SEO in Arabic is considered the most effective way to generate brand awareness and boost revenue generation. For companies, the need to stay up the charts has become essential with the growing number of internet users in the Middle East. The total number of users is 5.5 billion, hungry for engaging and informative online content.
Hence, initiating a local SEO strategy in the Middle East is an efficient trick to engage prospects within the region. As you know, about 46% of all searches on Google tend to seek local information, highlighting the reasons for having a region-specific SEO strategy plan. So, here is a detailed Arabic SEO guide for companies to generate organic traffic in the Middle East.
Before the Pandemic, industries that were not much aware of SEO were now beginning to explore its perks in the region. Although companies invested a lot in digital marketing in the Middle East, most of them were not much aware of SEO. As the competition is growing, you need to stay ahead with strategic planning and valuable techniques to mark your spot and stand out from the rest.
To practice region-specific SEO tricks, you may consider going for the Arabic language as well. It gives you a broader room to indulge your audience. However, most users enter queries in the English language, but you must not overlook the fact that 45.9 million internet users search in Arabic. So, this gives you a choice to pick either both languages or only Arabic. Let's talk about on-page and off-page SEO in the Middle East.
To streamline the process, you must be aware of what the market wants, demands, and needs. You need to get into the mode of connecting to its people by understanding how things work in the Middle East region. Take a look at the top competitors, and check their style of interactions and communication. See what trends they follow and how you can make your brand look unique and authoritative.
To penetrate the market, you need to identify all those platforms that are commonly used. The first thing is to know the search engine and its algorithms. In SEO, it's important to know how to feed the curious crawlers on the search engine. You get a set of techniques to create the content and optimize it on those key aspects. More than 25 versions of Google Arabic are currently used in the Middle East, generating 4 million searches.
On-page SEO is about following the criteria Google has laid down to generate the highest traffic on the web page. On-page SEO directly impacts the rankings, and it usually revolves around content optimization based on the region, customer needs, keywords, and formatting that attracts readers.
Optimize your content with native Arabic keywords. You need to conduct advanced research to gather relevant queries for the market. Based on monthly volume and performances, sort the long-tail and short-tail from your researched keywords. Moreover, localize your keywords and never translate them. You need to avoid targeting ineffective and irrelevant terms. Most SEO agencies try translating the keywords from English to the Arabic language, which makes it ineffective as the Arabic language is too rich with various meanings of a single term.
Before you jump to create the content, you must first segment your target audience based on their needs and preferences. For instance, if we look closely at the demographics you find about internet users in the Middle East, we’ll see that males are more likely to use the internet than females.
Furthermore, you can get a deeper insight into understanding how different users interact with top platforms. For instance, look at the picture below:
From such data, you can find out the right style to interact and communicate with your target audience. Similarly, carry out social listening and run a few analytics to identify the needs and preferences of your target audience that's how top SEO agencies in the Middle East perform.
When it comes to content creation, remember to use an easy-to-understand tone. You need to use all the highly-searched keywords in a strategic manner in your content. Your website is the foremost means to interact with your audience; hence, it should sound relevant to their needs.
Sketch a customer-centric journey to share bits of information with them, gradually persuading and educating your visitors to take action. Your content should be as such to lead your visitors toward the call to action. This is only possible if it's well-written, well-formatted, strategically strong, and has effective on-page techniques involved.
Among the aspects involved in Arab on-site optimization, SEO experts should work on meta tags. You should pick the most searched keyword combinations and write an optimized title and description for the website. Next is to optimize your image for better reach. Never forget to optimize the geotagging to ensure local searches. Apart from these, you should also work on your website UI/UX. Make it mobile responsive. It should have a fast loading speed, with an engaging interface to keep the visitors engaged.
When it comes to ensuring a successful local SEO strategy, getting listed on GMB - Google My Business is essential. You must verify your local business and enhance your chances of gaining more visibility and better online reach by showing up in Google's local search results and on Google Maps.
Off-page SEO involves techniques that generate an indirect impact to your website's rankings. It's crucial to optimize your off-page SEO as it contributes to a 50% increase in your search visibility results. With a strong strategy in place, you can make your website outrank your competitors.
Furthermore, with off-page SEO, you can improve your website's authority by showcasing how well your website is performing and maintained. So, here are the key areas to cover:
Link building is essential to build the authority of your website and its pages to get high SERPs results. To do that, you can go for internal linking and guest blogging. The purpose should be to share your website link on high-authority sites. This increases traffic to your website.
A holistic view of content marketing involves both on-page and off-page techniques. Creating interactive and engaging content on-site is one thing, but positioning your brand through multiple types of content is what you need to focus on.
A killer content strategy leaves no platform unaware of your brand's existence. For instance, when it comes to guest posting, you can target news publication websites and share press releases of your brand. Websites like Yahoo news and Marketwatch are top rankings in the Middle East.
Next is working on blog posts. Here you can either create short blogs or long-form content with stats-backed information. Add proper formatting and visuals to captivate your readers.
Creating infographics and incorporating them in your blogs is one effective technique to ensure the highest viewer count. The fourth trick is to create research papers, eBooks, and even whitepapers. All of these techniques will eventually bring your website to the first page of the search engine and among the leading results.
Staying active on local forums brings you closer to your target audience. It drives faster conversions and spreads awareness effectively. Create conversation threads, try to provide solutions to common problems, and stay empathetic with the people. They should consider you a reliable and trustable entity before going for your services. This is one common practice of top SEO agencies in the Middle East.
Social networking involves staying active on all the leading social platforms of the region. According to Statista, by 2025, there will be 9.83 million active social media users in the UAE. It highlights the fastest penetration of social platforms, creating an avenue for search engine optimization agencies to engage users. You need to get involved with your audience through every means possible. Keep your business updated on every platform and create content consistently.
Following all of these strategies would lead your way to the top SERPs results within six to eight months. You will be generating prospective leads with greater conversion rates. If you want to seek help from a renowned local SEO agency in the Middle East, get in touch with ConnectIn Digital. They are reputed for their result-oriented strategies with proven results.