Arabic and English Website Design for UAE Businesses: A Practical Launch Checklist

A bilingual website is ready when a visitor can complete the same essential task in either language. If the Arabic home page looks polished but the enquiry form sends visitors to an English error message, the journey still needs work.

Start with the pages people need to act

Map the path from discovering a service to contacting your team. For a UAE facilities company, that might mean a service page, a coverage page, an enquiry form and a confirmation screen. Build and review that whole route in Arabic and English before translating every archived article.

Make a page inventory with a row for each route. Record the owner, intended audience, primary action, equivalent page and review status. Include short strings such as field labels, consent text, error messages and the reply the visitor receives. Assign a named reviewer who can check the meaning of the offer and its terms.

Give each language its own URL

Use stable URLs for each language, such as /en/services/ and /ar/services/. The language switch should take a visitor to the matching page when it exists. If there is no equivalent, make that clear before sending the visitor to a language landing page.

For pages intended for search, give each version its own title, description and canonical URL. Add reciprocal hreflang annotations for equivalent pages, including a reference to each page itself. Verify that all alternate URLs return a successful response and are eligible for indexing. See Google’s guidance for localized pages.

Design for Arabic reading direction

Set the page language and right-to-left direction in the document markup. Use layout rules based on the start and end of a line so spacing can adapt when the direction changes. Test mixed content such as Arabic text beside an English company name, a phone number or an email address. The W3C guide to text direction explains the markup.

Review navigation arrows, progress indicators and form alignment with an Arabic reader. Check whether each icon represents reading order or a physical direction. Test long service names, narrow screens and browser zoom. Keep critical text out of images so it can wrap and be read by assistive technology.

Check what happens after the visitor clicks

Send a test enquiry in each language using realistic names, punctuation and contact details. Confirm that the receiving system preserves the original text, the sales team can see the preferred language and the visitor receives a confirmation they can understand. If your team can only respond in certain languages or hours, set that expectation on the form.

• Navigate from the service page to the form in each language.
• Switch languages from the service page and confirm the topic stays the same.
• Submit with a missing required field and review the error.
• Complete a valid test and check the confirmation and receiving record.
• Check the title, canonical and language alternatives on the public URLs.

Give both versions a maintenance owner

When pricing, coverage or a service changes, the editor needs to know which pages and messages are affected in both languages. Add that check to the release process. Record exceptions explicitly so reviewers can distinguish a deliberate local difference from a translation waiting for approval.

CONSAI designs websites and enquiry journeys around the tasks customers need to complete. Tell us which language journeys your website needs to support. For the next step after launch, see our guide to measuring qualified website enquiries.

Cover artwork generated for CONSAI.