China-based Internet and Web Marketing Consultant » Tutorials

How to Host a Website In China

admin — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:31:08 +0000

I don’t recommend you to host your website in China, because Internet market environment in China is more complicated than that of the other countries. For example, if you want to host your website in US companies such as Hostgator, Godaddy and etc, you’ll just need to fill one to two forms to finish the order. It will cost you no more than 2 days to move your site to any server in USA or Europen coutries. However, if you want to host your site in China, it will cost you more time. Let me list the procedures for you:

Locate the hosting companies:

There are hundreds of hosting companies in China, top players are mainly located in the mega-cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and etc.

Apply an ICP license from Ministry of Industry and Information:

It’s a complicated process. You can outsource these jobs to your hosting company. You will need to submit such information as your personal ID card, passport number, two recent, two inches, bareheaded & full-faced photos and a copy of business license issued by the local government. It may take you 15-30 days to successfully apply an ICP license.

Publish your website:

after successfully apply an ICP license, you can notify the hosting company to publish your website online now.

Please note, these procedures only apply for non-game, non-forum website. Game websites and forum websites will need addtional procedures.
As you can see, without a legal business in China, it’s hard for you to successfully host the website in Mainland China. Unless you have partnership with local Chinese people, i would suggest you host your website to the neighbouring coutries and regions such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and etc.

Best Places to Learn Search Engine Marketing

admin — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 02:50:41 +0000

Want to learn the essential knowledges and skills in search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) as a newbie? You need to find a best tutor firstly! Some online communities do provide in-depth theories and practical cases, and you don’t have to purchase an e-book to learn SEO courses. Let me list some of the best Internet marketing learning websites for you.
No. 1

Webmasterworld is the place where i started to learn Internet marketing 7 years before. As a gathering place of top experts in the industry, Webmasterworld provides basic to advanced techniques to SEO learners. You can learn a lot here even without having to become a paid member.
No. 2

SitePoint forums is another place i would recommend. It covers a wide range from website design, programing, hosting, marketing and etc. Members here are warm-hearted, humorous and friendly. You will feel like home at SitePoint and won’t leave.
No. 3,

Warrior Forum is the place where your dream turns true. The reason is that warriors would like to share their success stories with you, rather than keep it as a secret. Here you can find best link resources, best online marketing ideas and etc.
As for China, webmasters here would come to www.chinaz.com, www.admin5.com and etc to share their thoughts on Baidu SEO, Google China SEO, Chinese website promotion.

Search Engine Marketing Secret: Content is the King

admin — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:44:17 +0000

Here i repeat the old saying is to remind those newbies who want to make quick money that there is no shortcut to success: to get really succeed in SEO & SEM field, you should spend more time on content building, the more useful content you have on the website, the more likely your website will get popular among online visitors.

This is a proven theory. However, there are still many people who would just ignore this, they would rather spend time in swapping link than writing content. They would say search engines give more weight in inbound links.
Suppose we webmasters are sellers and websites are our products, online visitors are our end users, what will be the search engine play? Search engines including Google, Yahoo, Baidu and etc are just agents! Buying decision is made by end users. Therefore, we must work with whole heart for end users, not for searching engines.
In fact, if you make more effort to benefit the end users, in return, the search engine will finally give more favour to your website.

How to advertise my website on Baidu

admin — Fri, 14 May 2010 01:59:07 +0000

Baidu.com is the largest Chinese search engine. It has a market share of around 65% in the Mainland China. Unlike Google Adwords, Baidu’s PPC program is called as Baidu Bidding Rank(Baidu Jingjia Paiming). Baidu Bidding Ranking is the most popular search engine marketing program that people use in the Chinse community.
1. How does Baidu Bidding Rank work?
Baidu PPC program is operated as following: The higher the customer bids on the price, the better rank of its website in Baidu’s search result pages (you know, google displays Adwords advertising to the right of its search result pages).
2. How to advertise on Baidu – Marketing Network, Procedures, Fees, Contacts.
Headquartered in Haidian District, Beijing China, Baidu sells its search engine marketing services through its branch companies and distribution agencies located national wide. Baidu does have a designated International Business Development Department dedicating to serving for international advertisers/buyers.
To start advertising on Baidu, you need to access Baidu.com and creat your own account firstly. Since English Signup Interface for Baidu is still not avaliable, International advertisers who can’t read Chinese may have problems to successfully create their account. Under this case, you may need some people familiar with Chinese language to help. But if you’d like to spend more than RMB 10,000 Yuan for your first session search engine marketing campaign, Baidu would provide VIP services for you. It is said that Baidu VIP services include keyword analysis, Bidding Ranking advertising copywriting, reporting and optimization.
Advertisers need to pay RMB 600 (around USD 88) Yuan to create an account in Baidu and then deposit RMB 5,000 (around USD 735) Yuan in your account to start using Baidu Bidding Rank. Fees mentioned above are not refundable.
3. Contact Baidu:
Telephone: +86.10.8262.1188 ext: 5876/5852
Fax: +86.10.8260.7007
Email: Contact me and i will tell you.

