SEO · Arabic search
Arabic SEO services in Dubai and the GCC.
Half your market searches in Arabic and most UAE websites are invisible to them. I build bilingual search visibility for clinics and brands across Dubai, the UAE and the wider Gulf, covering Arabic keyword research, dialect-aware content, RTL technical SEO and Arabic AI answer visibility.
Run personally by Hasnain Jameel · Dubai, UK and US clients · month to month, no lock-in
Sound familiar?
Your site ranks in English and disappears in Arabic
Roughly half of UAE residents search in Arabic for the things they care about, and considerably more across Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf. Most UAE business websites are English-only, or carry an Arabic version that was translated once, never optimised, and technically invisible to search engines. The result is a market you are already paying to reach through ads, and losing for free in organic search.
Arabic SEO is not English SEO run through a translator. The language has different root structures, regional dialects that change buying language completely, right-to-left rendering that breaks templates, and a search landscape where competition is far thinner than in English. That last point is the opportunity.
What you get
Everything below is included. Not upsold later.
Arabic keyword research, dialect aware
Modern Standard Arabic for formal and informational queries, Gulf dialect for commercial and conversational ones. The words a Dubai patient types are not the words a textbook uses, and mapping that difference is where most Arabic SEO projects succeed or fail.
Arabic content written, not translated
Native Arabic content built around Gulf search intent, not machine-translated English pages. Translated content reads as translated, ranks poorly and converts worse. Every page is written to answer the question an Arabic speaker actually asked.
Hreflang and site architecture
Correct hreflang implementation for ar-AE, ar-SA and en variants, clean URL structure, and canonical logic so Google serves the right language version to the right user instead of treating your pages as duplicates.
RTL technical SEO
Right-to-left rendering audited properly: layout integrity, font loading, Core Web Vitals on the Arabic templates, and crawlability of the Arabic tree. Arabic pages are where technical debt usually hides, because nobody checks them.
Arabic local SEO and listings
Google Business Profile in Arabic, bilingual NAP consistency, Arabic reviews strategy and Arabic-language citations across UAE directories. This is what drives the Arabic map pack, which almost nobody competes for properly.
Arabic AI search visibility
Structured, citable Arabic answers so ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews name you when the question is asked in Arabic. The Arabic AI answer space is significantly less contested than English, and early presence compounds.
Market intelligence
Why Arabic search behaves differently
Campaigns and content translated from English waste the opportunity. These are the things that actually change how Arabic search performs.
Dialect decides commercial intent
Informational searches often use Modern Standard Arabic. Commercial and local searches shift into Gulf dialect, and the vocabulary changes meaningfully. Targeting only MSA wins you research traffic and loses you buyers.
Transliteration splits demand
Gulf users frequently search brand and treatment names in Latin characters, in Arabic script, or mixed. Each variant is a separate query with separate competition, and covering all of them is straightforward once identified.
Arabic pages are technically neglected
In most audits the Arabic tree has missing hreflang, duplicated canonicals, broken RTL layouts and pages excluded from the sitemap. Fixing the technical layer alone often produces the first visible gains.
The plan
What actually happens in the first 30 days
Bilingual audit
Arabic visibility, hreflang, RTL rendering and indexation of your Arabic pages assessed against the English tree and your competitors.
Keyword and intent map
MSA and Gulf dialect terms mapped to pages, including transliteration variants and the questions Arabic buyers ask before purchasing.
Technical fixes
Hreflang, canonicals, sitemaps, RTL templates and Arabic page speed corrected so the content you publish can actually rank.
Content and citations
Native Arabic pages published against the priority terms, plus Arabic listings and local signals to support them.
Straight answers
The questions you are already thinking
Arabic copy is written and reviewed by native Gulf speakers. I run the strategy, keyword mapping, technical SEO and measurement. Being honest about that division matters more than pretending otherwise, because the failure mode in Arabic SEO is non-native content published without review.
In the UAE many residents are comfortable in English but still search in Arabic for healthcare, legal, property and family decisions. If you sell anything considered or personal, you are losing a share of high-intent demand. The competition is also far thinner, so rankings come faster than in English.
Translation gives you pages that exist but do not rank. Arabic keyword demand does not map one to one onto English terms, machine-translated text reads poorly to native speakers, and without hreflang Google may treat the pages as duplicates. Content should be written to Arabic search intent, not converted from English.
Technical fixes can show within weeks. Ranking improvement on commercial Arabic terms typically compounds over three to six months, often faster than English because the competitive set is smaller.
Most engagements suit businesses ready to invest from around AED 3,500 to 6,000 monthly depending on how many pages and languages are involved. The free audit ends with a specific quote and an honest view of whether it is worth doing yet.
Yes. Saudi Arabia is the largest Arabic search market in the region and behaves differently from the UAE in both dialect and competition. Campaigns are built per market rather than treated as one Arabic audience.
The audit is free. Guessing is expensive.
Every month of Arabic search demand you cannot see has a price. Find out yours: a free, honest audit you keep whether we work together or not.
Get a free Arabic SEO audit →Work with me
Let’s find the money you’re leaving on the table.
Tell me where growth feels stuck. Usually within the hour you will have my honest read on what’s leaking, what it’s costing you, and whether I’m the right person to fix it. No pitch deck, no pressure.
Performance marketing consultant for clinics and DTC brands across Dubai and the UK. Paid media, landing pages, tracking and creative, accountable to revenue.