Middle East Shopify

 

If you currently use or wish to use Shopify in the Middle East and want to drive traffic to your Shopify site in Arabic, you’re in the right place. Handling e-commerce across geographical and linguistic borders can be tricky. The right cultural know-how is necessary to truly drive profits and grow your business in this area. The following article will provide an overview of using Shopify in the Middle East, some common issues that come with doing so, and how IstiZada can help you with setting up Shopify in the Middle East.

 

Shopify and SEO

If you don’t already know, Shopify is a multinational e-commerce company that was started in Canada. Shopify provides a platform for businesses to sell their goods online and locally at Shopify POS locations. Anyone can set up an online business with Shopify.

 

Naturally, to have a successful Shopify page, you need good SEO (search engine optimization). In this case, your SEO would determine how many people see your Shopify page on your search engine, and how many of those views turn into interactions and transactions.

 

Shopify in the Middle East

Shopify is a fast and easy option for setting up an online store. However, Shopify is most popular in countries like North America, Australia, and the UK. The Middle East is not their priority, and you’ll see that reflected in their design and function. This doesn’t mean that your Shopify can’t be successful in the Middle East, it just means that you’ll have to put a little extra effort into setting it up to make it lucrative.

 

Setting up Your Shopify in the Middle East

There are a couple of important things to consider when setting up a Shopify page in the Middle East. First of all, make sure you’re not focusing only on Arabic. Anywhere you advertise in the Middle East, you’ll find a large Arabic audience alongside a sizeable English audience. Because people worldwide will be accessing your site in English, make your primary domain in English and make other domains branch off of that domain for additional languages like Arabic.

 

When you’re setting up your Arabic page, you’ll need to consider using a translation app. We recommend Langify– it’s the most reliable in our experience. You’ll also need to consider using a theme for your Shopify page that is designed to work with languages that go right-left, whereas English is written left-right. This will avoid spacing errors on your page.

 

What’s more, just because your page is translated correctly doesn’t mean that it’s optimized for search engines in Arabic. You’ll need to be careful about ensuring you’re incorporating good SEO into your content- that means having an awareness of search trends in the Middle East, and an ability to optimize language that translation apps may not possess.

 

Consider what needs to be done besides just the content that appears on your Shopify page- you’ll also need to make sure you’re properly designing your meta descriptions, title tags, H1 tags etc. for a bilingual audience. Langify has this option, but your research matters too.

 

Istizada’s Role

While we’ve outlined a few ways that designing your Shopify page in the Middle East can be tricky, all hope is not lost. Istizada can help you create a lucrative Shopify page in a couple of different ways.

 

IstiZada employs native speakers of both English and Arabic. This is a huge asset in setting up your Shopify with good SEO, that you can’t get from a computer program. Our experts can help with translation and technical support for your app. They can also make sure you’re Arabic text shows up in the correct way on your page.

 

In addition, our team can help you either customize an already existing theme to fit the Arabic language, or create a new theme altogether. Beyond the technical, IstiZada is here to help you gain more traffic on your Shopify site in the Middle East- using our specialized knowledge to create organic connection with your audience.