Arabic keyword research: a practical method

Translate the phrase apartments for rent in Abu Dhabi, type the result into Google in the UAE, and read what autocomplete offers next. If the suggestions use different words, a different spelling of Abu Dhabi or English letters, you've just seen why translated keyword lists fail: they record how a translator writes, and the suggestions record how people type.

Why does a translated list miss so much?

Take car rental. A translation tool gives you تأجير سيارات. People also type ايجار سيارات, a different word for the same need, and رنت كار, the English words rent car written in Arabic letters. Three strings, one need, and a translation produces one of them.

None of the three is wrong, which is the point. Search results follow what was typed, so a page written for one string can be absent from the results for the others unless Google treats them as the same search. You can check whether it does, and the steps below show how.

What does a variant list look like?

One search, written out every way it might be typed, with the reason each version differs. This list is for apartments for rent in Abu Dhabi, and it's a set of strings to test, not a ranking of popularity.

Six strings for one search, and each could return a different results page. Which of them deserve their own page is a decision for the results to make, not for the list.

How do you build the list?

1. 01Collect the words customers already used. Export a few months of WhatsApp, email and form enquiries and pull the exact phrases people wrote for your service, typos included. If you have no Arabic enquiries yet, ask the sales team what customers say on calls, and start from step 5.
2. 02Write the seed phrase in Arabic, or have a native speaker write it. Then generate variants by mechanism: spelling (hamza, ة and ه, ى and ي, spaces inside names), wording (everyday and formal), dialect (the noun your target country uses), script (English words in Arabic letters, plus Arabizi) and number (singular and plural). Label each variant with its mechanism, so you can see which ones matter for your category.
3. 03Run every variant through autocomplete. Type the phrase and note the suggestions, then add each letter of the Arabic alphabet after it, one at a time, and note what Google completes. Do it logged out, because suggestions are shaped by your own history and location. If a variant gets no suggestions at all, mark it weak and move on.
4. 04Read the results page for each variant that autocomplete confirms, using the overlap rule below. This step decides how many pages you need.
5. 05Ask native speakers what they would type, using the script below. Take the strings exactly as they type them, and add any you hadn't listed.
6. 06Check volume last, and only as a rough guide. If a tool shows nothing for an Arabic string, that means the tool has no data. It doesn't mean nobody searches.
7. 07Group the variants whose results overlap, give each group one page, and pick one phrase for the title. The other spellings go in headings, body copy and the text of internal links. If you can't decide which phrase leads, use the one autocomplete offers first.

How do you read an Arabic results page?

Look at three things before anything else: the language of the top results, the type of page that ranks, and which domains repeat. If an Arabic query returns mostly English pages, either Arabic content for it is scarce or searchers expect English. Both are worth knowing before you write a word.

Then apply the overlap rule. Count how many of the first ten results two variants share. Our rule of thumb is that four or more shared results means one page can serve both, and fewer than four means two separate searches that each need their own page. It's a rule of thumb, not a Google rule, so use it to decide where to start and revise it when real queries arrive.

Split too eagerly and two pages compete for the same results, which is keyword cannibalisation. Merge too eagerly and a variant that has its own results page never gets a page written for it. Splitting is the easier mistake to repair, because you can merge the pages later.

How should you ask native speakers?

Give them a situation, not a translation task. Ask "how do you say apartment for rent?" and you get the textbook phrase. Describe a situation and ask them to type what they'd type, and you get the string.

• Scenario one: you need a one-bedroom in Abu Dhabi from next month. Open Google on your phone, type what you'd type, and send a screenshot that includes the suggestions it offered.
• Scenario two: the first results are too expensive. What do you type next?
• Show three result titles and ask which one they'd click, and what makes the other two look wrong.
• Keep your own list out of sight until they've answered. People agree with a list they're shown.

Ask people from more than one country. The UAE's Arabic speakers include Emiratis and other Gulf nationals as well as residents from Egypt, the Levant and the Maghreb, and a phrase that reads naturally to one can read as foreign to another. Five people is enough to see whether the answers converge.

If nobody on your team reads Arabic, this is the step worth paying a native researcher for, whether through our Arabic SEO service or anyone else. What matters is that the person types searches rather than translating them.

Can you trust keyword tool volumes for Arabic?

Treat them as a hint. If a tool returns no volume for an Arabic string, that means the tool has no data. It doesn't mean zero demand. Use tools to find candidate phrases, then confirm each with autocomplete and the results page.

The reliable figures arrive after launch. Google Search Console lists the Arabic queries your pages actually appeared for, and that list will contain variants nobody put on the page.

What do you do once the pages are live?

Open the Performance report in Search Console, add a Query filter, choose Custom (regex) and enter \p{Arabic}. The filter uses RE2 syntax, which supports that script class. Check the output: every query listed should contain Arabic letters, and if the list is empty or full of English, the pattern needs fixing.

Each month, sort that list by impressions and look for strings your pages appear for but don't contain. Those are your next variants. Google Search Console for business owners has the monthly routine, and the wider picture of how Arabic search behaves is in Arabic SEO: how Arabic search really behaves.

The most valuable column in the whole list is the one nobody can sell you: the exact words your own customers wrote. Step 1, run for your most valuable service, is where to begin.