Most brands selling in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman need Arabic and English on the same website. The sites that convert treat Arabic as a full experience. The sites that struggle add a translate button at the end and hope the layout survives.
This article is the planning guide we use before UI and UX design or a web build starts. It covers structure, layout, copy, and the handover between languages.
Design the Arabic layout first if Arabic is the buying language
Arabic reads right to left. Menus, forms, icons that point forward, and the position of the primary button should flip with the language. A Latin layout with Arabic text pasted in feels unfinished, and long Arabic headlines often overflow buttons that were sized for English.
Choose an Arabic font that stays clear on a phone. Test it at the size you will actually use in navigation and forms, not only in a hero headline. Web design for the Gulf fails when the Arabic screen is reviewed once, on a desktop, by someone who does not read Arabic daily.
Use one page list and two languages
Agree the pages before you design either language. Home, services, about, proof, and contact are enough for many companies. Add city or sector pages only when sales needs them. Then build each page twice, under a clear pattern such as /en/ and /ar/.
The language switch must open the matching page. Sending every Arabic visitor to the homepage throws away the visit and confuses search engines. Hreflang, or a careful canonical setup your developer understands, keeps the two versions from competing with each other.
Write, then adapt
Word-for-word translation sounds stiff and often misses the offer. Write the page in the language your main buyer uses, then adapt it. Keep product names, legal lines, and city names accurate for each country. A Dubai free-zone address and a Riyadh commercial registration should not be mashed into one sentence.
Budget time for an Arabic reviewer who is not the developer. If that review is missing from the quote, it will be missing from the site. When you choose a web development company in the UAE, ask to see this step in the schedule.
Keep calls to action local
Gulf buyers often prefer a call or WhatsApp over a long form. Show the same options in both languages, with the number your team answers. If you have different numbers for the UAE and Saudi Arabia, do not hide both in the footer of every page. Put the relevant one on the page for that market.
WhatsApp as a sales channel in the Gulf covers how to connect that button to a real reply process. The page still has to explain the offer. Chat does not replace a clear service page.
What to hand the development team
- The page list in both languages
- Approved Arabic and English copy, or a named reviewer
- Logo lockups for both scripts
- Which markets get a phone number, address, or WhatsApp line
- What must not be machine-translated, such as legal and pricing lines
Brand work should include the Arabic mark, not only the English wordmark. Branding and visual identity and the article on branding for Dubai and the GCC go into that in more detail.
Search and ads depend on this structure
You cannot rank an Arabic query with an English URL, and you should not send Arabic ads to an English page. Once the two languages exist as real pages, SEO and paid campaigns can point at the right one. SEO in Saudi Arabia in 2026 shows how that split looks in practice.
