An Arabic website needs both language work and a layout that supports the language. A translation can read well in a document and still become difficult to use when placed into a form or navigation bar. Plan the linguistic and technical handoffs together, with clear responsibility for translation, implementation, and final checks.

Define the Arabic audience

Name the countries or communities you want to reach and explain the purpose of the content. Discuss whether Modern Standard Arabic is appropriate or whether a campaign needs another register. Do not treat Arabic-speaking audiences as interchangeable. A public service page, a technical product guide, and a social campaign may need different wording even when they cover the same subject.

Provide approved spellings for names, brands, places, and recurring terms. Ask how names should appear when an Arabic rendering and a Latin spelling are both useful. Keep those choices in a glossary instead of settling them again on every page.

Separate language from layout direction

The page language and reading direction are related but distinct settings. W3C guidance explains the use of HTML direction markup for right-to-left content. Give the developer a requirement to set and test direction explicitly; right-aligning the text alone is not a substitute for managing bidirectional content.

Mixed content needs particular attention. Email addresses, URLs, reference codes, and Latin product names can appear inside Arabic sentences. Their punctuation and sequence should be checked in the rendered page. Ask the development team to isolate or mark mixed-direction segments appropriately and test real examples from your content.

Inventory everything a visitor can encounter

Translating only the visible paragraphs leaves gaps in the journey. Export strings with enough context to show where they appear. A short word such as “Open” could be a button, a status, or an instruction; a screenshot or description helps resolve the meaning.

  • Navigation, buttons, search, and language-switch labels.
  • Forms, validation errors, confirmation messages, and email notifications.
  • Image text, captions, alternative text, and downloadable documents.
  • Page titles, descriptions, sharing text, and other publishing fields.

Review the implemented experience

Arrange a review on a staging site rather than relying only on a spreadsheet. Check narrow screens, line breaks, clipped text, and the position of icons next to labels. Do not mirror every visual element automatically: a brand mark or an image with a fixed meaning may need to keep its orientation. Confirm decisions with the designer and translator in context.

Run a complete user task, such as submitting an enquiry, and inspect the confirmation and follow-up message. Verify that switching language takes visitors to the corresponding page rather than dropping them at the homepage.

Agree on what happens after launch

Record who owns new strings, product changes, and corrections. Keep the approved translations tied to their source versions. A small update can introduce untranslated text or direction issues, so include language review in the publishing workflow. Idiomly can discuss the translation scope with you; agree separately which implementation and testing tasks your web team will deliver.