Building an Arabic and English Website: What a Bilingual Site Has to Get Right

For a business selling in Saudi Arabia, the UAE or anywhere in the Gulf, an Arabic version of the website is often what separates being considered from being skipped. Many buyers, officials and consumers work in English as well, but Arabic signals that the business is serious about the market — and for government-adjacent buyers and many consumers, it is expected. The mistake is treating Arabic as a translation file switched on at the end. It is a second layout, a second set of URLs and a second piece of writing.

This guide covers what a bilingual site has to get right, in the order it matters. For the wider picture of building web applications for the Saudi market, see web application development in Saudi Arabia.

1. Right to left is a layout, not a font

Arabic reads right to left, so the Arabic page is a mirror of the English one: the logo moves to the right, navigation runs right to left, arrows and "next" icons flip, form labels sit on the right, and tables read from the right. Some things must not flip — phone numbers, prices in Western numerals, product codes and embedded English brand names stay left to right inside the Arabic text.

A site built with right-to-left support from the start handles this through its layout system. A site where Arabic is bolted on later usually needs every template reworked, which is why it costs more to add afterwards than to plan for.

2. Separate URLs for each language

Google indexes pages, not language switches. If the Arabic version only appears after a visitor clicks a toggle, it is effectively invisible in Arabic search. Each language needs its own URLs — for example a `/ar/` section alongside the English one — each with its own title and description in that language, and the two versions linked to each other with hreflang annotations so Google shows Arabic searchers the Arabic page.

Google's own guidance on this is the reference: managing multi-regional and multilingual sites and telling Google about localized versions of your page.

3. Writing, not translating

Machine translation gives a usable first draft and an obviously machine-made final page. Gulf readers notice stiff or overly literal Arabic at once, and it undermines exactly the trust the Arabic version was meant to build. The Arabic should be written or edited by a fluent writer who understands the business — and the terms your customers search for in Arabic, which are often not a word-for-word translation of the English keywords.

4. Typography and reading on a phone

Arabic letterforms need a font designed for them, chosen to sit comfortably beside the English typeface so the two versions feel like one brand. Arabic generally needs a slightly larger size and more line spacing than English to stay readable on a phone. Web fonts for Arabic can be heavy, so they have to be loaded carefully or the Arabic pages become noticeably slower than the English ones.

5. Forms, numbers, dates and currency

• Forms accept Arabic names and addresses, validate phone numbers in local formats, and show error messages in the visitor's language.
• Numbers: decide whether Arabic pages use Western (0–9) or Eastern Arabic numerals, and keep prices and phone numbers consistent.
• Dates: Gregorian is standard for business; show Hijri as well where your audience expects it.
• Currency: SAR, AED or another, with the symbol and position correct in both languages.
• Emails and WhatsApp messages sent by the site should go out in the language the visitor used.

6. One content system for both languages

The editing side matters as much as the public site. Your team should be able to edit the English and Arabic version of a page side by side, see which pages are missing a translation, and publish both together. A CMS that treats Arabic as an afterthought is how bilingual sites drift out of sync.

What to ask a developer

Plan it from the start

The cheapest bilingual website is the one planned as bilingual from the first wireframe: right-to-left in the layout system, URLs for both languages in the structure, and the Arabic text commissioned alongside the English. Everything added later costs more.

We build Arabic and English websites for businesses in Saudi Arabia and the UAE from our Karachi office, in your working hours. See our web development services in Saudi Arabia and in the UAE, or send us a few lines on your site and we will tell you what the bilingual version should include.