Bad Keywords

Using broad match keywords, as is often suggested by the “experts” at Google, can be a costly mistake. This is because using broad match keywords means that you won’t know the exact search terms that those navigating to your site via AdWords are using. Moreover, broad match keywords cost more than other types.

Instead of taking Google’s advice of dumping a bunch of broad match keywords into your campaign, you should use broad modified, or even better: phrase match or exact match keywords. These match types usually have a much better Click Through Rates (CTRs) than broad keywords — because you can create advertisements that are targeted more directly to those searching with the specific keyword — and they’re also cheaper. In some circumstances, it’s most cost-effective to include all match types for a given keyword.

Ignoring Negative Keywords

It’s important to spend time focusing on negative keywords. Google will tell you all about the positive keywords that you can use when they call you – keywords that drive traffic to your site – but they won’t give much (or any) direction on negative keywords, which could be very costly to you. Negative keywords instruct AdWords not to display your adverts for people searching using the negative keyword you’ve defined.

You may want to stop people looking for free products from visiting your site by adding negative keywords, such as ‘free’ or ‘freeware’, to your list. This is because every time someone uses a negative keyword to find you, they’re making you pay a fee to Google by clicking on your ad but they’re not planning on buying anything, meaning that their click is a waste of your money.

No A/B Testing

Even the biggest marketing experts don’t get their adverts right the first time round. Think about it – when you run an ad, the chances are that it will not be the best ad possible. That’s why every single AdWords campaign you run should have a considerable testing process attached to it, and by that we mean: A/B testing your ads.

If you run two different ads side by side, you can compare their effectiveness to each other. Once you’ve decided on a winner, create a new ad to compare the winner to. And so on and so forth, until you find a super-optimal ad that not only gives you lots of clicks but also lots of conversions! This process can take months, but it’s essential to running an efficient, cost-effective AdWords campaign.

Retiring Ads Without Testing

To A/B test properly, you should always ensure that the Ads Delivery option in your campaign settings is set to ‘Rotate: show ads evenly‘.

Checking this option means that Google will not show better performing ads more often. This might be a strange concept, but think about it: if you are testing your ads, then as soon as one starts performing well, it will get preferential treatment. This will mean that the results of the test are skewed and that you don’t necessarily get the best ad at the end of it. Instead, you should allow all of the ads a fair chance and then manually retire the worst ones after you have enough statistically significant data.

Conclusion

There is no doubting that Google AdWords is a highly effective tool for all looking to advertise their business to a large section of society. The problem is though that, as many people forget, Google is a business and they want you to use AdWords in a certain way so that they make more money. However, by following the instructions on this page, you should save significant amounts on the money you were previously spending on your AdWords campaign.

Introduction

It is important to create Android User Interfaces (UIs) knowing that apps will be running on a variety of different devices. The Android framework provides a number of techniques to enable developers to optimise UIs for a variety of screen sizes and pixel densities.

This article aims to help designers become familiar with what they need to know to deliver the right assets to our development team.

Physical Screen Sizes

Introduction to Physical Screen Sizes

Android breaks down physical screen sizes — measured as the screen’s diagonal length from the top-left corner to bottom-right corner — into four general sizes:

- Small,
- Normal,
- Large
- Xlarge.

320 × 480 pixels is considered a ‘normal’ screen size by Android. ‘Xlarge’ is in the tablet screen size range. However, the most popular Android smartphones today have WVGA 800+ × 480-pixel HD displays. So, at the time of writing, we can say that most Android smartphones have ’large’ screens.

Figure 1: Android Devices come in many formats from Tablets to Handsets; the versatility of Android means there can be a wide range of screens across manufacturers and platform types.

Figure 2: HTC alone provide a range of Android Devices each with differing screen sizes and screen orientation

Design Considerations for Physical Screen Sizes

Due to the diversity of screen sizes, it is challenging for developers to create a one-size-fits-all layout. For example, on a larger screen, we might want to adjust the position and size of some elements to take advantage of the additional screen space, or on a smaller screen, we might need to adjust sizes so that everything can fit on the screen.

An approach we take is to design a set of layouts for 320 x 522 physical pixels and then to introduce custom layouts for the other screen sizes (small, large, and xlarge if we’re offering the app to tablet users).

Screen Density

Introduction to Screen Density

Screen density is the quantity of pixels within a physical area of the screen, usually referred to as dpi (dots per inch).
Like screen sizes, Android divides screen densities into four basic densities:

- lDPI (low),
- mDPI (medium),
- hDPI (high),
- xHDPI (extra high).

