If you run a company in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and organic search is not a top priority for your marketing team, the time to design and execute your SEO strategy is NOW. Over the last few years, changes in the Facebook business model impacted the effectiveness of Social Media Marketing – the preferred method previously adopted by many Saudi Arabian firms.
As the importance of SEO continues to grow, the competitive landscape becomes more crowded. Soon enough, companies in KSAwill find themselves competing against well-established global brands or competitors who have already invested heavily in SEO and have a head start. As we always remind you, it’s crucial for businesses to conduct comprehensive keyword research, identify niche opportunities, and create unique, engaging content that differentiates them from their competitors.
At ElasticSEO we are all about simplifying SEO for our customers. In this post, we want to provide definitive answers to five of the more commonly asked questions from our Saudi clients.
Do I need to have both an English and Arabic version of my site?
We typically recommend having one site with localized versions of the pages/content of your site. Not only is this easier for users to navigate but using your sitemap we will guide Google to find all localized variants of your page. If you check our site – you’ll notice we have both Arabic and English versions of this post available!
Should my keyword research be done in English or Arabic?
If you are catering to both English and Arabic speakers – BOTH. Note: Do not to conduct research in one language and then translate the keywords at the end of the process. This could result in a mistranslation and result in building your entire strategy around the wrong keyword. Ourrecommended approach is to conduct separate keyword research exercises,one in each language of your target audience(s).
What is the best way to develop my content strategy?
The answer to this question should become your mantra when developing your SEO strategy, the answer is; “Focus on your customers”. When developing content, we always work with our clients to get in the mindset of their target audience. This includes the basics such as demographics, but goes deeper into their preferences, dislikes, online habits, community engagements, linguistic behavior etc. Once you understand all of this, your content direction will more naturally align with your audience which is great for SEO.
What is Google doing to support Arabic language sites?
Google are continually making algorithm updates cater to Multilingual pages.As recently as 2022, one of theirupdates focused matching content language with title language. This shows Google are still focused on making multilingual website use as user friendly as possible.
Does it matter where my links come from?
SEO professionals continue to agree that Authority is having an ever-growing impact on, organic search. In a nutshell “Authority” is a weighting of credibility Google is giving to your site. This credibility comes from being referenced and shared on your particular product or subject matter. While the sharing of information evidently takes place on a global basis, consider that if you are a local business, it stands to reason that you would have more local authority. Aside from just being logical,this is reflected in Google’s algorithms, more links coming from KSA sites are going to ensure you rank higher for local search.
If there is anything to be taken from these fiveanswers, we believe it’s that Saudi businesses can and SHOULD confidently invest in SEO as much as their global competition does. Furthermore, catering to the majority Arabic speaking audience in Saudi is key, and keeping user experience at the heart of this process will ensure your business climbs the rankings on the Search Engine Results Page – bringing more high quality leads and more revenue.
Let us know if you’d like a part 2 where we get into some more Saudi FAQs – we’ve got you covered!
