UAE & GCC · Arabic SEO
Arabic SEO for the UAE and Gulf, built for how people actually search
Arabic SEO services make your Arabic pages findable for the words Gulf searchers really type, in their dialect, spelling and mix of English and Arabic. We research Arabic queries in Arabic, write separate Arabic pages for them, and set up the hreflang, RTL layout and schema that let Google and AI assistants read those pages correctly.
What Arabic SEO is, and why translation is not enough
Arabic SEO is the work of making Arabic-language pages easy for search engines and AI assistants to find, read and recommend for the questions Arabic speakers actually ask. The foundations match any SEO work: crawlable pages, clear titles, accurate business details. But the research, the writing and several technical settings differ enough that an English page run through a translation tool rarely ranks for the Arabic query you wanted.
The reason is simple. A translation answers the question how would this English sentence look in Arabic? An Arabic searcher in Dubai, Riyadh or Doha asks a different question, in their own words. Someone in Abu Dhabi looking for a phone repair may type تصليح جوال; a Cairo-born resident of Sharjah may type تصليح موبايل; a translation tool will probably give you إصلاح الهاتف المحمول, which is correct and almost nobody searches. Arabic SEO starts from the searcher's words and works back to the page.
Quixo Marketing is a Dubai-based marketing operating system for UAE businesses, based in Dubai Silicon Oasis. We treat Arabic as its own market. For the English side, see SEO in Dubai; for how assistants such as ChatGPT see your site, see answer engine optimisation in the UAE.
Why Arabic search behaves differently
Seven things that change how Arabic queries are typed and matched, and so how your Arabic pages should be written.
Right-to-left layout
Arabic reads right to left. Pages need
dir="rtl"andlang="ar", mirrored navigation, and care where a brand name, price or phone number in Latin script sits inside Arabic text.Diacritics are usually left out
People almost never type the short-vowel marks (tashkeel), so they search مدرسة, not مَدْرَسَة. Write body text without diacritics, except where a word would genuinely be ambiguous, so your text matches what people type.
Hamza and alef variants
Many people type a plain alef instead of أ or إ, so اسعار appears as often as أسعار. Google often treats these as the same, but not always. Spell correctly on the page; do not stuff misspellings.
Taa marbuta and haa
Phone keyboards and habit mean عيادة is often typed as عياده. Keyword tools report the variants separately, so research must group them before you decide which page targets which term.
Alef maqsura and yaa
مستشفى is frequently typed مستشفي, and على as علي, especially in Egyptian usage. Again: group the variants in research, spell correctly in your copy.
Arabizi and transliteration
Some searchers write Arabic in Latin letters and numbers, such as 3iyada for عيادة, with 3 for ع and 7 for ح. These queries are smaller but real. They belong in your research, not stuffed into your pages.
Mixed English and Arabic queries
In the UAE many queries mix scripts, such as iPhone 16 سعر or dentist في البرشاء. Arabic pages should use the brand, model and product names people actually type, in the script they type them, inside natural Arabic sentences.
One concept, four ways to search for it
The Arabic your customer searches in depends on where they grew up, not only where they live. The UAE has large Gulf, Egyptian and Levantine audiences side by side.
| Concept | Gulf | Egyptian | Levantine | MSA (formal) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile phone | جوال | موبايل | خلوي / موبايل | هاتف محمول | جوال is strong in Saudi Arabia and widely used across the Gulf; موبايل is also common in the UAE. |
| Car | سيارة (colloquially موتر) | عربية | سيارة | سيارة | عربية means car in Egypt; elsewhere it usually reads as the word for Arabic. |
| Apartment for rent | شقة للإيجار | شقة للإيجار / شقة إيجار | شقة للأجار / بيت للأجار | شقة للإيجار | Levantine speakers often say أجار and use بيت for a flat. |
| Offers and discounts | عروض / خصم / تخفيضات | عروض / خصم / أوكازيون | عروض / تنزيلات / حسومات | عروض / تخفيضات | عروض works everywhere; the word for a sale season is the regional part. |
| Clinic appointment | حجز موعد | حجز ميعاد / حجز كشف | حجز موعد عند الدكتور | حجز موعد في العيادة | كشف is the Egyptian word for a doctor's consultation. |
| How much? | بكم / كم السعر | بكام | بقديش / قديش | كم السعر | Price questions are where dialect shows most clearly in queries. |
| AC repair | تصليح مكيفات | تصليح تكييف | تصليح مكيفات | صيانة أجهزة التكييف | Egyptian usage calls the unit تكييف rather than مكيف. |
This is a starting map, not a rulebook. Usage overlaps and people move between dialects; the right term for each page comes from keyword research in the target country. The usual pattern: clear Modern Standard Arabic that reads naturally to a Gulf reader, with the searched dialect terms in titles, headings and FAQs.