A ‘low’ density screen has fewer pixels within a given physical area compared to a ‘normal’ or ‘high’ density screen.

Figure 3: An example of an application without density support

Android will try to make the most of assets that are available for a given device. Designers should note that Android prefers to scale-down rather than scale up. For example, when looking for a low-density resource and it is not available, the system prefers to scale-down the high-density version of the resource, because it can easily scale a high-density resource down to low-density by a factor of 0.5, with fewer artefacts, compared to scaling a medium-density resource by a factor of 0.75.

Design Considerations for Screen Density

Designers should provide all graphical assets (bitmaps) in sets of different densities. To ensure your bitmaps look their best, you should include alternative versions at different resolutions for different screen densities. At the very least, designers will need to deliver mDPI and hDPI sets of assets for any smartphone app.

To create alternative bitmap drawables for different densities, designers should follow the 3:4:6:8 scaling ratio between the four generalized densities. (This differs from the iPhone, where, at the time of writing, there’s a 2:1 ratio between the iPhone 4 and 3GS.)

Using our ratios of 3:4:6:8, designers should create four different versions of a bitmap to hand off to our developer for production:

- 75 × 75 for lDPI screens (i.e. ×0.75);
- 100 × 100 for mDPI screens (our baseline);
- 150 × 150 for hDPI screens (×1.5);
- 200 × 200 for xHDPI screens (×2.0).

So, if you have a bitmap drawable that’s 48×48 pixels for medium-density screen (the size for a launcher icon), all of the different sizes should be:

- 36×36 for lDPI
- 48×48 for mDPI
- 72×72 for hDPI
- 96×96 for xHDPI

Note: for mobile apps we’re only concerned with lDPI, mDPI and hDPI.

Figure 4: An example of an application with density support

Interactive UI Elements

Introduction to UI Elements

For UI elements that may be take several different states, such as buttons, Android gives developers the option to provide several different images to represent the same graphic.

Design Considerations for Interactive UI Elements

We encourage designers to create 4 states for all interactive UI elements. This helps to make sure the effects of an action are clear & visible.

NinePatch

Introduction to NinePatch

NinePatch (or stretchable) images are PNG files that mark the parts of an image that can be stretched. They are similar to CS3 border-image in web design.

A NinePatch is a variation of a PNG image that uses a one-pixel border to define the area of the image that can be stretched if the image is enlarged. The Android system uses NinePatches for some of its native drawables, e.g. button borders.

Figure 5: An example of hot a horizontally scaleable button can be presented with NinePatch

Design Considerations for NinePatch

NinePatches are a powerful tool for creating images for the backgrounds of Views or Activities that may have a variable size.

To create a NinePatch, draw single-pixel black lines that represent stretchable areas along the left and top borders of your image. The unmarked sections won’t be re-sized, and the relative size of each of the marked sections will remain the same as the image size changes.

NinePatch images must be properly defined PNG files that end in .9.png.

Naming Convention

It’s not uncommon for an app to have over 500 pieces of individual graphics. Therefore, it will definitely help to adopt a convention for naming the files.

A sensible naming convention allows a developer to quickly locate files and understand the structure of a project by grouping common or associated elements together through a shared predefined name which trails to a specific description.

Here is a naming convention that we recommend and described all elements associated with a Contact Button within a project.

contact_button_send_selected.jpg

Where the colours above represent:

1. The current feature of the project
2. The action of the feature
3. The status of the action
4. The filetype

Figure 6: Suggested naming convention

You can also download this document here >

Further Reading

http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/pure-android.html
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/2d-graphics.html#nine-patch
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/2d-graphics.html
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/index.html
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html
http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/06/30/designing-for-android/

Introduction

Baidu is China’s number 1 and most popular search engine, with approximately 63% of the country’s market share. Increasing your website’s anking on Baidu requires a slightly different way of thinking about Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO) compared to what you might be used to with Google’s requirements.

In this article we’ll explain the factors that determine your site’s rankings in Baidu. It’s not a comprehensive guide by any means but explores the main aspects in enough detail to make a difference to your site. So, let’s get started.

Baidu versus Google: Key Differences

Baidu have smart engineers who are constantly improving their services, but they are still far behind companies like Google when it comes to the technology that evaluates and indexes the most relevant and authoritative content.