Baidu PPC Marketing/Advertising FAQs

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:47:00 +0000

Q: Can you tell me the number of Internet users as well as the number of search engine users in China respectively?
A: In China, the number of Internet users has reached 298 million by the end of 2008, meanwhile, the number of search engine users has exceeded 244 million in the same period.
Q: Does the largest Chinese search engine Baidu has a directory?
A: Yes, Baidu uses www.hao123.com as its directory.
Q: How can i submit my website to Baidu?
A: If you have a Chinese language website, then please click this url http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html and add your website to Baidu bot for crawling.
Q: Does Baidu has an English PPC bid management interface for international clients?
A: No. Baidu only has Chinese UI.
Q: What’s the market share of Baidu in China?
A: Baidu is the leader in China’s search engine market with the latest statistics data says it has a market share of around 60%.

Q: About Baidu Advertising Cost. How much money should i transfer to Baidu to start PPC search engine marketing campaign, are there any other fees besides advertising fee?
A: Now the min down payment is RMB 20,000 Yuan, which will be totally added to your account as advertising fee, and Baidu will not charge anything else.
Q: is that RMB 20,000 refundable, in case i spend RMB 10,000 Yuan and want to halt search advertising, will you pay the remaining back to me?
A: Principally it can be refundable. But it has to go a lot of complex procedures to go through and according to our experiences it usually takes 2 months or so to transfer to abroad.
If i think the down payment is a little bit higher, do you have any other alternatives?
A: Yes. You can sign contract with Baidu subsidiary (not Baidu headquarter) that the min down payment is RMB 5,600, but charging RMB 600 as a service fee.
Q: How long will it take to create an account in Baidu. Can you activate the account immediately after i make the payment?
A: The account can be set up in 1-2 working days once the payment hits Baidu account.
Q: What’s your requirements for an oversea company to advertise their website on Baidu?
A: There is no special requirement to foreign clients, similar to domestic ones. Please first send your URL to review. The gambling or eroticism relevant websites are prohibited.
Q: What’s the procedures to advertise on Baidu?
A: There are briefly 3 steps to proceed:
Firstly: Confirm and sign the contracts;
Secondly: Transfer the payment as specified in the contracts;
Thirdly: Send over your keyword list for review.
Q: Can we pay you in US dollar? How can we make the payment, does Baidu accept Paypal payment?
A: Yes, you can pay in USD. Baidu will invoice you with their wire instruction. Currently Baidu does not accept Paypal.
Q: Do you have any other matters to remind me before i start?
A: Please kindly note in which kind of currency you would like to pay in, so Baidu can send to you the relevant wire instruction.

Chinese Advertising Networks and Affiliate Programs List

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:23:20 +0000

As a webmaster, you may have website that gets huge traffic from China. In this case, you’ll want to monetize Chinese traffic by placing some advertising on the website.
For this purpose, you may want to know main stream advertising networks and affiliate programs in China. Now let me list them for you. To help you know Chinese Advertising Networks and Affiliate Programs better, i would also do some comparisons among them.

Chinese Advertising Networks – Baidu Union.

Description: As one of the biggest advertising networks in China, Baidu Union is run by the largest Chinese search engine Baidu.com. Baidu union now offers 4 types of advertising for publishers, naming Baidu Union promotional advertising, Baidu Union searching advertising, Baidu Zhidao advertising and Baidu Union new type advertising respectively.
Who should try: if you have website with daily unique visitors number above 1,000, you can try Baidu Union on your website. It’s a waste to publish Baidu Union advertising on website with daily unique visitors number under 1,000 as you can hardly make any actual revenue through it for the small traffic. Websites are not allowed to join Baidu Union until they have gotten an ICP license issued by the Chinese government.
Payment: Baidu will pay you as your account reaches RMB 100 Yuan. Baidu pays Chinese webmasters by wire transfer through banks or post offices.
Revenue comparison: considering the big exchange rates between USD and RMB, average PPC revenue of Baidu is lower than that of Google.

