Shopify is fast becoming the ecommerce platform of choice for businesses in UAE.
And we can see why. It’s quick to setup, has global support (which means getting help is easy) and is packed with all sorts of excellent features – all for an affordable monthly fee.
But even with all of these positives, many UAE businesses who run Shopify stores, still struggle to make sales.
In the UAE, we have phenomenal internet speeds. We have a rapid adoption of ecommerce and online payments. And it’s so easy to get an online store setup. You should be making money hand over fist, right?
Not quite. And there’s a lot of reasons why Shopify stores in UAE are battling for sales.
Now we’ll get the price issue out of the way because let’s face it, if the price aint right, nobody is buying.
But it’s never just about price anyway.
So if you’re a Shopify store owner and…
- you’re wondering why your Shopify store isn’t getting any sales
- you’re wondering why people are visiting your Shopify store but not making purchases.
- you’re getting visitors and making sales but you’re not seeing steady growth (or any kind of progress).
Read on…
Given our extensive experience working on SEO for Shopify stores, we can tell you some of the most common reasons why UAE Shopify stores struggle to make money.
- The site is too slow to load
- Avoid large banner images and images that are huge in file size. And make sure the homepage isn’t too busy. It’s almost always the first place a person visits so first impressions matter. Slow sites are broke sites! (even if you have a lightning fast connection from Du/Etisalat!)
- Your site is hard to navigate
- A clunky site structure confuses humans AND Google alike. Make it easier to get around your site and find things! Also keep in mind the cosmopolitan nature of the UAE community: everyone has a different way of browsing the internet but if you make your site super simple to use, it will for everyone, regardless. Use easy to understand names for your categories (collections) and links – don’t try to be cute!
- Poor bilingual experience
- Whilst having a bilingual English Arabic site isn’t a firm requirement in UAE, if you do go down this route, use real humans to help you translate content for your site. Google Translate is not an option! A poorly worded and translated site is a sales turn off. This goes for any website that has more than 1 language. Given how multicultural the UAE is, there’s no shortage of professional translators to help you with this.
- You don’t have enough product information
- Can’t stress this enough – we get it – you’re worried about information overload but focus on giving people enough of the right information. Avoid generic, cookie-cutter content that is vague. Genuinely give people a reason to choose your products. Use your expertise and knowledge to highlight benefits and showcase your unique selling points. When you have more relevant content, this helps Google better understand your products and helps rank them better.
- You don’t have enough information on your category (collection) pages
- We see this a lot. Many UAE Shopify stores assume the customer will always know which page they’re on and what they can expect from the page because of the heading (if it’s even there!) and the list of products. Add more content to your collection pages and give the people what they want – in any language!
- You’ve over-optimised your SEO
- Believe it or not, you can actually overdo it with SEO! We’ve seen sites with keywords and links stuffed everywhere. This just looks bad, reduces relevancy and makes for a terrible experience. This doesn’t mean you’ve written too much content – it means you’ve just shoved all sorts of keywords in random places to try and game the system. A site that is over-optimised will be considered poor quality because it means a bad user experience (and it’s also less relevant). So this means: poor rankings and less visibility. Which means: no dirhams in your bank account 🙁
- You don’t have any SEO at all
- A big no-no in our books and unforgivable if you’re in ecommerce! Invest in SEO for Shopify and reap the rewards. It’s far more cost effective than paying for ads (which are still necessary!) but it works 24/7 (unlike ads which stop when the budget runs out for the day!) and has a much better long term ROI. Also, we know most UAE businesses don’t have mountains of cash to burn on billboads and hoardings on Sheikh Zayed Road or a feature on the Burj Khalifa. So what better way to stretch your dirhams than to use SEO. Shopify has great SEO features that make it super easy to implement SEO for your website. SEO is to a website what breathing is to a human – absolutely essential!
- Too many eggs in one basket
- We know Instagram is perhaps the most popular social network in the UAE and it may be important enough for your brand to be present there. But what about other networks? How about email? Have you thought about ads across Google, Facebook and even TikTok? Find the budget and test things out – only then will you know which channels work best for your business so you can invest better. Don’t rely on just 1 channel for your promotions!
And one last thing that hurts many Shopify stores in UAE: not offering clear delivery information.
We live in a part of the world where delivery of just about anything is possible, and often in less than 60 minutes – and is often FREE.
People have come to expect that from every online store so the pressure is on – not just to offer free delivery but super quick delivery too.
Whatever delivery options work for your business, make it clear across your site. If people don’t know when delivery will be made or how much it will cost, they’re less likely to buy from you!
Moral of the story: Hire a dedicated Shopify SEO consultancy that understands SEO, knows how Shopify works and can marry the two together to get your Shopify store ranking higher in UAE search results in Google.
In the end, you win because your site ranks higher, it gets more traffic and makes more money.
Score!
PS. We also strongly recommend hiring a human to translate your content if you need to offer a bilingual English Arabic website in the UAE!
Let’s talk SEO, Shopify and anything else to help your website make more money for you:
» Book a quick discovery call with Jambread.