A 10-point Arabic SEO checklist
Use this to check your own Arabic pages. Every point is something we look at in an Arabic SEO project.
Separate Arabic URLs, linked with hreflang
Each Arabic page needs its own URL, such as
/ar/…, with hreflang tags that point English and Arabic versions at each other. If you run separate pages for different countries, use country codes such asar-AEandar-SA; if you have one Arabic version for the whole region, plainaris correct.Written pages, not automatic translation
Do not rely on a browser or plugin that translates on the fly. Search engines need real Arabic text in the HTML at a stable URL. Machine translation can be a starting draft; the published page should be written for an Arabic reader.
Decide on Arabic or Latin slugs
Arabic slugs, such as
/ar/عيادة-اسنان-دبي, read naturally in Arabic results but become long percent-encoded strings when shared in WhatsApp or email. Latin slugs share cleanly. Both can rank; pick one and stay consistent.A proper RTL layout
Set
dir="rtl"andlang="ar", mirror direction-dependent navigation and icons, and use a font made for Arabic. Check forms, phone numbers and prices on a real phone.Arabic titles and meta descriptions
Write Arabic titles and descriptions led by the Arabic search term, not translated from the English ones. Keep titles short; Arabic text renders wider than most people expect.
Arabic structured data
Add schema with
inLanguageset to Arabic, and give your business name, address, services and FAQ answers in Arabic on the Arabic page. Make sure the schema matches what the visitor sees.Keyword research in Arabic
Start from Arabic seed terms, in each target country, and group spelling variants. Translating your English keyword list misses the dialect terms, the mixed-script queries and the questions people ask only in Arabic.
Local prices, numbers and contact details
Show prices in AED (درهم) for the UAE, SAR for Saudi Arabia, QAR for Qatar and OMR for Oman, with a local phone number in international format.
Arabic details on Google Business Profile
Keep your business name exactly as on your signage. Add an Arabic description, Arabic service names and Arabic posts where useful, and reply to Arabic reviews in Arabic.
A native reader before publishing
Have a native Arabic speaker read every page before it goes live. They catch the phrasing that is technically correct but sounds translated, which is the thing Arabic readers notice first.
Country notes for Gulf markets
Gulf searchers share much of their vocabulary, but each market has its own habits.
United Arab Emirates
A bilingual market. Many Arabic speakers in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah search in English for some things and Arabic for others, and the Arabic audience mixes Emirati, wider Gulf, Egyptian and Levantine speakers. Price in AED and write area names such as Business Bay or Al Barsha the way people type them.
Saudi Arabia
Arabic-first for most consumer searches. Gulf terms such as جوال matter, prices belong in SAR, and a separate
ar-SApage is often worth it if you sell differently there. Do not assume a UAE page will rank in Riyadh or Jeddah.Qatar
Gulf Arabic usage and a bilingual audience similar to the UAE. Show QAR prices, Qatari contact details and Doha area names, and decide whether a shared Gulf Arabic page is enough.
Oman
Gulf Arabic with its own local terms and place names. Show OMR prices and Omani contact details, and name service areas such as Muscat clearly in Arabic.
How AI assistants handle Arabic content
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Google AI Overviews all read Arabic, and many people in the Gulf now ask them questions in Arabic. When they answer, they tend to draw on pages that state the answer clearly. That is where thin or machine-translated Arabic pages fall short: they give an assistant little to quote and few concrete details to rely on.
What helps is the same discipline as good Arabic SEO. Answer the question in the first sentence, in plain Arabic. Give specific details: services, areas, hours, how to book, what the price depends on. Keep business details consistent across the site, Google Business Profile and structured data, and let AI crawlers read the page.
The Quixo Audit includes an AI-assistant discoverability check: whether your robots.txt lets ChatGPT and OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Google-Extended, Apple and Common Crawl read the site, and whether your business details are machine-readable. No one controls a position in Google or a mention by an AI assistant, but you can remove the reasons an assistant would skip you. More on this in answer engine optimisation in the UAE.
