pages. 

Baidu does not have as anti-high keyword density as Google.  

Baidu likes Regular updates 

Also, the amount of content is important, Baidu likes daily content, and will put a bonus to fresh content.   The title should be limited to 30-70 characters. 

Title is very very important

The best format is to have a simplified, keyword-rich title, like in English. Chinese readers and search engines like the attractive titles.

Technicals Details

Add ALT tags to all of your images  as are H1 tags. Baidu reads text, and doesn’t crawl through Flash and JS,Baidu takes great importance to multiples subdomains, to structure your content .

Backlinks 

What kind of backlink is usefull for Baidu ? The website with high BR ( Baidu Rank). News, official governement website, quality websites, nich websites, and all websites will a lot of partnerships. 

Baidu now do not allow sur optimized anchor text in links. Baidu like quantity of links, quantity of pages… That how Chinese big Websites beat the other in Baidu results. 

The spider

Help the Baidu spider to go in your website, will help your pages to be taken by Baidu. For new website, few pages are taken, and you need to increase the trust of Baidu to get better 
SEO is the most cost-effective way for testing the waters in this e-Commerce world.

For a Western company it s requiest for Internationa brands to adapt to the different buying habits, and you may need help from a Marketing Agency. 

SEO is a matter of keywords competition !

 

SEO is a very useful step for all companies wishing to developp themself in China. And the position depends on the competition of the keywords on the search engine. On Baidu, there is more and more companies that invest in Baidu , and the bets increases day after days. You want to a quote, please send us your website, and your keywords list… 

We will give you a quote for Audit, and the SEO campaign. 

1. Learn more about us and our Baidu SEO/SEM Services
2. Our twitter about e-Commerce in China
3. On Facebook SEO china
4. Other good articles : /10-facts-to-understand-the-top-search-engine-baidu/
5. This one is good too : /useful-tips-for-a-winning-seo-campaign-in-china/
6. to under Baidu /the-fundamentals-for-understanding-seo-baidu-in-china/