Are you a business person who operates in Dubai and wants to rank higher in search engine result pages to boost your online visibility? Then, this guide to Dubai SEO can be a big help!
SEO or search engine optimization is crucial for any business with a website aiming to show up in search results. Without SEO, your website may have a presence on the web, but a lot of your target audience may not find you.
SEO in Dubai demands using local SEO strategies. You can use them if you have a business localized in Dubai, a global organization with a Dubai-based audience, or a business that wants to enter Dubai’s market.
These strategies will help search engines fetch your pages only for local queries, filtering unwanted traffic. Stay with us if you desire to know how you can optimize your website for local search in Dubai.
Why Should You Optimize Your Website For Search Engines?
Search engine optimization is essential for your digital presence. It helps businesses boost their site’s visibility in search results, which leads to higher volumes of organic traffic.
Furthermore, the latest SEO techniques focus not only on search engines but also users. A better user experience makes your site easier to navigate and more user-friendly. There is also a relation between SEO and higher ROI as you can drive quality traffic to your pages that can be converted easily through optimization strategies.
Search engine optimization is the key to staying competitive in the digital landscape regardless of the industry and overlooking it can allow your competitors to step over you.
The best part is the long-term advantages SEO can bring to your brand’s online visibility.
Local SEO: What’s The Fuss?
Google typically shows search engine result pages from the whole world which can be a problem for local businesses. Local SEO can be a savior for those businesses.
Local SEO focuses on getting your website shown in the local search results. For example, if you are a real estate agency in Dubai, your target audience will be only those people looking for properties within Dubai. And your SEO will focus on attracting them to your pages.
51 percent of the Google prompts are made by searchers hunting a product/service in their locality. This survey shows the clear benefit of local SEO for brands that operate in a specific location.
Workable Strategies to Optimize A Website for Local Search
1- Focus On Your Home Page
Local businesses should optimize their site’s home page to get recognized easily by search engines and users. The home page’s content should include a clear introduction of your brand, your exact location, and your services.
Populate your page title tag, the header tag, and meta description with this information. WordPress allows you to conveniently update the title tag under the Settings section if you have a wordpress site. And you can use the Yoast SEO extension to load your page’s metadata without hassle.
You will learn to optimize your pages’ metadata in the next section.
2- Optimize MetaData
This advice may or may not be relevant currently to direct SEO. But even if metadata is not a ranking signal, it still plays a key role in the first impression of your page on a visitor.
The first thing a user sees from your website is your page’s title tag, which means it provides an opportunity to introduce your business through it. You should use your locality’s name in the title tag to optimize your pages for local searches.
Then, add the name of your products/services in title tags to inform search engines about the location you serve and the work you do there.
3- Dedicate A Page To Each Product and Location
Creating separate web pages for all products or services and for all areas you serve helps in local and global SEO both. Your website should have a product page to apply schema to that individual product offering.
It helps Google understand your sitemap and ranks your services or product page for relevant queries. It drives the opportunity to particular schema applications.
Suppose you are a property developer in Dubai and have many properties for sale in different areas of Dubai. Then creating a page for each project will make it easy for Google to show your page to anyone searching for a property in that particular neighborhood.
4- Claim GMB Profile
Google My Business or GMB is a wonderful way devised by Google to help users find locations and details of businesses they are interested in. But, surprisingly many businesses pass on this opportunity by not claiming their GMB page.
Need proof? According to a 2016 study, 56% of local retail businesses haven’t claimed their GMB profile. Despite it being a free google tool that lets companies create business listings.
Optimized GMB listing is among the prominent ranking signals of organic and snack pack search results.
Your GMB listing should include your company’s full name, office address, exact location, niche, contact number, and website.
After publishing the correct business information in GMB, you should verify it via postcard or phone call. Optimize your GMB profile after verification using these methods:
- Add images of your physical store/office from inside or/and outside
- Mention your business hours
- Give extra categories that can be related to your business
- Offer additional contact numbers if possible
Optimizing GMB listing doesn’t stop here. You should share new content and business updates regularly.
5- Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Most people search the web using their mobile devices these days, which means you can’t ignore mobile in your SEO. As per a study by Uberall, 82% of participants had performed a near-me search through their mobile devices. It shows a large number of people are searching for local businesses on their smartphones.
What if someone searches for your business or your products/services on their smartphone, and your site’s content shows up unaligned or overlapped? It’s crucial to offer a great user experience to searchers visiting your site on mobile phones.
Your website and Google My Business listing should have click-to-call buttons. So that mobile phone users can straight away contact your business. As it happens, 60% of users have contacted a business through their smartphones from the search results.
How Can Professional SEO Agency Help You With Optimization?
You might be a Do-It-Yourself person, but we recommend not compromising on the digital footprint of your business. Search engine optimization is a science and art in its own right. It needs specialized skills, experience, and knowledge of the latest trends to optimize a website for search engines.
Local SEO is a type of SEO that focuses on signaling to search engines that your business provides services/products in a specific location. Trying to do local SEO yourself can be tricky for you as a business owner.
A professional SEO agency can help your business save time and money. The SEO company will dedicate time to optimizing your website for search engines while you focus on your business growth.
Another upside of hiring an SEO service provider is that they can provide experienced professionals at a lower price than you would need to manage an in-house team.
Conclusion
Dubai is an economic hub and among the favorite cities of businesses. But this has led to fierce competition in every industry. To make a robust online presence, local SEO is unavoidable for businesses in Dubai.
We hope you like our piece and will apply the strategies discussed to boost your website’s rankings in local search results. Local search optimization can help your business beat your competitors, drive more local customers and flourish your business.
So, start using local search tactics today and witness the rise of your brand’s online presence!
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
1. What are the optimum techniques to locally optimize my website?
Ans. Some of the best ways to locally optimize your website for search engines are:
- Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing
- Optimize your site for mobile devices
- Gather customer testimonials
- Develop a local backlink profile
2. What are the top three major ranking factors that affect your local search results?
Ans. The top three factors that influence your site’s position in local searches are relevance, distance, and prominence.
3. What are NAP citations?
Ans. NAP refers to name, address, and phone number. This data is critical for both prospective buyers and Google. Search engines will utilize NAP data to determine proximity details to add to rankings.
4. How much should my business pay for local SEO?
Ans. The prices may vary, but for a one-time project aimed at analysis, clean-up, research, and optimization, the average costs may range from 400 to 1700 dollars.