First things first – SEO is crucial for any modern business. Out of all the digital marketing options out there, SEO easily provides the greatest ROI as it allows you to generate immense traffic and for that traffic to keep coming to your website on autopilot. The more traffic you have, the more leads and sales you will get – simple as that!

China is a country that is experiencing rapid technological development. Today, over 500 million people use Baidu (their primary search engine) every single month, and that number will only continue to grow. This gives your business the ability to market your products and services to nearly ½ a billion people. And like all forms of SEO, once you solidify your rankings, you can expect a steady stream of highly-qualified traffic coming to your website day after day.

When it comes to Baidu (just like all SEO), content is CRUCIAL. Content is the name of the game because if you don’t have content, what are you going to try and rank? Whether it be a few pages on your website or implementing a massive content marketing strategy on your blog, your website must have content so that you can rank on Baidu. The more quality content you publish, the higher chance you will rank for relevant keywords and generate traffic to your website.

Content marketing on Baidu is like content marketing for any other search engine. First, make sure that you do proper keyword research. This will enable you to find search terms relevant to your brand – preferably ones with higher volume and lower competition. From there, you’ll want to create a strategy for how you will implement those keywords on your website. Will they be individual web pages? Blog posts? Finally, it’s extremely important to ensure that your keywords are being utilized correctly in your actual content.

While Baidu and Google are two of the world’s most popular search engines and they have many similarities, they also have some key differences that you should be aware of. The first key difference is that while Google operates in most countries globally, Baidu is really only used in Mainland China. This means that Baidu is very integrated into Chinese society and that the search engine has a superior understanding of Chinese culture (language, phrasing, slang, etc.). This makes Baidu ideal if you are trying to sell your products or services to a Chinese audience.

Baidu also respects the Chinese government’s rules on censorship and regularly censors content that the Chinese government is sensitive to. This could include political content, adult content, or any controversial current events. Baidu also has its own ranking preferences, as backlinks from websites hosted in China are given better rankings than sites with backlinks from other countries.

The search results between Google and Baidu can differ drastically depending on various factors. The most important difference is that Baidu is China’s primary search engine – in fact, it holds over 70% search engine market share in the country. This gives Baidu an enormous edge over Google in Mainland China. The algorithm is more sophisticated as it has a deeper understanding of Chinese culture and what results to deliver on the SERPs. Another key difference is that Baidu search results are typically dominated by Baidu-related entities – even more so than Google!

There are a few other key differences in the search results. Baidu tends to prefer websites with backlinks from other websites hosted in China. Baidu also tends to be more lenient to keyword stuffing (which can get you penalized in Google). Finally, Baidu is renowned for its heavy censorship and manually influences individual results.

When it comes to hiring a Baidu SEO agency, there are a few things that you need to keep an eye out for. First of all – do they have experience with Baidu marketing? This is the most important thing to look for. Your Baidu SEO agency needs to have years of experience getting actual results on Baidu. Make sure the agency’s website shows a deep SEO knowledge, and be sure to reach out to the agency and ask them for any case studies they might have for other clients they have helped rank on Baidu.

If you think you have found an agency that has experience with Baidu SEO, the next thing to do is make sure that they are well-reviewed. The best way to check this is through independent, third-party websites – Google Reviews is a great place to start. If the agency is extremely well-reviewed, it likely means that they are results-driven and care about their clients and customers.

Doing SEO in China is very similar to doing SEO anywhere else in the world. The most important part is making sure that your content writers are native Mandarin speakers. This means that they will be able to write in a way that is culturally and colloquially relevant to modern Chinese culture. We do not recommend hiring non-native writers, as it will likely negatively impact your rankings on Baidu.

From there, it’s important to do proper keyword research. This means using tools such as Baidu Index, Baidu Webmaster, and Baidu Keyword planner to map out the keywords you plan to target – this will give your SEO campaign a much better chance to succeed. Baidu also places an enormous emphasis on backlinks (preferably from sites hosted in the Mainland). The best way to generate backlinks is by reaching out to other relevant Chinese webmasters to see if they will provide a link back to your site.

Building links on Baidu has a lot of differences and similarities to building backlinks on Google. The key differences aren’t in the tactics but in the way that Baidu looks at backlinks. Unlike Google, Baidu has a complicated relationship with backlinks. The platform says that it only acknowledges backlinks from a handful of credited Chinese websites, but in reality, it seems that getting links from smaller (sometimes even spammy) websites can still help gain traction in the search rankings.

But here at First Page, we think that a white hat approach is always best – no matter what search engine you target. This means the best way to generate backlinks is by publishing informative, high-quality content that naturally attracts backlinks. From there, outreach can be a great way to generate more links. This is also referred to as ‘link prospecting’ and is the action of reaching out to webmasters hoping they will link to your website. It can be time-consuming, but you will generate backlinks and watch your rankings improve over time.

There are a few ways to get backlinks to your website so that you can rank higher on Baidu. The first strategy is also the most important – to publish the highest-quality content that you possibly can. The more informative, interesting, educational, and helpful your content is, the more likely it will generate backlinks naturally. That’s the power of great content!

But truth be told, while this is the first stepping stone, getting backlinks to your website usually takes a lot more effort. Once you have high-quality content, we recommend starting an outreach campaign. This is when you start reaching out to other web admins (usually by email) and try to persuade them to create a backlink to your website. This is also known as link prospecting. It’s a time-consuming process, but once you start generating backlinks from reputable sources, you should start to see an increase in your rankings as well.

We recommend a few ways to find volume for Chinese keywords. The first option is the Baidu Index, which is basically Baidu’s equivalent of Google Trends. This software will give you many interesting insights into what keywords are being searched for on Baidu, which keywords are gaining traction, and other secondary keywords relevant to your primary keyword. It’s a very helpful tool.

From there, we recommend trying Baidu Webmaster Tools. Similar to Google Search Console, this tool will allow you to see what keywords you are ranking for, identify pages for potential traffic increases, as well as see your average positioning for your primary keywords. Baidu Keyword Planner is another powerful tool for finding information about keywords, including their monthly search volume.