An Arabic version of your website isn’t a checkbox. Done badly — and most are — it actively damages your brand. Done well, it doubles your addressable audience in the Gulf.
The three things bad Arabic sites get wrong
Typography. Arabic typography is a different craft from Latin. Letterforms, line-height, kerning need adjustment.
Layout direction. RTL isn’t just “flip everything.” Logos, icons with directional meaning, product images — some flip, some don’t.
Content tone. Machine-translated Arabic reads stilted. MSA vs Gulf dialects is a brand decision.
Typography that works
For Arabic body: Cairo, Tajawal, IBM Plex Sans Arabic. For headings: Frank Ruhl Libre, Reem Kufi. Line height: 1.7–1.9.
Shopify-specific RTL
Modern Shopify themes (Online Store 2.0) handle RTL reasonably well, but apps and custom sections often don’t. See our Liquid development for proper handling.
WordPress RTL
WordPress core has solid RTL support. We use WPML for most projects. See WordPress development for bilingual setup.
Closing principle
Arabic isn’t a feature you add. It’s a market you build for. Get in touch via our contact page for a bilingual project.