What was the challenge?
A Dubai business setup consultancy was competing in one of the UAE's most crowded search markets, where free zone, mainland and visa searches are fought over by big consultancies with big budgets. Its buyers are also international: founders from Europe, Russia and the Arab world searching in their own languages. It needed more leads, not just more visitors, and a presence in the AI assistants founders now ask for recommendations. I was brought in as its SEO consultant on a one-year contract.
SEO terms in plain English
- Bottom-of-the-funnel keywords
- Searches made by people who have already decided what they want and are close to buying, such as comparing costs or looking for a provider.
- Commercial-intent pages
- Service pages built for people who are ready to hire, with a clear path to an enquiry.
- LLM citations
- When an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude names or links to your business in its answer.
- Multilingual SEO
- Pages in several languages, each set up so Google shows the right version to people searching in that language.
What was the strategy?
- 01
Capture ready-to-buy founders with bottom-of-the-funnel blogs and a growing set of commercial-intent pages
- 02
Build local trust through UAE news coverage and collaborations with Dubai websites
- 03
Reach founders in their own language with Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic and other language pages
What exactly did I do?
5 moves, each with what I did and why it mattered.
- 01Content
Published bottom-of-the-funnel blogs, consistently
Kept a steady publishing rhythm of blog posts aimed at bottom-of-the-funnel keywords: the questions founders ask once they've decided to set up in Dubai and are weighing up how and with whom.
Why it mattered: A founder comparing setup options is close to hiring someone. Publishing for those searches brings in visitors who are ready to enquire, and a consistent schedule tells Google the site is an active, reliable source.
- 02Conversion
Kept adding commercial-intent pages
Built more and more pages for the services people search for when they're ready to buy, so each valuable search had a page made for it.
Why it mattered: One general services page can't rank for dozens of different buyer searches. A dedicated page matches each search closely and gives the visitor a direct route to an enquiry.
- 03Digital PR
Got featured in major UAE news media
Earned mentions in big UAE news outlets such as Khaleej Times.
Why it mattered: National media coverage is a trust signal for Google, for AI assistants and for founders deciding who to trust with their company. News sites are also among the sources AI assistants draw on when they recommend a business.
- 04Local authority
Earned links from Dubai websites through collaborations
Set up collaborations with local, Dubai-based websites that earned the consultancy backlinks in return.
Why it mattered: Links from local sites show Google that the business is genuinely part of the Dubai market, which matters when the searches that bring leads are all about Dubai.
- 05Multilingual SEO
Launched Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic and more
Built pages in Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic and several other languages, so founders could find the consultancy in the language they search in.
Why it mattered: Many people moving a business to Dubai don't search in English. Pages in their own language face far less competition and reach founders that English-only competitors never see.
What do I stand for?
Leads over traffic
An enquiry from a founder is worth more than a hundred page views. I choose content and pages by how close the searcher is to hiring.
Be where founders actually search
In their own language, in Google and in AI assistants. Showing up in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude is now part of SEO, not a separate project.
Consistency compounds
A steady publishing rhythm beats bursts of content. Each new page adds to the last, and the results keep building after the work is done.
Earn trust locally
For a Dubai business, a mention in UAE media or a link from a Dubai website carries more weight than any number of generic links.
How the results were verified
- Organic traffic verified via Ahrefs.
- The client stays anonymous to protect confidentiality; the numbers are real.
Government University in the UAE
8K → 16K+ organic traffic, 100% growth in a single year
