What was the challenge?
A Deira-based trading company re-exported building materials, tyres and electronics to East and West Africa. Buyers in Lagos, Nairobi and Abidjan searched "tyre supplier Dubai" or "wholesale electronics Dubai export", but the company only had a catalogue PDF. Directories like Alibaba and TradeKey captured the searches and took a cut of every enquiry.
What was the strategy?
- 01
Turn the PDF catalogue into indexable product pages with specs and minimum order quantities
- 02
Create a page for each export market with shipping times, documents and payment terms
- 03
Add French pages for francophone West Africa
What exactly was done?
4 moves, each with what was done and why it mattered.
- 01Site structure
Product pages from the catalogue
Turned 420 catalogue lines into product pages with specifications, brands, packaging, minimum order and an RFQ button.
Why it mattered: Trade buyers search by product and spec. Each page could now rank for a specific search and capture the enquiry directly instead of through a directory.
- 02Content
A page for each export market
Built pages for Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire covering shipping routes, transit times, documents and payment terms.
Why it mattered: Buyers want to know a supplier already ships to their country. Market pages answered that and ranked for searches like "export from Dubai to Nigeria".
- 03International SEO
French pages for West Africa
Translated the top 80 product pages and the francophone market pages into French, with hreflang tags.
Why it mattered: Many buyers in Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal search in French, where competition is much lighter. French pages produced a quarter of new enquiries by month twelve.
- 04Conversion
WhatsApp-first enquiries
Added WhatsApp Business buttons with a pre-filled message naming the product, alongside the RFQ form, and tracked both.
Why it mattered: Most African trade buyers prefer WhatsApp. Meeting them there more than doubled the enquiry rate on product pages.
What do I stand for?
Own the enquiry
Directories rent you visibility. Ranking your own product pages keeps the buyer and the margin.
Speak the buyer's language
Literally: French pages opened a market that English pages could not reach.
About this case study
- This is an illustrative case study: a representative engagement showing how I approach SEO for this industry and the kind of results the approach is built to deliver.
- The business, figures and charts are illustrative, not a single client's verified data. For verified results, see my SEO case studies.
Import & Export SEO Consultant in Dubai
Product pages with specs and MOQs, market pages for each export country, and French pages for West Africa.
