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With more than 420 million people speaking the language in 27 countries in MENA (Middle East and North Africa), Arabic is one of the most renowned languages in the world. The ancient language has a deep-rooted history; its origins go way back pre-Islamic Arabia. Fast forward thousands of years and Arabic website translation becomes a strong economic need.
Today, Arabic is one of the fast-spreading languages in the world. What’s more, Arabic is the fastest-growing internet language, and this is not just some speculation. According to Internet World Stats, of the Top Ten languages used on the internet, Arabic is ranked the fourth with a growth rate 7,247.3 %. Russian comes in the second place followed by Malaysian, Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish, respectively. In addition to that, Arabic is among The Top Ten High Demand Business Languages, and is expected to be among the top five languages in 2050.
From 2006 to 2011, the number of Internet users in Arab countries has been growing by 23 percent annually. It is worth mentioning that this internet growth rate and the increase of internet Arab users are due to the internet penetration in the region where the internet access is becoming cheaper, as well as the diversity of internet access devices, such as laptops, smartphone, and tablets.
Arabic Language Is Active Now
Such overwhelming growth rate of Arab internet users has opened so many doors for a promising future to establish thriving business in the MENA region, especially online business as in E-commerce. Companies and brands are willing to expand their services and products to MENA, believing in the region’s competence for a revolutionary market expansion. And before you establish a business, one big question mark hangs: do you speak your customer’s language? Typically, English is the lingua franca language that dominates not only business but the entire internet content, be it websites or platforms. Yet, for a business to succeed, it should speak the customer’s language. Only three percent of the current content online is actually in Arabic; that’s why, there has been a call for more Arabic content. Customers are familiar with the English language but they would favor services and products in their own language. This is something that might have been a little bump in the road, until international companies and brands have recognized the importance to translate and localize their websites into Arabic. Arabic website translation is going to result in more Arabic content online, which can “help diversify the economy and improve opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa”. For that reason, Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and more have set Arabic language a priority and gone for translating their websites into Arabic. In other words, Arabic website translation has become a fundamental principle in the world of business for the MENA region.Arabic Website Translation… Challenging As Ever
Unfortunately, the Arabic content provided online is poor. According to Wael Ghonim, Google’s former regional marketing manager: “There is a lot of Arabic content but it is not well structured. We want more structured content. We want more of the professional, niche sites, more businesses.” So let’s face it; there’s a problem in quality! And the first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. The problem in quality is a direct result of the challenges of the Arabic language. If you are getting your website translated into Arabic, you want to create a friendly satisfying experience for your customers. Quality is on the top of many things that can bring about such pleasant experience. Any mistranslation, misusage of words, or any offending words or graphics might come between your objectives of the website. Here are some of the challenges of the Arabic language (linguistic and technical), that can help you avoid any pitfalls during your Arabic website translation.- Which Arabic to translate to?
- Arabic Terminology: Hard to fit in
- While Reading in Arabic, Look Right
Best Practices for Arabic Website Translation: Meeting the Expectations
Translating your website into Arabic is never just about words; rather, it’s about making your website appealing than ever to your targeted audience in the MENA market. Such huge responsibility to meet the expectations of your audience calls for some of the best practices to ensure a seamless Arabic website translation.- Planning First, Translation Second
- Beyond Words
- Arabic SEO Translation : Sine Qua Non Your online presence at one of the most prominent global players in economic scene, MENA, needs a smart Arabic SEO translation to pull more traffic to your website and reach your Arab audience. More traffic means more visitors, more customers, and more revenues. Search Engine Optimization process helps your website appear higher in search engine searches and this entails translating title tags, headers, script messages, metadata, URLs…etc. and optimizing the translated content to generate intelligent industry-relevant Arabic keywords. Arabic website translation agencies will help your business to translate and adjust the best SEO strategy for your website.
- QA Online Testing
