If you want more online visibility for your brand in China, you should ensure your website lands on the top of the search engine results page. The digital landscape in China is unique and heavily guarded by strict government policies and search engine marketing in China isn’t easy. Here are some tips that will help your website gain higher rankings on Baidu.

Get A Chinese Domain and Host

Baidu SEO prefers local domains over international ones. The search engine prefers domains that contain “.cn” over “.net” and “.com”. You might perform SEO for your .com site but the search engine will always promote local domains over foreign ones. It doesn’t matter where your “.cn” domain is registered, it will still get preference over other domains on the search engine results page.

Unlike the domain registration location, the hosting service provider location does matter on Baidu. If your website is hosted in Hong Kong or China, it would get preference for Baidu. However, getting your website hosted in China and Hong Kong is not easy and straightforward.

Go for an Internet Content Provider license (ICP) for your Chinese hosted website. ICP license is granted by the government which is mandatory to operate your website in China.

Create a Website in the Chinese Language

Baidu is not available in English. Though you can submit an English language website on Baidu, it might never show up on the top of the search engine results page. Baidu ignores websites in foreign languages and gives preferences to websites with content in Chinese dialects.

If you want your website to land on the top of the search engine results page, you need to work with an agency offering search engine marketing in China. Leading SEM agencies in China have expert Chinese linguists, copywriters which can create Chinese content as per your business needs.

Avoid Censored Content

When you are vying for top rankings on the search engine, you need to play by government rules. All content on Chinese digital platforms is monitored by Chinese government agencies and any websites flouting rules are removed from search engines.

Please note certain phrases, topics, and events are not allowed by the government of China. Baidu works in close tandem with the Chinese government to ensure no censored content finds its way on the Baidu search engine. If you want your website to land on the top of Baidu’s search results page, make sure the content does not include any controversial topic or censored content that might look like a violation of government content policies.

Similarly, you need to be careful while linking to other sites. Make sure you do not link to websites that publish censored or controversial content. If you are not careful enough in terms of linking, it will affect your Baidu ranking and the worst your website might be removed from the Baidu search index.

Links Are About Quality and Not Quantity

Like any other search engine, Baidu values good linking efforts. You need to pay attention to the quality of backlinks and not focus on creating a large network of links (poor quality) that do not add value to your website. Quality backlinks will lead to an increase in website traffic and pave the way for achieving top ranking on the search engine results page.

On Baidu, the sub-domain and internal links get more importance. Anchor text is also important in Baidu SEO as the search engine bots do not look for keywords in the URL. The bots get more information about links from the anchor text.

Post-Unique Content Consistently

Baidu values quality content. If you want a high ranking for your website on Baidu, you need to post and update content regularly. You need to ensure the content is informative and useful for your target audience.

You should avoid copying content. Baidu ignores content that appears on other sites and pages so make sure you update content on your website regularly. Like any SEO in the world, quality content is your way to land on the top of the search engine results page.

The above-mentioned tips will help you achieve success with search engine marketing in China and increase your website’s chances of landing on the top of search engine result pages.