Chinese Search & A Winning Combination

Presented by Charles Coxhead ICEF ANZA Seminar Program – April 4, 2018 A Winning Combination 2

Search & Social

• 640 million mthly active searchers* • 889 million mthly active WeChat users** • Intent driven discovery • Engagement and conversation • Brand presence • Brand authority

* Source: ** Source: Search Marketing

3 Search Share in March 2018 4

• Baidu – Dominant • – built their share based on usage of their popular (est. 20% of total browser market in China, 30% on mobile) – Backed by Alibaba • Haosou – Gained a foot hold in search by leveraging the popularity of their anti-virus product in China • – Leveraged popularity of their input software to gain search share – Partner with Tencent

Baidu Shenma Haosou Sogou Other

Source: Statcounter Mobile Search Share in China March 2018 5

• Baidu even more dominant in mobile • Shenma’s mobile share also much bigger on mobile (they own est. 30% of mobile browser market)

Baidu Shenma Sogou 360 Search Google Other

Source: Statcounter Search in China is getting more complex 6

APP Search WeChat Search News Search Shopping Search

Video Search

Weibo Search

Travel Search Map Search

Classified Search

Life Search …and BTW may change everything 7

Xiaoya AI

JD DingDong Smart Speaker

Tmall Genie Smart Speaker Breaking Down Baidu Results Pages 8

Image Credit: BuiltVisible Baidu Paws Account 9

https://xiongzhang.baidu.com Baidu SEO: Site Architecture 10

• Keep site structure simple, with content accessible in as few clicks as possible. • Avoid Flash or JavaScript as much as possible. You are better off with plain HTML. • Don’t use iFrames • Keep URL structure short and use Pinyin (Romanised version of Chinese characters). • Go mobile responsive, it is the simplest way to ensure a good experience on mobile and desktop. Baidu SEO: Page Titles and Meta Data 11

• Make sure title tags and meta data are unique, descriptive and keyword optimised with Simplified Chinese. • Baidu Title character limit is 80. • Meta descriptions and meta keywords do factor into ranking for Baidu. • Meta description character limit is 200, meta keywords is 100. Write descriptions for people. • Image alt tags and heading tags (H1 etc) also have increased prominence in Baidu’s ranking – be sure to optimise in Chinese accordingly. Baidu SEO: Content 12

• Your site content must be unique, optimised Simplified Chinese. • Never rely on . Ensure your content is correctly localised and is well-informed by keyword trends from Baidu’s keyword research tool. • Fresh content also counts in Baidu, so ensure you’ve got an outlet such as a blog or news section to provide optimised content on a regular basis (and tie this in with your WeChat content strategy). Baidu SEO: Other meta tags 13

• Baidu does support the canonical tag, so if you have a complex site (e.g. faceted navigation on ecommerce site) then this is important. • Baidu also supports the and noarchive tags which may be useful for deduplicating content on complex ecommerce sites. • Baidu doesn’t (yet) support the hreflang tag so be sure to correctly use the HTML lang attribute to define the language of the page e.g. Baidu SEO: Hosting, Domains & Site Performance 14

• A .cn domain is ideal, but a CN specific sub domain is also fine. • If you can’t host inside China then get properly optimized hosting for your CN sub-domain in (Alicloud is great). • Site speed is a real issue for almost all foreign sites trying to rank in China. Like Google, Baidu wants to optimize for user experience and so will favor sites that load quickly for domestic Chinese searches. Without a well optimized site that loads quickly you will struggle to rank well. • Use http://www.webkaka.com/ to test site speed. Recent Baidu Algorithm Updates 15

• Baidu Hurricane • Baidu Lighting • Baidu Mobile Search Experiences

Encourage Original Content

Original Re-Publish Collection Recent Baidu Algorithm Updates 16

• Baidu Hurricane • Baidu Lighting Mobile Page Loading Speed • Baidu Mobile Search Landing Page Experiences Recent Baidu Algorithm Updates 17

• Baidu Hurricane • Baidu Lighting • Baidu Mobile Search Landing Page Experiences

