SEO, AI visibility and websites for UAE and Saudi businesses

A business in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh or Jeddah usually sells to buyers who search in Arabic, in English, or in a mix of both, and who now ask AI tools as well as Google. Doing that well is mostly a technical and editorial job: the right site structure, correct hreflang, a genuine right-to-left design, and copy that reads naturally in each language. This guide covers each part, with links to Google's own documentation where the rules come from.

How do buyers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia search?

There is no single pattern, and anyone who claims one without your data is guessing. What is consistent is that buyers in both countries move between languages, and the mix depends on the sector and the buyer.

• Arabic searches are common for consumer services, government-related work and many local trades, particularly among Arabic-speaking buyers.
• English searches are common in sectors with many expatriate buyers or international procurement, such as professional services, technology, hospitality and real estate.
• Mixed searches combine an English brand or technical term with Arabic words, or write Arabic in Latin letters and numerals (often called Arabizi).
• Spelling variants are normal: place names, product names and transliterations appear in several forms in both scripts.

The practical answer is to measure rather than assume. Google Search Console, Google's free tool showing which searches your site appears for, lets you see the real queries in both languages once both versions are live. The guide to Google Search Console for business owners explains how to read it.

How should a bilingual Arabic and English site be built?

Google is explicit on the most important rule. Its guidance on managing multi-regional and multilingual sites says to use different URLs for different language versions of a page, rather than cookies or browser settings that change the language on the same address. A switcher that rewrites the page in place leaves Google, and anyone sharing a link, seeing only one version.

Each language needs its own address: example.com/en/ and example.com/ar/, not one address that changes language depending on who visits.

The common structures Google describes, and when each tends to fit:

Google advises against URL parameters for this. It also advises against automatically redirecting visitors to a language version based on what you assume they prefer, because that can stop both people and Google from reaching the other versions. Offer a clear language switcher instead, linking each page to its equivalent in the other language rather than to the other homepage.

Translate the whole page, not only the menu. Google determines a page's language from its visible content, so an "Arabic" page with an Arabic menu around English body text is, to Google, an English page.

What hreflang does, and how to set it up

Hreflang is an annotation that tells Google which pages are language or regional versions of each other, so it can show the right one to each searcher. Google's documentation on localised versions of your pages sets out the rules. You can add it in the page's HTML head, in HTTP headers, or in your XML sitemap. For most sites the HTML method is simplest:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/services/" />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ar" href="https://example.com/ar/services/" />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/en/services/" />

The same three lines go on both the English and the Arabic page.

The rules that most often go wrong:

• Every version must list itself and every other version. Google is clear that if page A points to page B, page B must point back, or the annotations may be ignored.
• Use valid codes. Language codes come from ISO 639-1 (ar, en), with an optional region from ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 (ar-AE, ar-SA, en-AE). Use the region only when the versions genuinely differ by country, for example in prices, phone numbers or services.
• Use x-default for the page shown when no language matches, often the English version or a language selector.
• Point to the final URL, not one that redirects.

Google also states that it does not use hreflang or the HTML lang attribute to detect a page's language. Set lang="ar" and dir="rtl" on Arabic pages anyway, because browsers, screen readers and translation tools rely on them.

Right-to-left layout is more than flipping the text

Arabic reads right to left, and the whole interface should follow: navigation, alignment, the order of columns, the direction of progress steps and carousels. A site that only right-aligns the paragraphs while keeping a left-to-right layout feels translated rather than designed for Arabic readers.

• Mirror what has direction. Back and forward arrows, chevrons, progress bars and sliders flip.
• Keep what does not. Logos, phone numbers, product codes, prices and embedded English terms keep their own direction. Mixed-direction text needs testing, because punctuation and numbers can land in the wrong place.
• Choose an Arabic typeface deliberately. It should pair with the English one in weight and character, and Arabic usually needs more generous line height.
• Decide on numerals. Both Western digits and Eastern Arabic digits are in use; pick one and apply it consistently.
• Build it in from the start. CSS logical properties, which describe "start" and "end" rather than "left" and "right", let one stylesheet serve both directions.

Copy quality matters as much as layout. Google's spam policies give content passed through automated transformations, including translation, as an example of scaled content abuse. More practically, buyers notice machine-translated Arabic immediately. Arabic copy should be written or reviewed by a fluent writer who knows your sector.

Google Business Profile in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

If you serve customers in person or in a defined area, your Google Business Profile, the listing that appears in Google Maps and local results, is often the first thing a buyer sees. Google's guidelines for representing your business include rules that bilingual businesses often break:

• One name, as used in the real world. Google gives the example that repeating a business name in two languages or scripts in the name field is not allowed, even if your signage shows both. Choose the name customers know you by.
• Service-area businesses hide their address. If you travel to customers rather than receive them, Google says to hide the address and set a service area.
• Accurate categories and hours, including changes for public holidays and Ramadan if your hours differ.
• Reviews in both languages. Reply in the language the customer wrote in.

If your business does not appear in local results at all, the guide to why your business is not showing on Google covers the usual causes.

Getting named by AI tools in both languages

Buyers in the Gulf increasingly ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews for recommendations, in Arabic and in English. The answers can differ by language, because the tools draw on different sources for each.

• Test in both languages. Ask the same buyer questions in Arabic and English and note who is named and which sources are cited. The free ten-minute AI test gives you the questions.
• Keep facts identical across languages. The same founding year, locations, services and licences on both versions of the site and on every listing.
• Connect the two names. In your structured data (code that labels facts for machines), the schema.org alternateName property can record the Arabic or English form of your name, so the tools understand both refer to one business.
• Earn mentions in both languages: Arabic and English trade directories, chambers of commerce, sector press and partner sites.

The main AI search guide explains how these tools choose whom to name.

Working with a consultant outside the Gulf

M/AFZAL works remotely with businesses in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It has no office in the Gulf. Its live UAE work includes MaidFinder, a hiring marketplace for maids and nannies built around how UAE families search, annotated on the home page. Most of the work described here, including site structure, hreflang, right-to-left builds, technical SEO, structured data and AI visibility checks, is remote by nature. The Arabic copy itself should be written or reviewed by a fluent writer you trust, whoever you hire.

Whoever you consider, ask how they will check results as buyers in each country see them, who writes the Arabic, and which bilingual sites they have built. The guide to choosing an SEO consultant covers the other questions worth asking, and the guide to brand, website and search for specialist businesses sets this in the wider context.