SEO Company in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
We run SEO for Riyadh and Saudi businesses with Arabic as the starting point, because that's where Saudi search demand sits. We research Arabic and English keywords separately, fix the technical problems that hide Arabic pages from Google, and write content that answers what your customers in Riyadh ask. The work is done remotely by our team in Dubai.
Talk to us about RiyadhWhat's included
Arabic keyword research in its own right
Saudi search terms researched directly, including spelling variants, Najdi phrasing and the English brand names people type in Latin letters, instead of translating an English keyword list.
Technical SEO for bilingual sites
hreflang for ar-SA and English, decisions on Arabic or transliterated URLs, right-to-left rendering checks, and fixes for language switchers that hide one version from Google.
Content written for a Saudi reader
Service and category pages in Arabic that sound Saudi rather than Egyptian or Levantine, built around the questions Riyadh buyers ask before they shortlist a supplier.
E-commerce SEO on Salla, Zid and Shopify
Category structure, product schema and duplicate-page fixes on the platforms Saudi stores run on, within what each platform lets you change.
Reporting split by language and city
Search Console and GA4 views that separate Arabic from English traffic and Riyadh from the rest of the Kingdom, tied to the pages that bring enquiries.
Migrations that keep your rankings
A full redirect map when you change platform, restructure, or move to a .sa domain, so the rankings you've earned move with you.
SEO in Riyadh
The Arabic gap in Riyadh search
Most Riyadh businesses we audit have a decent English site and an Arabic version that was translated once and left alone. That’s backwards for this market. The English searches for most services in Saudi Arabia are small, and the Arabic searches are where the buyers are.
An English-first SEO plan in Riyadh competes hard for a thin slice of demand. An Arabic-first plan goes where the volume is, and often faces weaker competition, because so many Saudi sites treat Arabic as a translation job.
How Saudis actually type a search
Arabic search isn’t one keyword with one spelling. A Riyadh buyer looking for a kitchen contractor might write مطابخ الرياض, تفصيل مطابخ بالرياض or شركة مطابخ, and Google treats them as related but distinct. Spelling varies too: ة or ه at the end, أ or ا at the start, ال attached or dropped. Brand and technology names often stay in Latin letters inside an Arabic query.
Then there’s dialect. Saudis write search queries mostly in Modern Standard Arabic, but everyday services pick up Najdi and Gulf terms. Our free Arabic keyword planner for regional variations shows how differently the same need is phrased across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. It’s a good place to start before you brief a writer.
What we find on Riyadh websites
The same technical faults turn up again and again on Saudi sites:
- The Arabic version is canonicalised to the English one, so Google indexes only English.
- No hreflang, or hreflang that points to pages which don’t exist.
- A JavaScript language switcher with no separate Arabic URLs, which leaves Google seeing one language.
- Machine-translated Arabic that reads stiffly, and mistranslates product names.
- Arabic URLs pasted in percent-encoded form into sitemaps and internal links, which breaks some tools and makes reporting a mess.
- Thin category pages on Salla or Zid stores, with the same default text across every collection.
None of these needs a rebuild. They need someone who reads Arabic to look at the site the way Google does.
Where Riyadh SEO pays off
Search effort makes most sense where buyers research before they commit. In Riyadh, that includes B2B suppliers selling to the companies setting up regional headquarters, clinics and specialist healthcare, education, home services across the newer northern districts, and restaurants and hospitality, where people search by cuisine and district.
Hospitality is where our Saudi proof is. We run SEO for Toki, a Cantonese and Szechuan fine-dining restaurant in Jeddah, and for Leylaty Hospitality Group, and built the site and search setup for Lola. If you’re in food and hospitality, our restaurant marketing page goes deeper.
How a Riyadh SEO engagement runs
- Audit, in both languages. Crawl, indexation, hreflang, speed, and a review of how your Arabic pages read to a Saudi customer.
- Keyword map. Arabic and English terms grouped by intent and matched to pages, with gaps marked for new content.
- Fixes first. Technical problems go before new content, because content on a broken site doesn’t rank.
- Content and links. Arabic pages written for Saudi readers, plus outreach to Saudi and Gulf publications and directories that make sense for your sector.
- Monthly reporting that splits Arabic from English and shows enquiries, not only positions.
Related services and reading
This page covers search in Riyadh specifically. Our SEO services across the UAE and GCC explain the full method, and the Arabic SEO guide covers the language side in detail. If customers visit you in person, pair this with Google Maps work for Riyadh businesses. For AI assistants, see AI search visibility in Riyadh. Selling on the west coast too? Here’s our SEO for Jeddah companies. And for everything else we do in the capital, see our Riyadh agency overview.
Selected work
How we work
- 01
Audit
A full crawl, a Search Console review and a look at who outranks you for the terms that bring in revenue. You get a ranked list of problems, not a raw tool export.
- 02
Fix the foundations
Indexing, redirects, hreflang and speed come first. Content published on a broken foundation struggles to rank however good it is.
- 03
Build the keyword map
English and Arabic keywords assigned to existing or new pages, one clear target per page, so your own pages stop competing with each other.
- 04
Publish and earn links
New and improved pages go live on a steady schedule while outreach and PR run alongside.
- 05
Report and adjust
Each month we compare queries, pages and leads against the baseline and move effort toward whatever is working.
Questions
Is SEO in Saudi Arabia done in Arabic or English?
Both, but Arabic usually comes first. For most services the English searches in Saudi Arabia are small, and the Arabic equivalents carry the buyers. English still matters for B2B, expat-facing and multinational audiences, so we research the two languages separately and build pages for each.
Which kind of Arabic should our pages use for Riyadh customers?
Modern Standard Arabic for the body of the page, with the Saudi words people actually search for where they differ. A Riyadh customer searching for a car service or a home repair may use everyday Najdi terms that an Egyptian copywriter wouldn't think of. Keyword research tells you which ones to use.
Can you do SEO on a Salla or Zid store?
Yes, within the limits of each platform. Both let you edit titles, descriptions and product content, and that's where most of the gains are. Some technical changes, such as custom URL structures or advanced schema, are restricted on hosted platforms, and we'll tell you upfront when a limit is holding you back.
Do we need a .sa domain to rank in Saudi Arabia?
No. Google uses many signals to decide which country a site serves, and a .com with good Arabic content and correct hreflang can rank well. A .com.sa needs a valid commercial registration through SaudiNIC, which the CST runs, and some Saudi buyers trust it more. If you switch, plan the migration carefully.
How long does SEO take for a Riyadh business?
Technical fixes can show up in Search Console within weeks. New Arabic content usually takes a few months to settle, longer in competitive categories. We set expectations after the audit, based on what your competitors in Saudi Arabia already have.
How much does an SEO company in Saudi Arabia charge?
It depends on the size of your site, how many languages and cities you target, and how much technical work is needed first. We start with a free audit and scope the work from what it finds.