However, they will get there sometime in the future, so it definitely would not hurt you to additionally apply the same SEO rules to Baidu that you would for Google, and in the long run it might actually help you once Baidu catches up with their technology because you will already be prepared.

Key Differences: Google versus Baidu
Page Title	Major	Major
Meta Description	Minor	Major
Meta Keywords	None	Major
Heading Tags	Medium	Major
Alt Tags	Minor	Major
Internal Anchor Text	Major	Medium
External Anchor Text	Minor	Medium
Quantity of Inbound Links	Medium	Major
Quality of Inbound Links	Major	Minor
Sitemap	Medium	Medium
Sitespeed	Minor	Major

Figure 1: Differences between Baidu and Google, at the time of writing.

Submitting your site to Baidu

Submitting your site to Baidu is an important thing to do if your site doesn’t appear in the Baidu’s search engine, i.e., it is not indexed yet.  Without submitting your site, the Baidu spiders (computer bots that scour the internet) may not find you and your site will not get indexed.

You can submit your site to Baidu’s open source platform at:

• http://open.baidu.com

Submitting a sitemap

Like Google, submitting a sitemap to Baidu helps them to find all of the pages on your site.

Their platform for sitemap submission is found at:

• http://sitemap.baidu.com

Utilising simple Chinese characters

Baidu’s biggest attribute and main selling feature is that they only index simplified Chinese characters. One of the main issues in indexing the Chinese language is that:

• There are so many differing dialects within China, so
• There are often several different characters for the same keyword.

For search engines hoping to index Chinese websites this can be a problem, not to mention those who index both the Chinese and English language.

Figure 2: Remember to use Simplified Chinese on your site.

Baidu solely indexes simplified, traditional Chinese characters. This is an advantage for English speaking companies’ websites hoping to rise in the Baidu rankings because, when you’re translating your site, there is no guessing as to which characters to include or which dialects to focus on.

You may have noticed “Pin-Yin”

Baidu does have a feature called “Pin-Yin” which allows users to type out in English how the Chinese symbols sound phonetically. However, since Baidu does not index English words, these search results are often inaccurate. So there is no need to focus on this feature when it comes to optimising your site.

Your HTML coding

Do not use ISO-8885-1. The two coding platforms to use are:

• UTF-8, or
• GB2312

Of the two, UTF-8 would be considered stronger since it caters to any language in the world.

Look to Bing to help your Baidu visibility

Part of Baidu’s current success in China is due in part to Google’s exit from the country last year because of censorship issues. Since Google left, Baidu has enjoyed a complete monopoly in the search engine market.

At the same time, Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been present in China for a while, but is still struggling in the country, capturing only a 2% market share. Recently however, Bing and Baidu announced a partnership. The results of this partnership mean that:

• A few Bing search results will show up in Baidu’s results.

Figure 3: Microsoft’s Bing have partnered with Baidu.

This means that if you have a solid ranking in the top 3 on Bing for your English speaking site and a top 3 ranking for your simplified Chinese site, your visibility will be extremely prevalent in the Chinese market.

Working with your on-page SEO

Unlike the direction Google has gone in recent years, Baidu places significant importance on meta data. This includes:

• Meta descriptions
• Meta keywords
• Title tags
• H1 and H2 tags
• Alt tags

All of this information is highly important to Baidu’s spiders, so having it – and ensuring that it is translated into simple Chinese and well-written – will greatly help your rankings on the site. Also, when it comes to your keywords and site text, remember the following:

• Keyword density. Keep it around 6 to 10% for a strong showing.

• Anchor words on internal links. These would be clickable text linking one of your pages to another one of your pages. It helps a little, and has a slight effect on your rankings.

• Easy navigation. Ensure that your site is easy to navigate with a clear hierarchy.

• No Flash or JavaScript. Baidu’s spiders do not recognise Flash or JavaScript yet, so stick to straight forward HTML.

• Minimize Frame and iFrame. There is strong evidence to suggest that Baidu’s spiders may disregard iFrame content.

• Keep content at the top. Since Baidu’s spiders often experience poor connectivity, they are notorious for only crawling the first 100k to 120 kilobytes of your content. So, it is a good idea to keep the most important information at the top of each page.

• Refresh constantly. Like other search engines, Baidu likes frequently refreshed content. So make sure to keep your content refreshed on a regular basis.

