Search Marketing in China

Search Laboratory have expertise in Chinese search marketing. There are many important considerations when performing search engine optimisation and pay per click marketing in China that go beyond the language, character set and culture. This page provides an insight into some of the issues as well as some important information regarding search marketing in Chinese.

If you would like further information on our Chinese search marketing services and how they can directly help your business, please contact us now for advice.

When we find information related to China and search engine marketing we add it here. Some information is common accross all countries, but other useful information you may find about one country or language may not exist for another. Please keep checking back as we update these pages frequently.

Chinese On Line Market

China’s Internet population reached 103 million by mid 2005, second only to the United States.

The on line market in China is projected to reach 134 million by year’s end according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). Daily searches in China are currently at 360 million and are expected to jump to 816 million in 2007, according to investment bank Piper Jaffray. It expects annual revenues from advertising on search sites to reach US$1 billion by 2010, up from US$134 million. There is plenty of room for growth in China with less than a 10% penetration rate compared to the U.S. penetration rate of 70%.

China encourages Internet use for business and education and has invested heavily in broadband services. CNNIC also reports that the number of internet users in China with a broadband connection has jumped 45 percent over the past year. Approximately two-thirds of the total online population have access to a broadband connection in China, a rate comparable to that in the U.S. The CNNIC survey showed that more than 82% of the Internet users in China are below the age of 35 and 40% are between the ages of 18 and 24. The average Chinese Internet user now spends 16.5 hours per week online and 30 million people shopped online.

Important Chinese Search Engines

Baidu is currently the most used search engine in China with 37%, followed by Google at 23%, Yahoo! China (including 3721) a close third at 19% and the others at 21% according to Beijing based Analysys International. The others include local web portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com who have launched their own independent search engines in the past few years.

Baidu is notoriously difficult to work with due to the lack of English speaking customer service staff. If you want to get seen in China you must be listed on Baidu, and Search Laboratory can do this for you. The literal meaning of Baidu is ’hundreds of times’.

PPC in China

The important PPC engines are Baidu, Google, Yahoo and soon MSN. Although the character set is entirely different, the process of PPC is much the same as in any other language (although there is no English version of the Baidu user interface). Chinese characters represent words or parts of words, and the mission, as with other PPC, is to find all the relevant search terms (combinations of these characters) that a user would likely search to find your products or services.

Other Information

For Chinese SEO, you need a chinese language site and a Chinese domain name. You need an office in China to gain a Chinese domain name. PPC is a low cost entry to the Chinese market that can unlock valuable market analysis while winning sales at the same time.

According to Ernst & Young, China is the world’s second largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity versus GDP. Which probably means if your organization hasn’t had a how-to-expand-to-China meeting yet, it’s only a matter of time now.

China has adopted reforms to allow foreign owned visitors into the country.

Don’t be fooled by the hype concerning the economic wealth and infrastructure found in urban centers. Rural China is comprised of 750 million people whose per capita cash income in 2005 was RMB 967 (US$117) versus the per capita disposable income of urban residents of RMB 2,938 (US$355) (figures courtesy of Ernst and Young). In the major cities you have high demand for the latest in electronic gadgetry and brand name products. In the rural areas you have people who are considering buying their first washing machine or television.

the Chinese prefer Web pages that are busy and packed with information - which can cause problems with U.S. designers who believe in minimal text and lots of white space or corporate communication departments’ formatting rules and standards.
Although millions of people are online, don’t assume your Chinese counterparts understand Web design or other "backend" technical issues. As with marketing in general, the Chinese know where they want to go but don’t have the technical expertise on how to get there (yet).

Need Advice?

Search Laboratory can help you take your message to China. This can be using a fully localized site or a small subset of the site to test the market. Either way, with full search marketing to truly realise your on line potential. Please contact us for free advice. Taking the first steps into China is easier than you might think.