Arabic SEO in the UAE and Saudi Arabia: How to Rank in Google and AI Answers

Most Gulf company websites we review have an Arabic version that almost no one arrives at from search. The English pages bring in visitors. The Arabic pages sit there, translated once at launch and never looked at again. The usual reason is simple: the Arabic pages were translated from English, so they target words that Arabic speakers do not actually type.

This guide covers how people in the UAE and Saudi Arabia search, how to research Arabic keywords, the technical setup that lets Google show the right language, and how to write Arabic pages that rank and get quoted by AI assistants. For the design and build side of a bilingual site, such as right-to-left layout, fonts and forms, see our guide to building an Arabic and English website.

How people in the UAE and Saudi Arabia search

The two biggest Gulf markets behave differently. The UAE has a very large expatriate population, and most business-to-business searches there are in English, even by Arabic speakers. Arabic still matters for government-related work, for many consumer categories and for Emirati audiences. In Saudi Arabia, Arabic is the default for most consumer searches and for a large share of business searches, and companies selling to government or large Saudi organisations are expected to present themselves properly in Arabic.

These are patterns, not rules. The only reliable source for your business is your own data: the queries in Google Search Console, the language of your WhatsApp enquiries, and what your sales team hears on calls.

Arabic keyword research is its own job

Translating an English keyword list gives you formal terms. Buyers type shorter, everyday phrases, often mixing in English product names. They also spell the same word in different ways, and many people type without hamza or dots in the expected places. A good Arabic keyword list starts from how customers actually write.

URLs, hreflang and the technical setup

• One URL per language. Use a subfolder such as /ar/ or a separate domain. Never show Arabic and English at the same address depending on a cookie or button; Google can only index one of them.
• hreflang between the versions. Tell search engines which page is the Arabic or English equivalent, using codes such as ar-AE, ar-SA, en-AE and an x-default. Each page must list the others and itself.
• No automatic redirects by language or location. Google crawls mostly from the United States with an English browser. If you redirect by IP or browser language, it may never see your Arabic pages. Offer a clear language switch instead.
• Set the page language and direction in the HTML with lang="ar" and dir="rtl", and translate titles, meta descriptions, image alt text and structured data, not only the visible text.
• Arabic or Latin URLs. Arabic slugs work in Google but become long percent-encoded strings when copied into WhatsApp or email. Short transliterated or English slugs are easier to share. Choose one approach and keep to it.
• Speed. Arabic web fonts are often large. Load only the weights you use and subset them, so the Arabic pages are not slower than the English ones on a phone.

Google's documentation on localized versions of a page is the reference for hreflang and is worth sending to whoever builds your site.

Writing Arabic pages that rank and get quoted

Machine translation has improved, but a translated page still reads like one, and buyers notice. The pages that perform best are written in Arabic by someone who knows the subject, using the English page as a brief rather than a source text.

• Open each page with a short, direct Arabic answer to the page's main question. This is the passage AI Overviews and assistants lift.
• Use local details: prices in dirhams or riyals, the cities you serve, and the rules that apply, such as UAE VAT at 5%, Saudi VAT at 15% and ZATCA e-invoicing.
• Keep English product and platform names where buyers use them, such as Shopify, Odoo or ERP, rather than forcing a translation nobody searches for.
• Write Arabic FAQs from the questions Arabic-speaking customers actually ask. They are often different from the English ones.

There is a real opportunity here. Far less well-structured Arabic business content exists online than English. When an assistant answers a question in Arabic about, say, ZATCA-compliant invoicing software, it has fewer good Arabic sources to choose from. A clear, specific Arabic page has a better chance of being used than its English equivalent competing with thousands of others.

Local signals: maps, directories and reviews

Local results and AI answers about "the best company in Dubai" or "in Riyadh" lean on Google Business Profile, directories and reviews. Use your business name exactly as it appears on your trade licence and signage, keep the address and phone number identical everywhere, and fill in services and descriptions completely. Encourage Arabic-speaking clients to leave reviews in Arabic. Reviews in the language people search in help the profile match those searches.

A 30-day plan

Mistakes we see most often

• Arabic pages that are machine-translated copies of English pages, with English titles and meta descriptions left in place.
• A language switch that changes the text but not the URL, so only one language can be indexed.
• Redirecting every visitor from the Gulf to the Arabic version, including English-speaking buyers in the UAE.
• Targeting formal Arabic terms that look correct but have almost no searches.
• Arabic pages that load visibly slower because of uncompressed fonts.

We build bilingual websites for clients in the UAE and Saudi Arabia with this setup from the start, so the Arabic pages are built to be found rather than added later. Send us your current site and we will tell you whether your Arabic pages are being indexed and what is holding them back.