Chinese Advertising Networks – Alimama

Description: Alimama is a prestigious advertising network run by Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group. Alimama offers Pay Per Click advertising, Pay Per View advertising, Pay Per Action advertising and etc.
Who should try: The entry threshold for Alimama is low so that Webmasters of small websites can join the advertising networks easily.
Payment: Alimama pay its advertising publishers every month no matter how much the webmasters have earned through its own payment processor Alipay Zhifubao.

Chinese Advertising Networks – Google Adsense

I strongly suggest webmasters outside the Mainland China to publish Google ads on your websites to eliminate threshold barriers from China’s local players such as Baidu and Alimama as Google Adsense also supports both simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese.
There are nearly 100 hundred click per sales (CPS)affiliate programs in China’s online advertising market at current. there is no leader as big as Commission Junction China up for now. Let me list some of them for you in case you may need.

Chinese Affiliate Program – Dangdang

Category: Books & Culture

Chinese Affiliate Program – Joyo

Category: Books & Culture

Chinese Affiliate Program – Linktech

Category: diversified industries

Chinese Affiliate Program – Weiyi

Category: diversified industries

Chinese Affiliate Program – China Affiliate Network

Category: diversified industrie

Top 8 Tips for Getting Good Ranking in Baidu.com

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:56:04 +0000

Webmasters from non-chinese-spoken countries may want to build Chinese websites to increase the online exposure in the great China market. Considering Baidu.com has a share of around 60% in Chinese search market, you should try your best to get a good ranking in Baidu organic search. Here i provide some practical guidelines for you to create a Baidu.com-friendly Chinese website. As Google China has different search algorithms with Baidu, you should apply different search engine optimization methods for Google China. I will write another article on Google China SEO guidelines soon, please check it back later.
1. Domain Name
Baidu likes Chinese Pinyin domain names better than any other kinds of domain names. So if you can, try to register a Chinese Pinyin domain name before you start to create your website. It’s not matter for the extension of the domain name, you can choose com extension, net extension, cn extension or org extension.
2. Hosting
It is suggested to host your website inside China as our practice tells us Baidu gives more weight to local website.

3. Website Script
If you use free CMS for your website, i suggest you choose made-in-china scripts. Instead of WordPress and Joomla CMS, you should choose such made-in-china CMS as Dede CMS, Empire CMS and etc. For custom website, you should try your best to minimum the use of flash、Javascript, frame or iframe in your website design and programming.
4. Website url
Use static Pinyin url if you can.
5. Content
Try your best to write original content and update your website frequently. Minimum word number each article should be no less than 700.
6. Link
Be pickable to select your link partners. If you have too many outbound links pointing to garbage websites, your website will most likely to be punished by Baidu.
7. Meta Tags
Title, description and keyword tags are all work in terms of Baidu search engine optimization, so don’t miss them.
8. 301 Redirects
After changing your domain name, website url structure, please use 301 to redirect the web page from the old domain name/url to the new one.

Procedures to Advertise Your Website on Baidu

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:42:47 +0000

I was asked frequently by overseas webmaster friends on how to advertise their websites on the largest Chinese search engine www.Baidu.com. What they are worrying are ICP license, international payment, language barrier and etc.
The fact is, you needn’t worry about anything only if you are running a legal business. There is no special requirement to foreign clients, similar to domestic ones. Only difference is that you are required to send your URL to Baidu for reviewing firstly. Gambling or eroticism relevant websites are prohibited according to Chinese laws and regulations.

The price depends on the keywords you will buy. The minimum budget to start baidu keyword advertising is RMB 30,000 Yuan. You can pay in USD. Baidu doesn’t not accept Paypall currently.
In a word, to advertise your website on Baidu.com, there are briefly 3 steps to proceed:
1. Confirm and sign the contracts;
2. Transfer the payment as specified in the contracts;
3. Send over your keyword list for Baidu review.
Hope it’s helpful to your guys. Just feel free to leave a messenger to me with any problem!