In recent years, the Chinese government is trying to loosen the control over the internet. This has created opportunities for businesses to expand their networks in China.
In fact, the government in China is also doing a lot of things to restrict the freedom of surfing the internet in the country. But the measures are not very straight compared with those years ago. Therefore, we can see that there is a trend for the government to open up the market for businesses and individuals to use the internet more conveniently.
There are several things that businesses can pay attention to. First of all, they should understand that the government policies in China would affect the censorship of websites in the internet world. Therefore, they have to avoid using some sex appeals for marketing. It is because this is something that the government is trying to combat in recent years.
Moreover, there should not be contents about gambling in these websites. The Chinese government is working hard to eliminate the online gambling trend. Therefore, websites with gambling content would affect their own SEO work and this would results in a drop in the rankings in some of the local search engines.
In recent years, it is found that more and more students are surfing the internet. But this has created a lot of social problems in China. Therefore, the government in China may want to have a certain control over this group of internet users. Therefore, businesses targeting students may need to beware of the possible changes in the government policies. No doubt, it is impossible to stop teenagers from surfing the internet. Therefore, businesses targeting students or teenagers online would still be profitable. But businesses should be careful when they design the keywords for SEO. If they have used some sensitive keywords such as to encourage teenagers to ‘change the situation’, it may not be appropriate for them to get to a high ranking in the search engine results page.
Last but not least, the government in China is trying to let more people enjoy the local websites. Users can easily find that there would not be Facebook in China, but there would be an alternative which works in local Chinese community. There would not be YouTube, but there are other video sharing platforms in China. Therefore, businesses entering Chinese market would need to know the terms and names of these websites and be prepared to cooperate with these websites in order to have a good effect of SEO.
To conclude, businesses have to plan carefully when they are doing the work of SEO in China. They have to understand the Chinese government well and they should try to use various techniques to ensure that their website is flexible to change with the government policies. Some businesses would like to employ Chinese partners to help them with the SEO work because those local Chinese firms would have a better understanding about Chinese culture and the government in China. They would have a better planning as a result.