Baidu Search Marketing Tools for China

Before launching campaigns in search engine marketing (SEM) and/or search engine optimization (SEO) for the Chinese market, make sure you look through the industry trend data using the following tools (all of them from Baidu):

• Baidu keyword suggestion tool
• Baidu Index
• Baidu Data
• Baidu Analytics

Baidu keyword suggestion tool

Baidu offers a keyword suggestion tool for advertisers and can be found in any Baidu Phoenix Nest SEM accounts. Baidu Phoenix Nest: http://www2.baidu.com/

Before launching paid search marketing campaigns on Baidu, search marketers should run keyword research for their industries. All you need is to start with several core keywords related to your industries / products / services, Baidu keyword suggestion tool will provide:

• New keyword suggestions that are related to your core keywords
• Estimated traffic volume for each of the suggested keywords

For SEO professionals and/or webmasters, running keyword research through Baidu keyword suggestion tool allows you to cover all the keywords that are related to your products or services on your websites.

Baidu Index

• Through Baidu Index, search marketers can get trends in popularity of keywords, geographic regions and time range (i.e. months) with comparisons.

For example, you can compare up to 5 keywords at the same time with the attributes below.

• A chart that shows popularity by Internet users and by the media
• A chart that shows geographic data by province, and by city
• A chart that provides demographic data by gender, by age, by occupation, and by education

Baidu Data

Baidu is a search engine so it means users type in hundreds of thousands keywords into Baidu’s search box everyday. Keyword data can be re-organized, categorized, and analyzed, and then produce different types of industry-specific trend reports to Chinese search marketers.

Baidu has made some of the trend reports directly available through Baidu Data. You can get reports for many different industries including automobile, gaming, travel, electronics, computers, advertising, telecommunications, mobile phones, finance, entertainment, education, properties, e-commerce, group buying, fashions, cosmetics, etc.

Baidu Data: http://data.baidu.com/

Baidu Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool available to everyone. Basically if you have a website, you set up Google Analytics by inserting the Google Analytics tracking code onto each one of your web pages. Google Analytics will start collecting data from the users visiting your website, then traffic data about your website will show up on different Google Analytics reports that are available to you.

Baidu Analytics is the equivalent web analytics tool to Google Analytics, while Baidu has been targeting the main users of Baidu Analytics being Chinese search marketers.

Baidu Analytics (Tongji): http://tongji.baidu.com/

Before being able to use Baidu Analytics, you will have to add Baidu Analytics tracking codes on to every page of your website. The reports will show traffic data of all the users visiting your website.

• If your website is already using Google Analytics, there is no need to switch over and use Baidu Analytics (which will provide almost the same reports to you that you are already getting from Google Analytics).
• If your website isn’t using any web analytics tools, you can choose between using Baidu Analytics or Google Analytics. If you’re only focusing on the Chinese market, it isn’t a bad choice to use Baidu Analytics.