Why WeChat Search Is Important
Search Becomes Social
WeChat Search doesn’t work like other search engines. Google and Baidu often prioritize ads and lead users to external pages. WeChat Search is just another way for WeChat to keep users inside its ecosystem [S]. Results heavily favor recent WeChat articles and mentions of the search term by the user’s WeChat contacts. Search aims to aggregate everything published and shared on WeChat so that users don’t need to leave the ecosystem — if possible, external links will still display in WeChat’s browser. The “walled gardens” of China’s tech world are crumbling, but WeChat is determined to stay closed — when WeChat content briefly appeared on Google and Bing search results, Tencent claimed it was a bug and fixed the error quickly.
Dedicated WeChat Search Page
WeChat Search does offer brands the option to customize a sizable box at the top of the results page when users search a brand name (or related terms). Brands design a custom background, display their OA, Mini Programs, WeChat Channels, physical locations and new products, all featured in the Brand Zone.
This provides a great opportunity for brands to capture the users attention at the point where they’re actively looking.
1. You Must Have a WeChat Official Account
For your brand to show up in search results you must have an Official WeChat Account. Any articles, videos, miniprograms and your WeChat Channel becomes searchable in the WeChat index. WeChat seems to favor the accounts that have been active longer period of time, number of followers, etc.
2. Content Is Key
Articles with keywords in the title and keywords in the body of the article become more relevant to the user’s search, similar to the way traditional search engines work e.g. Google, Bing, Baidu, etc. The WeChat SEO algorithm records the number of clicks, impressions, and post interactions, pushing the content slowly up the list of search engine results.
3. Categories and WeChat Brand Zone?
WeChat also lists results into different groups of content. List of relevant content published by various official WeChat accounts. Users can select which category of results they are looking for, and filter these results based on a number of factors – including relevancy, most recently read, and posts followed and shared by WeChat friends.
Brand Zone Search
Brand zone is a one-stop-shop for verified brands on WeChat search results where users can obtain brand information. It gives users easy access to brand’s official WeChat accounts, boutique stores, and customized content. This allows anyone on WeChat to directly search and find brands through one point of entry. Users can easily access the brand’s official boutique store and make purchases with just one click without leaving WeChat. Brands are able to control traffic within the zone, redirect visitors from one zone to the next and give brand exposure to users that aren’t following its official account.
WeChat search can provide the following result types when using the WeChat search function:
- WeChat moment posts
- WeChat articles published by WeChat Official accounts
- WeChat Official Accounts
- WeChat Mini Programs: homepage and inside pages
- Products and services
- the tailored brand page / WeChat Brand Zone
- Novels via the Tencent platform
- Music via QQ Music
- Internet content via the Sogou搜狗 search engine
- Stickers
- 3rd party platform content from the following social apps: Zhihu (the Chinese version of Quora), Zaker (news), Mafengwo (travel), Douban (books and movies)
