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Baidu Mobile SEO

Beginners Guide

Gordon Choi

http://www.ChinaMobileSEO.com/baidu-seo-guide/

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Baidu Mobile SEO Beginners Guide - Intro

I have written this guide to help beginners to understand the best practices of Baidu Mobile SEO. To

optimize your websites for Baidu’s mobile users, make sure you go through the following items:

1. Local Web Hosting

2. Mobile Website Strategies

3. Crawlable Site Structure Optimization

4. Page Speed Optimization

5. Local SEO

Written by Gordon Choi

http://www.ChinaMobileSEO.com/baidu-seo-guide/

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Local Web Hosting

When your users are mainly from China, you should host your mobile website locally in China.

When your mobile website is hosted by one of the local hosts in China, then the site is assigned with a local China IP

address (or several local China IP addresses). This makes it easier for Baidu to crawl your web pages, and preparing for

indexation.

This principle also applies to Baidu mobile SEO.

When a user who resides in China requests your web page and the page’s resources through the web browser, the request

only has to go through the local networks in China before your page and the page’s resources are returned to the user’s

web browser.

More explanations on:

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=upgrade_web_hosting

Written by Gordon Choi

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Mobile Website Strategies

When developing your website for both mobile and desktop screens, you must choose a strategy. The three most common

mobile website strategies are:

Separate Mobile Website - You build two sites (i.e. two sets of codes), and maintain two sets of URLs.

Written by Gordon Choi

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Mobile Website Strategies

Written by Gordon Choi

Responsive Design - You build one site (i.e. one set of codes), and maintain one set of URLs.

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Mobile Website Strategies

Written by Gordon Choi

Dynamic Serving - You build two sites (i.e. two sets of codes), but maintain one set of URLs.

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Mobile Website Strategies

Written by Gordon Choi

Separate Mobile Website

The separate mobile website strategy is the most suitable option for Baidu SEO.

Usually the desktop version of your site is placed on the www sub-domain. For example:

www.example.cn

www.example.com

The mobile version of your site is placed on the m sub-domain:

m.example.cn

m.example.com

For example, on the desktop version of your home page you should include the following in the head section:

<meta name="applicable-device" content="pc">

<link rel="alternate" media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)" href="http://m.example.com">

On the mobile version of your homepage you should include the following in the head section:

<meta name="applicable-device" content="mobile">

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com">

More explanations on:

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=implement_mobile_website_strategies

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Crawlable Site Structure Optimization

Use the <a> whenever linking to your mobile website’s internal pages. This makes it much easier for Baidu to crawl and

index your web pages.

For example, assume your mobile website is a grocery ecommerce store. When linking to the home page:

<a href="http://m.example.com/"></a>

When linking to the category page:

<a href="http://m.example.com/category-fruits"></a>

When linking to the sub-category page:

<a href="http://m.example.com/sub-category-oranges"></a>

When linking to the product page:

<a href="http://m.example.com/product-california-oranges-6-a-box"></a>

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Page Speed Optimization

A web page (or mobile website) which loads faster will usually allow Baidu to crawl faster and more pages. This will improve

your mobile website’s indexation on Baidu.

The page speed optimization techniques below can be applied to your mobile websites (or web pages) to improve the

overall loading speed. - http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=mobile_website_speed_optimization_techniques

DNS Lookups - Reducing the number of DNS lookups and enabling keep-alive will allow your mobile web pages to load

faster. Each DNS lookup takes up certain amount of time before the web browser can start downloading the actual resource

files of your mobile web pages. - http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=reduce_dns_lookups

http Requests - Your mobile web page may request a resource (such as an image file or another web page) which does

not exist on the requested server location. This causes bad http requests to happen. You should go through your entire site

and fix all the broken links that may cause bad http requests. -

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=fix_bad_http_requests

Redirects - A redirect automatically takes your website users from one page to another. Your mobile website should avoid

any redirect at all cost. Redirects can considerably slow down page load. -

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=avoid_redirects

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Page Speed Optimization

Written by Gordon Choi

File Compression - File compression takes place when the web browser requests a page from your mobile website and

your web server returns a compressed file. Enabling file compression will allow your pages to load faster. -

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=enable_file_compression

Minification of JavaScript and CSS Files - When minifying JavaScript and CSS files, unnecessary characters will be

removed from the files. This will reduce the file size, and will result in improving page load speed. -

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=minify_css_and_javascript_files

External JavaScript Files - Your mobile web page should load faster when the web browser downloads fewer external

JavaScript files. To achieve this, you can combine multiple JavaScript files into fewer files or even a single file. -

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=combine_multiple_javascript_files

External CSS Files - Your mobile web page should load faster when the web browser downloads fewer external CSS files.

To achieve this, you can combine multiple CSS files into fewer files or even a single file. -

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=combine_multiple_css_files

Monitor Page Speed Data - You should run page speed tests on your mobile web pages. Monitor your pages’ loading

speed each time significant changes are made to your pages. -

http://www.mobilewebsitebook.com/doku.php?id=page_speed_test_tools

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Local SEO

For example, a classifieds site may have a local Shanghai section under which all the contents are only suitable for

Shanghai.

http://shanghai.example.cn/

http://shanghai.example.cn/general/

http://shanghai.example.cn/properties/

http://shanghai.example.cn/renting/

http://shanghai.example.cn/second-hand-purchase/

To optimize for local search, add the geo-location meta tag to mobile web pages that are specific to certain locations.

<meta name="location" content="province=PP;city=CC;coord=XXX.XXX,YYY.YYY">

Note:

Replace PP with the actual province name in Chinese characters. The use of province is compulsory when using the geo-

location meta tag.

Replace CC with the actual city name in Chinese characters. The use of city is compulsory when using the geo-location

meta tag.

Replace XXX.XXX and YYY.YYY with the actual latitude and longitude respectively. The use of latitude and longitude is

optional.

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All the Techniques on Baidu Mobile SEO

Buy the Book from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/China-Mobile-SEO-Book-Optimized/dp/1532738730/

You can find out the full story on improving your mobile website’s SEO in my book.

For SEO data reporting, the book will provide all the methods and tools.

You will learn how to setup the full SEO data reports which include indexation reports, ranking reports,

traffic reports, and conversion reports.

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Gordon Choi Author of the China Mobile SEO Book

An SEO Book with over 20 Internet Experts’ Recommendations!

http://www.ChinaMobileSEO.com/

LinkedIn: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/gordonchoi/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gordonchoi/

Personal Site: http://www.gordonchoi.com/