Tackle the Chinese market with SEO

Businesses looking to increase their consumer numbers on an international basis have been advised that it is "imperative" they turn their search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts to the Chinese search engine Baidu.

Michael Bonfils, in a post for Search Engine Watch, said that the Chinese search service previously listed its paid results among its organic results, which could have been confusing, but that now its appearance was more similar to that of Google.

Selected sponsored ad links now appear at the top of the page with a few more on the right-hand side, while SEO results are displayed on the left.

"Converting your English terms to simplified Chinese terms using translation software probably won't do your Chinese searchers any favours. Your best bet is to hire a native to look at the keyword research you'll need," Mr Bonfils explained.

He added that in terms of SEO, Baidu "highly values" metadata, meaning keywords and title tags should be well written and translated.

Mr Bonfils notes that keyword density should be between six and ten per cent and that Chinese content tended to be "heavily regulated".

Recent ComScore figures revealed that Russian search engine Yandex was the fastest growing search service within the top ten search engines.

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