Arabic website localisation: why translation isn't enough

Arabic website localisation starts where translation stops. A translator turns your English sentences into correct Arabic. Localisation decides whether those sentences should exist at all, how the page flows from right to left, which words a Saudi buyer types into Google, and what the page needs to show before that buyer hands over a phone number or a card. Brands that treat the Arabic site as a translation job usually launch on time and then wonder why the Arabic pages convert worse than the English ones.

Right-to-left is a layout, not a setting

Arabic is written right to left, and the whole interface should follow. The W3C recommends declaring the direction in the markup with dir="rtl" on the html element, alongside the lang attribute, rather than through CSS. Direction is part of the content's meaning, and the language declaration alone does not set it.

Once direction is declared, the design has to mirror. Navigation starts on the right. The logo usually moves to the right. Back and forward arrows swap. Breadcrumbs, step indicators, carousels and progress bars run the other way. Form labels align right, and so do validation messages. Some things should not flip: media play buttons, clocks, graphs with a time axis, phone numbers and most logos keep their original orientation.

The cheapest way to get this right is to build with CSS logical properties from the start. The W3C advises using start and end values, such as margin-inline-start and text-align: start, instead of left and right. A stylesheet written that way mirrors itself when the direction changes. A stylesheet full of left and right values needs a second set of overrides, and those overrides are where RTL bugs live.

Mixed-direction text

Arabic pages contain English: brand names, product codes, email addresses, prices with currency codes. Without care, the browser's bidirectional algorithm can scramble their order, so a price or a phone number reads wrongly. Mark embedded English with its own direction, and use dir="auto" for user input such as search boxes and review forms, which the W3C recommends for content whose direction you cannot know in advance.

Typography for Arabic

Arabic is a cursive script. Letters join their neighbours and change shape depending on position in the word, which has practical consequences for design:

• Never apply letter-spacing to Arabic text. The W3C's Arabic layout requirements note that moving joined letters closer together or further apart gives poor results. A tracking value that looks elegant in your Latin headings breaks the joins in Arabic.
• Choose a typeface designed for Arabic, with a matching Latin companion if the page mixes scripts. Fonts that bolt on Arabic as an afterthought tend to look uneven next to the Latin.
• Allow more line height. Arabic ascenders and descenders extend further than Latin ones, and cramped lines clip diacritics and hurt legibility.
• Arabic has no capital letters and no tradition of italics. Emphasis comes from weight, size or colour. Uppercase styling in your design system needs an Arabic alternative.
• Decide on digits. Saudi audiences read both Western digits and Arabic-Indic digits. Pick one per context and use it consistently across prices, dates and phone numbers.

Check type sizes on real devices. Arabic set at the same pixel size as your Latin text often looks smaller, so size the two scripts separately where needed.

Saudi searchers phrase things differently

Translating your English keyword list gives you Arabic phrases that are correct and often not what people type. Saudi search behaviour has a few patterns worth planning for:

• Hamza-less spellings. Users often type الكتروني instead of إلكتروني, or اسعار instead of أسعار, because it is faster on a phone keyboard. Taa marbuta and haa are often swapped (شركه for شركة), as are final yaa and alef maqsura (مستشفي for مستشفى).
• Gulf vocabulary alongside Modern Standard Arabic. A Saudi shopper searches for a جوال, the everyday word for a mobile phone, more naturally than هاتف محمول. Formal pages can stay in MSA while the search terms you target reflect how people speak.
• English and brand names in Latin script. Saudi users also search product names, model numbers and categories in English even when browsing in Arabic, so the Arabic page still needs those terms where they belong.

Arabic keyword research should be its own piece of work, done by a native speaker using search data for Saudi Arabia, not a column added to the English spreadsheet. Check each candidate term in its common spellings and look at what currently ranks for it. Use correct spelling in headings and titles, and let the hamza-less variant appear naturally in body text where it fits. Our Arabic SEO and digital marketing work starts from that separate research.

URL structure and hreflang

Google recommends a separate URL for each language version rather than switching language with cookies or browser settings. For most brands, subdirectories such as example.com/ar/ and example.com/en/ are the simplest option: easy to set up and maintained on one host. Google advises against URL parameters for language and against automatic redirects based on a guess about the visitor's language. Link the versions to each other so people can choose.

Connect the versions with hreflang annotations. Google's rules are specific:

• Use an ISO 639-1 language code, optionally followed by an ISO 3166-1 region code: ar, or ar-SA for Saudi Arabia specifically. A country code on its own is invalid.
• Every version must list itself and all the others. If the English page points to the Arabic page and the Arabic page does not point back, Google may ignore the annotations.
• Use full URLs including https.
• Add x-default for the page that should serve visitors whose language you do not cover.
• Use one method: link elements in the head, HTTP headers or the XML sitemap. Google treats them as equivalent.

Google does not use hreflang or the lang attribute to work out what language a page is in; it reads the content. A page with Arabic navigation around English body copy sends mixed signals, and Google advises against translating only the boilerplate. Translate the main content too, including titles, meta descriptions, image alt text and structured data.

Trust signals Saudi buyers look for

Correct Arabic gets a visitor to stay. Local signals get them to buy or enquire:

• Local payment methods shown clearly at checkout and on product pages: Mada cards, Apple Pay, and buy-now-pay-later options such as Tabby and Tamara where they suit the product.
• WhatsApp as a visible contact option next to the form, so pre-sale questions can happen in the channel buyers already use every day.
• Opening hours that match the Saudi week, Sunday to Thursday, with response times stated honestly if your team is in Europe.
• Prices in Saudi riyals, delivery times to Saudi cities and a returns policy written for local buyers.
• Arabic customer service, or a clear statement of which languages your support team speaks.
• Photography and examples that reflect the market rather than stock imagery chosen for Europe.

If you sell online, the platform choice shapes several of these. Our bilingual e-commerce and website work covers Shopify, Salla, Zid and custom builds with Gulf payment and shipping set up from the first release.

Write it in Arabic, then test it with people

The strongest Arabic pages are written by native writers from a brief, not translated line by line. Give them the purpose of each page, the audience and the key facts, and let them find the Arabic way to say it. Headlines especially rarely survive literal translation.

Then test before launch:

1. Review every template in RTL on a phone as well as a desktop browser. Mirrored layouts tend to break first on small screens.
2. Fill every form with Arabic input, including names, addresses and Arabic-Indic digits, and confirm the data reaches your CRM intact.
3. Ask native Saudi readers to complete real tasks: find a product, compare prices, start a chat, check out. Watch where they hesitate.
4. Validate hreflang and check that Google indexes the Arabic URLs separately in Search Console.
5. Track Arabic and English versions as separate segments in analytics so you can see whether the localisation is working.

Plan for maintenance too. Every new product, campaign and policy page needs its Arabic version at the same time as the English one, or the Arabic site drifts out of date within months.