How we run an Arabic SEO project
Measure with a Quixo Audit
We start with the Quixo Audit: a six-factor score and grade from 23 checks, 0–100 and A–F, using only your public website. You get the report as an English and Arabic PDF and a spreadsheet, plus a comparison with up to 3 competitors (5 on Pro and Enterprise). Anything we cannot measure is marked as not measured, not guessed.
Research Arabic queries by country
We build an Arabic keyword map for each target market: dialect terms, grouped spelling variants, mixed English-Arabic queries and real questions. Each group is assigned to one page so your pages do not compete.
Plan URLs and hreflang
We agree the Arabic URL structure, slug style and hreflang setup, and decide whether you need one Gulf Arabic version or separate country pages.
Write the Arabic pages
Arabic pages are written for Arabic searchers, using the English page as a reference at most. AI drafts, a person approves: nothing publishes until you or your reviewer signs it off in the portal.
Fix the technical layer
RTL layout, Arabic titles and descriptions, Arabic schema, internal links between Arabic pages, and Arabic details on your Google Business Profile.
Rescan and keep going
Each audit finding becomes a task in your portal. When a fix is done, you rescan to check it. Ongoing Arabic content and SEO work is scoped and quoted after the audit, based on what the findings show.
Arabic SEO: questions buyers ask
What is Arabic SEO?
Arabic SEO is optimising Arabic-language pages so search engines and AI assistants can find, understand and recommend them for the queries Arabic speakers really type. It covers Arabic keyword research by country and dialect, writing Arabic pages for those queries, and technical settings such as hreflang, RTL layout and Arabic structured data.
Do you translate our English site?
No. We write Arabic pages for Arabic searchers. Your English page can be a reference, and translation is a starting point at most. Arabic buyers use different words, ask different questions and often care about different details, so each Arabic page is planned from Arabic keyword research and written to answer those questions directly.
How much does Arabic SEO cost in Dubai?
You can start with a Quixo Audit from $49 (AED 180) for Essential, $99 (AED 364) for Pro or $179 (AED 657) for Enterprise. The audit shows where your Arabic pages stand and what to fix first. Ongoing Arabic SEO and content work is scoped and quoted after the audit, so you pay for what your site actually needs.
Do you work in Arabic?
Yes — pages, reports and dashboards in English and Arabic. Audit reports come as English and Arabic PDFs and a spreadsheet, the portal works in both languages, and Arabic pages are written in Arabic rather than converted from English. AI drafts, and a person approves each page before it is published.
Which dialect should our Arabic pages use?
For most UAE and Gulf businesses, write the page in clear Modern Standard Arabic that reads naturally to a Gulf reader, then use the dialect terms people search for in titles, headings and FAQs. If your customers are mainly from one community, such as Egyptian or Levantine residents, research their terms and weigh them more heavily.
Should we use ar-AE or just ar in hreflang?
Use plain ar if you have one Arabic version for the whole region. Use ar-AE, ar-SA and other country codes only when you publish genuinely different pages per country, for example different prices, contact details or services. Whichever you choose, every version should link to the others, including itself.
Should Arabic URLs use Arabic or English slugs?
Both can rank. Arabic slugs look natural in Arabic search results and match the query visually. Latin slugs stay short and readable when shared in WhatsApp, email or print, where Arabic slugs become long percent-encoded strings. Choose based on how your links get shared, and keep the same style across the site.
Will Arabic pages help us appear in ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews?
They can help, because assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews read and answer in Arabic, and they need clear Arabic pages to draw on. No one controls a position in Google or a mention by an AI assistant. What you can control is clear answers, consistent details and crawler access.
Do Arabic spelling variants need separate pages?
No. Variants such as أسعار and اسعار, or عيادة and عياده, are the same search intent. Group them in research, target the group with one page, and spell correctly on the page. Creating separate pages for each variant, or stuffing misspellings into copy, makes the site look low quality to readers and search engines.
Can you handle Arabic SEO for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman as well as the UAE?
Yes. We run Arabic keyword research per country and decide with you whether one Gulf Arabic version is enough or separate country pages are needed. Country pages make sense when prices, contact details or services differ. Our only office is in Dubai Silicon Oasis; we work with Gulf markets remotely.