Website optimization for Baidu in its basic principles is quite similar to what you have to do when focusing on Google or Bing. The most noticeable difference, perhaps, is a slightly different approach to meta tags.
And of course, an important ranking factor is unique content.
The <title>tag
The <title> tag is important for both search engines and users. It is used by users in the search results to determine the relevance of the search engine’s response to their query.
An interesting difference in site optimization for Baidu is that for Chinese, it is recommended to use an underscore as the separator”_”.
Let’s take a couple of sites as an example:
- wanwan.sina.com — 网页游戏|新浪玩玩网站_最新网页游戏大全_好玩的网页游戏_新浪网
- tech.huanqiu.com — 科技 全球视角_环球网
Despite the common practice of using underscores as a separator for Baidu, you can continue to use hyphens\dashes as the default separator, as practice shows that Baidu can handle this option without any problems.
Baidu Recommendations:
<title>it must not contain “garbage” and must contain the most important keywords for the page.- You should not spam with keywords, or use irrelevant keywords.
- The most important keywords should be placed as close to the beginning of the tag as possible.
- Use words that are as close as possible to what people use in search queries for your content.
- Use the name of your brand\site in
<title>. - Tags
<title>should not be repeated for different pages.
Recommended Baidu <title>format:
| Main | SiteName or SiteName_Service or Product_Annotation |
| Folder | FolderName_SiteName |
| Page | PageName_FolderName_SiteName |
Limit of indexed characters for meta tags:
| Tag | Limit of indexed characters (max) |
| Title | 80 |
| Meta Description | 200 |
| Meta Keywords | 100 |
Meta Tags (Description and Keywords)
The description meta tag should only be used as a page description. Make it up as an ad — it should match the search query and increase the CTR of your site in the search results.
Baidu Recommendations:
- Don’t spam with keywords
- Description tags should not be repeated for different pages
- Do not exceed the limit of indexed characters, the excess will be cut off.
URL structure
The requirements for URLs are classic. The simpler, the better:
- URLs should be kept as short as possible
- Use static URL addressing wherever possible. If you still need to use dynamic parameters, try to minimize their number.
- Don’t allow multiple URLs to occur for the same page.
Navigation and linking
For both the user and the search engine, it is important that your site is easy to navigate and that any page is easily accessible.
Baidu recommends using a tree structure with no more than three” levels”.
Bread crumbs
Breadcrumbs will help you link back from the bottom to the top, and of course they will help users navigate.
Baidu Recommendations:
- The simpler and fewer levels — the better
- If possible, use breadcrumbs on all pages
Subdomains
Baidu treats subdomains a bit differently than Google does. Baidu considers subdomains to be something like sections of the main site. Accordingly, they inherit some of the weight and authority from the main domain.
Baidu Recommendations:
- You should not mindlessly create subdomains. A large number of subdomains in the absence of high-quality content can be perceived as spam.
- Avoid duplicating content between subdomains.
Images
Since Baidu has its own image search (Baidu Images Search) – do not forget about image optimization.
Baidu Recommendations:
- Use keywords in the file names.
- Describe images in the alt attribute. Avoid spam.
- Images must be relevant to the page text.
Headers h1-h6
Similar to Google, well-structured text is valued more, and keywords in headlines are useful for influencing rankings.
Content
The most important thing is that it must be in Chinese.
- Avoid duplicate pages
- Regularly update your site: news, reviews, reviews, forum, etc.
- Your company’s contacts and information should be easily accessible