Search engine optimization (SEO) is never a one size fits all venture particularly when you have to deal with international markets. Among the most prevalent delusions is that strategies of SEO in English will do as well in the Arabic markets. Spoiler warning: they will not. This is the reason that SEO for Arabic websites also need a customized approach that does not offend the culture and the language but cares about the online behavior and cultural peculiarities of Arabic writers.
This article will summarize the most crucial differences between Arabic and English SEO and why your business should use a special approach in case you want to attract the audience speaking the Arabic language.
Language Structure Changes Everything
The language structure, which is one of the biggest distinctions in SEO Arabic, is the language itself. Arabic is also a right-to-left (RTL) language, the opposite is true of English that is left-to-right (LTR). This influences the page layout and design and even the scanning technique and user interaction with a web site. Having a site that is not optimized to read RTL can, therefore, result in a bad user experience, which will negatively affect SEO.
Besides, Arabic is a highly inflected language having a great number of varieties of one word according to the situation, gender, and officiality. This complicates the Arabic keyword research as compared to the English one.
Keyword Research Requires Cultural Sensitivity
Arabic keyword research does not just stop at translation. It is not possible to simply feed English keywords into Google Translate and after a while they start ranking. As an example, one may search the word car in Arabic as: سيارة or in the vernacular as عربية depending on the area. Local dialects are important in ascertaining high converting search terms.
Qualified Arabic SEO agency UAE will invest in local keywords research which will include preferences, search patterns, specificities of cultural context.
Content Creation Demands Native Fluency
To establish content targeting Arabic audiences, it does not mean translating your English blog posts. It takes the ability to use language as a native speaker with a perfect tone, references to culture, and grammar. Google prefers such content that is understandable, worthwhile and touches on people, something that can hardly be done without native knowledge.
In order to do well even in terms of SEO for Arabic websites your content must not just be linguistically correct but also culturally so as well.
Local SEO Strategies Must Be Hyper-Focused
The local behavior in the Arab world markets, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa markets, is local. The local SEO tactics involve controlling keywords to identify the ways in which people in various local areas in Dubai perform searches, as opposed to those taking place in Cairo or Riyadh. An example is local directories, review sites written in Arabic and region based search trends.
A reputable Arabic SEO agency will create a local backlink portfolio, ASO optimise Google Business account in Arabic, and use location keywords in the most effective way.
Search Engine Preferences and Indexing
Google does not own the Arabic countries as the search engine. There is still a fine presence of sites like Bing and to some extent even Yahoo in certain territories. In addition, Arabic may be indexed slower by Google in case your site is not optimized well to multilingual crawling.
Ordered data, hreflang tags, and proper language tags are all needed to aid search engines to deliver your content to the correct audience. Most of the companies miss this technical aspect of SEO for Arabic websites and consequently, their content performs poorly on the ranking system.
Visual and UX Considerations
RTL form of the Arabic websites implies that the whole UI/UX should also be reversed. The Arabic reader should feel at home not only when using navigation menus to call to actions buttons. This does not only impact user experience but bounce rates, page dwell time and performance of SEOs.
An experienced Arabic SEO agency UAE would also know how to develop the SEO friendly design that would promote engagement without reducing technical aspects of SEO practices.
6. Optimize for Mobile and Voice Search
In contrast, Arabic users are more used to using mobile and voice searches than their desktop counterpart. So your on-page SEO better be mobile-first and voice-ready.
Optimizing for SEO with conversational words and long-tail Arabic keywords:
- “Best SEO services in Dubai”
- “مطعم لبناني قريب مني”
This is great for SEO optimization of Arabic content to reflect natural search.
Conclusion: Invest in Arabic SEO for Long Term Gains
When you are aiming at the Arabic market, you cannot rely on the English SEO tactics to be effective. All the parts, including Arabic keyword research or culturally oriented content and local SEO tactics, should be adjusted to the market and to the language.
This is the reason why it is very important to invest in a professional Arabic SEO company. Technical experts, market understanding and linguistic fluency of a local crew will not only make your brand appear, but also make it stand out.
Be it a new Arabic site or the work on an existing one, the effect of correctly implemented Arabic website SEO definitely should not be underestimated. It is the distinguishable contrast between being discovered and being forgotten.
WiseTech Systems LLC is an outcome based digital agency that provides expert SEO services in Dubai to expand your business online in the UAE.
