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marcuspentzek-chinaguy · 2 years ago

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Online Marketing for Yoga Equipment in China - Baidu Search or Tmall & WeChat?

🇨🇳 #ecommerce #socialmedia #search #SEO

Maybe some of you remember that I asked in summer for some B2C topics, that you thought one might be better off focusing on Ecommerce platforms and Social Media in China than on organic & paid Search (= SEO & SEA)?

Well, I have been a little busy - so I couldn't follow up in time.

But I finally did look at some numbers. Spoiler Moonie Zhu - you were right: There is so much more to gain on E-commerce platforms and Social Media in (for this) B2C topic.

But there is also a little twist to this story - in the end.

Let me summarize the numbers for you:

I looked at around 3,300 keywords from the Yoga industry.

I gathered them using some different tools (including Searchmetrics of course - but some others as well) plus some input from my friends Jademond Digital.

For you to better understand them, I auto-translated them using Google Translate (you'll see that in one column in the screenshots).

For those Chinese keywords I got the Baidu Search Volume from Baidu Keyword Planner, the monthly searches of China's biggest ecommerce platform Taobao / Tmall and the monthly Wechat Index numbers to cover the most important Chinese Social Media app. I could have surely added some more values like those of other ecommerce platforms and further Social Media channels - but I think for this quick view, that should be enough.

In the first three screenshots you can see the top keywords by Search Volume (for Wechat the Monthly Index) in descending order for those three platforms.

I color marked transactional keywords in green and informational keywords in blue (if the search intent is mixed, it would be green for transactional).

The most important takeaway for every B2C sales strategy is, that Wechat is the most impirtant channel, followed by Taobao / Tmall and then Baidu Search.

- Wechat: 120 Million

- Taobao/Tmall: 34 Million

- Baidu Search: 319 Thousand

So definitely any company wanting to sell Yoga equipment like Yoga Mats, Yoga Leggins, Yoga Balls, ... should get on WeChat for reach (and maybe open a Wechat store as well) and onto the ecommerce platforms for sales.

But does that mean, that Organic Search on traditional search platforms like Baidu Search should be neglected?

Well, I looked at some further numbers:

I (auto)translated the same 3.3K keywords into English and into German.

I checked the Google Search Volumes for (English) for US, UK and Australia.

I checked the Google Search Volumes for (German) for Germany and Austria.

Given that apart from Social Media and Ecommerce (Amazon, Ebay,...) Google Search is still an important channel for B2C companies in the west, I figured it might be worth comparing the Chinese search numbers to those western search numbers.

Without having confirmed with any Yoga supplies trader in the west, I do believe, that SEO / organic search traffic is one important traffic channel for many to sell their goods (if you work for such a company - please comment below, if I am right or totally off track).

Here are my findings (last screenshot):

in UK there are 47% more people searching for Yoga topics on Google than in China on Baidu

in US there are 617% more people searching for Yoga topics on Google than in China on Baidu

in Australia there are 20% less people searching for Yoga topics on Google than in China on Baidu

in Germany it is about the same amount of people searching for Yoga topics on Google like in China on Baidu

in Austria there are 87% less people searching for Yoga topics on Google than in China on Baidu

While most of these numbers show, that there is so much more demand on traditional search in the West compared to China, we can also see that in Germany the amount of people is even the same as in China. Sure, in China there are massivly more people living than in Germany, which makes the people searching on Baidu for Yoga just 0.03% of the population, while in Germany it is 0.4% of the population. But still there are traders selling Yoga equipment to people in Germany and earning quite some good money from that.

Now - my take on this:

YES, it definitely makes a lot of sense to focus on Social Media and Ecommere platforms first, when trying to sell Yoga equipment in China.

But leaving the sales potential of Germany untouched in China, because not paying attention to Baidu SEO and Baidu PPC, is something I would like to reconsider. Sure, the percentages of the revenue on Tmall might be much higher - but the money one can earn through an own ecommerce platform (or through redirecting visitors from the website to Tmall) in the same amount one could reach in Germany (and more than one could reach in Australia and Austria) would make this strategy worth for me trying as well.

Now many people might want to say, that much search volume for Baidu / Google search lies in informational search queries. While this might be true - to me as a full time SEO consultant, helping with SEO strategies for many Google-SEO and some Baidu-SEO clients, it is important to not only target those transactional keywords that lead to a sale right away. It is even more important to build a holistic search strategy for exposing the Brand to as many people as possible - to help a brand becoming an important brand in the heads of the people, to attract people to visiting the website, understanding the brands philosophy, learning new stuff, facts and tips and tricks from you as a brand, for them to remember who made them know more about their favourite topic. So hell yeah - it does make sense to produce a traditional Yoga guide with nice imagery, videos, ... (could all be reused for Social Media) do a Beer Yoga special (maybe not trendy and strange enough for becoming viral - but maybe Baby Yoga? StarWars Yoga? Space Yoga? Qigong Yoga combination? ...).

Looking forward to your take.

Cover Image Credit: Dall-E Mini

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