A business whose customers read Arabic and English has one brand and two sets of pages. The usual route is to write the English pages, send them for translation and treat the Arabic pages as a copy. One site ends up sounding like a company with a point of view, the other like a document carried across a border. The brand did not change. The writing did.
The rule that prevents this is short. One brand, one set of facts, two pieces of writing. Each page is written in its own language from the same brief and checked against the same facts.
Why translating a page is not the same as writing it
A page is written toward a reader who arrived with a question. A translation is written toward a source text, so the Arabic reader gets a faithful copy of a page never addressed to them. It shows in three places: headlines built on an English turn of phrase go flat word by word, calls to action keep English sentence shape instead of the short imperative that reads naturally in Arabic, and the rhythm stays foreign, since Arabic sentences open and join differently.
The fix is to change what you hand over. Give the writer of each version the same brief, not the finished page in the other language: who the reader is, what they came to find out, which facts must appear, and the three or four words that describe how the brand speaks.
Modern Standard Arabic, and why it suits brand pages
Arabic pages carry a decision English pages do not: which Arabic. For a business website, the sound choice is Modern Standard Arabic, the written register used for news, documents and instructions, which Arabic readers learn at school across the Arab world, whatever they speak at home.
The trade-off is that Standard Arabic sounds stiff when written stiffly. The answer is plain Standard Arabic: short sentences, everyday vocabulary, no ornament, the same discipline you apply to the English. A regional dialect can suit a social post or an ad aimed at one audience, but that should be a choice recorded in the brand guidelines, not a writer's preference.
The same facts in both languages
Some of your readers will read both versions, and a price that differs between the two pages tells them the business cannot be trusted with details. So the facts stay identical in both; only the wording around them changes.
Keep one facts sheet that both versions are written from: prices and currency, what is included, delivery times, opening hours, guarantees, the exact name of each offer, contact details, every number. When a fact changes, change the sheet first, then both pages the same day.
What may change, and what must not
Allow these to differ, on purpose:
- Headline wording. A fresh headline for the same idea in each language.
- Sentence order and length. The versions will not line up sentence for sentence, and should not be forced to.
- Examples, idioms and references. An image or a saying that lands in one language is replaced in the other, not carried over and explained.
Hold these fixed:
- The promise. What the brand is for and who it serves.
- The tone words. If the English is direct, warm and free of hype, the Arabic is too. Record them in the brand style guide, one line per language on how that tone is achieved.
- The brand name's treatment. Decide once whether it stays in Latin letters on Arabic pages or gets an Arabic rendering, and never mix the two.
- Facts, claims and calls to action. Same numbers, same claims, same number of buttons asking for the same thing.
- The visual identity. Colors and logo placement stay put, and the Arabic typeface is chosen to match the weight and feel of the Latin one; only direction and letterforms change.
Page elements, one at a time
A worked example: a clinic page for a dental check-up.
- Headline. English: "Book a check-up before the pain starts." Arabic: "احجز فحصًا قبل أن يبدأ الألم". Same idea, each written as a headline in its own language.
- Call to action. One primary button on each page, same verb, same destination: "Book a check-up" and "احجز فحصًا".
- Price block. Identical figure and currency; only the label is rewritten.
- Proof. Same claims on both pages. Quote a testimonial in the language the customer gave it, or translate it and say so; never put words in a customer's mouth.
- Direction and numerals. The Arabic layout mirrors right to left, arrows flip, and the brand decides once between Western and Eastern Arabic numerals.
When a voice sounds generic in one language and sharp in the other, this list is where the gap usually shows first.
Who writes the second language
Three arrangements work. An in-house writer fluent in both languages gives the tightest alignment but is hard to find. Two writers plus one editor who reads both is what most teams can staff, with the editor checking both versions against the facts sheet. The third is an outside service, and the trade-off is distance: the writer knows your brand only through what you send, so the brief and the facts sheet have to carry everything. Ask any service you consider whether the second version is written or translated. One option is SEO Misr, which writes articles and sales pages in English or Arabic at a fixed price per piece ($15 for an article, $30 for a sales page, the first of each free once per website); you choose the language in the brief, and if you want both versions it confirms the scope before you pay. Its overview of SEO articles and sales pages in English and Arabic describes the service, the page on Arabic and English content for one website covers how each piece is written and what an order includes, and an Arabic-language page about the same service exists for readers who prefer Arabic.
Whichever you choose, the facts sheet and the tone words remain yours. A writer can keep a voice only if you have defined one.
A short checklist before either page goes live
- Both versions were written from the same brief, not one from the other.
- The Arabic is plain Modern Standard Arabic unless the guidelines say otherwise.
- Every price, number, time, policy and contact detail matches the facts sheet.
- Each page has the same calls to action, and the brand name is treated the same way.
- No claim appears in one language that is missing from the other.
- Someone who reads both languages has read both pages against the sheet.
One brand, written twice
A bilingual website is the same brand speaking twice, in the language each reader searches in, rather than a page and its shadow. Keep the facts in one place, let the sentences belong to their own language, and run the checklist before anything goes live.
