Arabic and English website: a guide to going bilingual

Your customers in Saudi Arabia may search in Arabic, while expats and foreign partners search in English. A site in only one language misses half of them. Yet running two separate sites means twice the work and twice the mistakes. On Tansik you build one site in both languages.

One site, two languages

When you create a site you choose its languages and its main language: Arabic only, English only, or both. You can also add the second language later. How many languages you can use depends on your plan; see the plans section.

When a site is in both languages:

• Every page has two versions in the same site, and you edit both texts in the same place.
• Visitors get a language switch that takes them to the same page in the other language, not back to the home page.
• The site name can be written in each language.

Direction and fonts, handled for you

Arabic reads right to left and English left to right, which flips menus, columns and buttons. On Tansik the page direction follows the language automatically, so you don't need a second design.

Fonts come in pairs: an Arabic and an English font that match, such as IBM Plex Sans Arabic with Inter, Cairo with Poppins, or Tajawal with Roboto. The site looks consistent in both languages. Every theme supports both directions, so try a theme in both languages before you pick it, as we explain in our guide to choosing a theme.

A link for every page in every language

Every page, product, article, project and service has its own link in each language, under the language prefix, such as /ar/... and /en/.... When you add a new language to an existing site, every page gets a link in that language automatically, so no page is left without an address.

Why does it matter? Someone searching in English lands straight on the English page, and someone sharing an Arabic link shares that same Arabic page.

Google understands the two versions belong together

A common mistake on bilingual sites is letting Google treat the two versions as competing sites. On Tansik, the Arabic and English versions of every page are linked for Google automatically, each page points to its main address on your primary domain, and the pages go into your sitemap.

The SEO check reviews each language: missing descriptions, and images without alt text in one of the languages. For more, read our SEO guide for small businesses.

Who writes the second version?

A word-for-word translation shows immediately. So:

• Ask the AI assistant: the assistant writes pages, services and products in your site's languages, and edits the text in any language when you ask. Review it before publishing.
• Blog articles: written with AI in your site's languages, and so are search descriptions and image alt text.
• Write it yourself: if you already have the text, paste it into the second language's field.

A tip: don't make the English version a literal translation. Write it for its reader: shorter sentences, terms they know, and a phone number in international format.

Both languages beyond the website

Being bilingual doesn't stop at your pages:

• The WhatsApp assistant answers your customers in Arabic and English.
• The AI assistant in your dashboard replies in whichever language you write in.

Get started

If your site on Tansik is in one language, add the second from the site settings, then review your most important pages first: home, services and contact. If you haven't started yet, pick a plan in the plans section.

Questions