We recommend that the majority of SEO effort on your site are made in this area. Select keywords, choose pages to optimise for those keywords, and then follow the advice above to do the actual optimisation.

Thinking about your online location

Baidu prefers sites that are hosted on Chinese servers. If it is easy to do, move your site to a Chinese server. However, lots of other factors determine how well your site ranks, and a site hosted outside of China can occupy the top positions for even the most competitive keywords.

Having a Chinese extension domain name – either .cn or .com.cn – is helpful too, though the ultimate importance of this on your site’s SEO potential is debatable.

Tracking Baidu’s Keyword performance

To see which keywords are performing well on Baidu check:

• The Baidu Index,  or
• The Baidu Live keyword feed.

If you have Baudi’s Phoenix Nest PPC, you can utilise their new Keyword research tool. Since it is so new there are still a few kinks to work out in its sophistication, but one of its highlights is that it allows you to build keywords that are geo-targeted.

Working with your off-site SEO

To build any site’s reputation and visitors, it is important to actively promote your site across the internet in relevant locations. The same is true for your Chinese site. Some of the ways to help out your Baidu rankings through off-site SEO are:

• News Posts. Baidu will rank you for your news posts. To fully utilise this, you must submit your news posts to Baidu News Protocol. This will help more visitors flock to your site.

• Promote your brand. This includes posting relevant content, videos, and images on as many Chinese websites as possible.

• Chinese anchors. With any of the off-site marketing you do, it is important to use simple Chinese characters as anchor text back to your site. The best scenario would be to use all Chinese characters for your entire post, as that will attract the spiders even more.

• Baidu Social Bookmarking Tool. There’s some evidence that submitting pages of your site to Baidu Bookmarks helps to get pages indexed quicker.

Inbound links (links to your site)

The number of other sites linking to your site is an important ranking factor for Baidu, much like Google. However, there are some differences. Here are some key areas to keep in mind:

• Quality of links not so important. Gaining quality links (measured by how reputable and authoritative a site is) doesn’t seem to play a big role in your ranking on Baidu. So it is not necessary to spend time befriending high quality Chinese websites in the hope that they will link to you to build your search ranking. This might be useful when it comes to relationship and visitor building, but it won’t affect your SEO too much (at the moment, anyway).

• Quantity matters. At the time of writing, a link from a reputable site seems to carry as much as weight as a link from a less reputable site.

• Chinese links matter. Gaining links from other well-ranking, reputable, and relevant Chinese sites is more important than getting links from English sites.

Outbound links

As far as linking from your site to other sites, Baidu considers the quantity of quality outbound links you have on your site as a factor. The weighting of this factor is however hard to quantify. Our advice would be to link to other sites where ever it is going to be useful to the reader.

Including a Pay Per Click strategy

Baidu has a PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, platform much like Google’s Ad Words, named Baidu Phoenix Nest.

The main difference between Phoenix and Ad Words is that Baidu’s platform ranks websites higher depending on their spend level, whereas with Ad Words the relevancy of the content of your site compared to the search phrase increases your CPC, Cost-Per-Click, and betters your position in the PPC rankings.

On Baidu, the organic and paid results look the same; they are not clearly separated like they are on Google. This may change in the future.

Conclusion

Gaining high rankings on Baidu is the key to exposure in the Chinese digital market. Once you master the proper techniques required to get noticed by their spiders, you’ll see a steady and significant rise in your search engine rankings.

Keep it simple by following the basic rules outline above and you’ll gain popularity in the Baidu search engine.

References & Further Reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu
http://chineseseoshifu.com
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2065904/Baidu-The-SEO-Perspective
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/technology/companies/14baidu.html
http://www.link-assistant.com/blog/seo-for-baidu-ten-tips-to-dominate-the-chinese-internet
http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2010/03/23/seo-for-baidu.aspx
http://www.seowarrior.net/what-to-consider-when-doing-seo-for-baidu
http://www.them.pro/Baidu-seo-tips
http://www.asiaseo.com/2011/03/chinese-seo-for-baidu-and-ranking-in-baidu-guide.html
http://www.optimising.com.au/baidu-seo
http://chinesetranspro.com/blog/differences-between-simplified-chinese-and-traditional-chinese
http://www.east-west-connect.com/baidu/baidu-seo-advisor
http://www.seo-magic-webs.com/seo-for-baidu/internet-marketing-2011
http://www.searchblog.asia/5-seo-areas-to-watch-out-for-in-the-china-market-in-2011