Arabic website design in Dubai, built bilingual from the start

Scope sets the cost, and you'll get a written quote once we know what your website needs. Templates and how many pages need the second language are usually the big movers. Who writes and reviews that copy matters too, and so do the platform and any forms or CRM that have to work in both languages. Website design cost in Dubai varies a lot between agencies, so ask what each quote includes. Our pricing page explains how ours are built.

For an Arabic and English website, start from our published timeline: four to twelve weeks for most sites. A second language can push a website in Dubai towards the upper end, mostly when copy arrives late or sign-off drags. Want to speed things up? Get the English finished before translation starts and agree the glossary early. Naming one person to approve the Arabic usually saves a lot of back and forth, too.

RTL website design is building pages for languages written right to left; Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Urdu are among them. Text aligns right and the navigation starts on the right-hand side, since that's where the reader's eye begins. Not everything turns round, though. Numbers still read left to right, and so do Latin brand names. Your logo stays exactly as designed.

A multilingual website starts with two decisions, the languages and the URL structure, and the rest follows. Pick the pages each language needs, then design both reading directions. The build adds lang and dir attributes while each language's copy is written and reviewed. Before launch, hreflang, metadata and sitemaps go in; the switcher and every form get tested. Then the long part: keeping the versions in step. A multi language website that rushes those early decisions usually pays later.

Whether your website must be in Arabic depends on your sector, licence and what you sell, so check with your licensing authority or a legal adviser; we don't give legal advice. If you sell to consumers, ask specifically about the UAE's consumer protection rules, which may cover the language of product information, terms and invoices. Arabic is the UAE's official language, though English is widely used in business. Beyond what the rules ask, there's a commercial question: do your buyers read and search in Arabic?

Yes, usually without a rebuild, provided your templates can handle right to left. Start with a priority set of pages; not every page needs an Arabic version on day one. A corporate website on a heavily customised theme is where trouble shows. If your theme can't mirror, a website redesign may cost less than patching it.

On its own, a translation plugin or widget rarely makes a site work in Arabic, even when it puts the right words on screen. Take a browser widget. It creates no URL Google can index. The layout stays left to right, and forms and emails carry on in English. Tools that create real language URLs can be part of a professional website build. Plenty of tools will create websites in two languages; making the second one usable is the job.

Machine translation is good enough for a fast first draft, and that's where it stops. It tends to go literal and drift between formal and casual register. It'll also rename brands that should stay put; units and numbers can come out wrong. Our rule: AI may draft, but a person reviews every line and your team approves. If you're comparing website translation services in Dubai for a build, ask who reviews each line. Translating legal documents is a different job.

Yes, copywriting is part of the website design service, and we deliver copy in both languages. AI can speed up a first draft. The line-by-line review is still a person's job, though, and your team signs off before anything's published. Working with your own Arabic writer? That's fine too. We'll build around their copy and check it fits the layout; headline lengths seldom match across the two languages.

Your business website is usually better served by Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the written standard of news, contracts and official sites. Dialect has its place in a campaign line or a social post, less so on a service page. Mixing the two doesn't read well; it's a bit like a contract that slips into text-message style halfway down. Pick one register and stick with it. A glossary can then settle your brand and product names.

No: Google treats translated pages as duplicates only when the main content stays untranslated. Give each version its own URL, a self-referencing canonical tag (the tag naming a page's main version) and reciprocal hreflang, so each one can be indexed and shown to the right searchers. The classic mistake runs the other way: an Arabic page canonicalised to its English twin asks Google to index the English instead, and the translated page can drop out of results.

Yes, it can, as long as it has its own URL and is written for searches in that language. Carried-over English keywords won't do it. Its titles, descriptions and internal links need the same treatment. Nobody can promise positions, and we won't. What your Dubai website can do is give Google a clean, separate version to rank. The Arabic SEO guide on our blog has more.

A language switcher should take visitors to the same page in the other language, never back to the homepage. Flags stand for countries, and Arabic is spoken in many of them, so name each language in its own script instead. Keep the switcher visible on mobile rather than three taps deep in a menu. And let people choose: a forced redirect by location overrides the version they picked.

Either set of numerals works; what matters is choosing one for your audience and using it everywhere. Plenty of UAE sites use Western digits (0-9) in right-to-left text. Whichever you pick, phone numbers and prices are held left to right. Your forms should accept both digit sets and store one, or a phone number typed in Arabic-Indic digits gets rejected for no good reason.

Yes, as long as the form was built for it. Many aren't. Validation that only allows Latin letters rejects Arabic names outright. A properly built form answers in the visitor's language, from error messages to the confirmation email, and stores the text correctly in your CRM with the lead's language recorded. Before launch, it's worth pushing a test enquiry all the way through.

All three can run a bilingual website well. Which one suits you depends on who edits the site and how much it has to do. A large content site tends to sit comfortably on WordPress, while a small team editing its own pages is often happier on Wix. Headless makes sense once you're running many languages or channels, and stores usually go on Shopify or WooCommerce. If you're torn, ask who'll be updating the site next year; that usually settles it.

Yes, we build Arabic e-commerce websites on Shopify or WooCommerce. Your product data, filters, checkout and order emails all need both languages, on a theme that handles right to left. Search is the part people forget. If it treats different spellings of the same Arabic word as different words, your shoppers get no results for products you actually stock.

Yes. One you can check is Eden, a Wix site, where we corrected stale Russian and Arabic translations across 49 pages plus the header, footer and menus in October 2026. On your site, the work would start with an audit of every translation against the English: pages, menus, footer, forms, titles and alt text. Fixes then go in priority order.

Treat every content change as a two-language change, and the versions stay in step. Raise one request for both. After each round, compare the versions page by page in a parity check, and recheck hreflang after every release. Busy pages, like prices and opening hours, are often the first to drift. If you'd rather not run that yourself, a website maintenance plan can carry it.

Open each agency's live right-to-left pages on your phone first. A design portfolio of screenshots tells you little. Then put the same plain questions to every website design company in Dubai on your list. Does each language get its own URL? Who reviews the Arabic, and who owns the accounts? For a small site, a freelance designer in Dubai or a DIY builder can be enough. Choosing a web design agency gets easier once you hear who answers plainly.