• Banner Ad is Too Big • Pop-up Ads • Pop-up for App Downloads • Too Much Text Ads University of Tasmania Case Study 18

BEFORE

asadasdasd

Implemented a new mobile responsive on performance optimized Hong Kong based hosting solution

Source: Sinorbis University of Tasmania Case Study 19

Loading speed map for UTAS English website Loading speed map for UTAS Chinese webpages on optimised platform

Average loading speed: 6.4s Average loading speed: 0.3s

上海 上海

香港 香港 澳门 澳门

fast slow

Source: Sinorbis University of Tasmania Case Study 20

BEFORE

SESSIONS BOUNCE RATE AVERAGE SESSION PAGES PER STUDENTS DURATION SESSION RECRUITED

OLD WEBSITE - 39.13% 2:49 4.14 - (2014-2015)

NEW WEBSITE - 22.24% 5:00 6.79 - (2016-2017)

DIFFERENCE +41% -62% +100% +64% +44%

Source: Sinorbis WeChat Marketing

21 The WeChat Ecosystem 22

Wallet & Social M-Commerce Interaction • 889 Million active monthly users Social Sharing

• 10Million+ Official Accounts WeChat Shake For / For Music • 200k+ third party developers / For TV

Games & Tickets Location based Communication service People Nearby / send Text / location Voice Chat / Group Chat / Free Call / Video Call / Walkie Talkie “WeChat is a way of life” 23

Daily ave. time users spent on WeChat, 2016 Top 10 things people do on WeChat, 2016

40% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 35% 35% Browsing & posting on… 58% 30% Sharing information 54% Reading public accounts 25% 21% 40% 20% 18% Sending/receiving money 34% 15% Mobile payments 33% 15% Sharing stickers/emoji 25% 10% 8% WeChat Shake 13% 5% 3% WeChat sports 11% 0% Gaming 6% <10 min 10~30 min 30 min~1 1~2 hours 2~4 hours 4 hours+ Social commerce 6% hour Others 4%

2017 WeChat user and business ecosystem report, Tencent Penguin Intelligence , April 2017 Different Types of WeChat Accounts for Business 24

Subscription Account Service Account Key features Unverified Verified Unverified Verified

Less visible, grouped in More visible, in default Visibility of the account subscription folder screen of WeChat

Message broadcast frequency Once per day 4 times per month

Direct communication with followers

Customised menu

Built-in WeChat store

WeChat payment Partially

Other advanced features Partially Approach your WeChat content with users in mind 25

What kind of articles will you share on WeChat? What type of content do you like to see?

Useful 49% Pictures 51% Interesting 39% Emotionally trouching 39% Text 50% Trendy topic 20% Short videos 45% Niche content 18%

Don't repost 9% Articles 22% Incentive & Rewards 7% None of above Other 6% 4%

0% 20% 40% 60% 0% 20% 40% 60%

11am -1pm , 6pm-10pm are the best time to post WeChat articles

2016 WeChat impact report, Tencent Penguin Intelligence , March 2016 Be visual and creative with WeChat content 26 Expand reach on WeChat with native ads 27

WeChat Moment Ads WeChat Banner Ads Chinese influencers (KOLs) 28

Beauty cyber Celebrity Industry KOLs Diversified KOLs star Community

Advertorials / Product Reviews

Interactive Sponsored campaigns Articles supported by Combined With KOLs Direct Sales “H5” games 29 Branded Emoji 30

“Boss Allen” Simple approach for success on WeChat 31

Select the right WeChat Integrate WeChat with Develop informative & Leverage different account fit your mobile responsive interesting content to campaign strategy marketing objectives website to optimize user engage with the (WeChat ads, H5 games, experiences audience KOLs) to generate traffic and promote your brand A Winning Combination 32

Search & Social

• Intent driven discovery • Engagement and conversation • Brand presence • Brand authority ICEF ANZA Seminar Program – April 4, 2018

THANK YOU

crossborderdigital.co.nz [email protected]

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