5 things to learn from Chinese SEO

5 key ideas to learn from Chinese SEO

If you want to grow and optimize your SEO in China, there are five things you need to master before you break into the Chinese market.

Before we explain these five keys, keep one thing in mind: Baidu is still a major player for SEO in China, even as Douyin and Xiaohongshu grow into search engines of their own. For a current view of how Baidu ranking works now, see our guide on Baidu SEO in 2025.

SEO matters a lot in fields like education, because Chinese buyers research and compare offers before they choose. That habit is cultural.

Some figures: a large share of Chinese internet users rely on Baidu as a main search engine, which means a big slice of the population uses it for everyday searches online.

Chinese website

To have a better chance of ranking on Baidu, host your website in China. Your main audience is Chinese, so give Chinese visitors the best possible online experience, including fast load times.

Write your content in simplified Chinese if you want to reach Chinese customers. Make it clear, useful and engaging for a Chinese audience.

To rank well on Baidu, backlinks are still part of the core. Your pages should link to relevant, trusted sites, and you want a healthy mix of internal links between your own pages and links to and from Chinese social platforms.

Update with content

Baidu rewards fresh, regular content, so publish often. Write useful articles and updates tied to your site. A few points to keep in mind:

• Baidu cares less about keywords in your URL and more about the anchor text of your links.
• Write a clear meta description for each page.
• Avoid Flash; Baidu will not read it.

Be relevant

Baidu cares about quantity, but also about quality and relevance. Write about topics tied to your site’s purpose. A wine site that publishes sports articles will not look relevant to Baidu.

Trust ranking on Baidu

Two things drive trust ranking on Baidu:

• Verified accounts. One type is official site verification for big brands such as Adidas or Nike. The other is a paid, verified account that can lift your ad position on Baidu’s results page. The verification badge lets users see more details about the site.

• Page ranking from 0 to 10, based on the quality of your links and content. Keep your content and links steady and your score should stay stable.

To sum up, master these five keys to grow your SEO on Baidu. If you want a smaller-budget partner to run Chinese SEO without waste, that is the kind of work we do at SEO Agency China.

Jon Wang is a pragmatic, China-focused consultant with hands-on experience in Chinese e-commerce, distribution and digital marketing, always focused on practical solutions for smaller brands and tighter budgets.