SEO works best when it is built into a website from the start, not added after launch. This checklist covers the technical SEO decisions developers and business owners should get right when building a new website in 2026, with extra notes for bilingual Arabic and English sites in Saudi Arabia.
1. Plan the structure before design
- Map your main services and pages to the searches your customers make, in Arabic and in English.
- Give each important topic its own page, with one clear H1 per page.
- Keep URLs short, readable and consistent, for example /service/mobile-development/.
- Link related pages to each other so both visitors and search engines can find them.
2. Get the technical foundations right
- Serve the whole site over HTTPS, with a single preferred domain.
- Generate an XML sitemap and a clean robots.txt, and submit the sitemap in Google Search Console.
- Use canonical tags to avoid duplicate pages.
- Return proper 404 pages, and use 301 redirects when you move or remove content.
- Add structured data where it fits: Organization, Breadcrumb, FAQ and Article.
3. Build for speed and mobile
Google ranks the mobile version of your site, and slow pages lose visitors. Aim for good Core Web Vitals:
- Compress and resize images, and use modern formats such as WebP.
- Load only the scripts and styles each page needs, and defer non-critical JavaScript.
- Use caching and a CDN.
- Test on real phones, not just a desktop browser.
4. Handle Arabic and English properly
- Give each language its own URL, for example /ar/ for Arabic.
- Add hreflang tags so Google shows the right language to each visitor.
- Write titles, descriptions and content natively in each language rather than machine-translating them.
- Design proper right-to-left layouts for Arabic pages.
5. Write titles, descriptions and headings with care
- Write a unique title (about 50–60 characters) and meta description (about 150–160 characters) for each page.
- Use headings in a logical order: H1, then H2, then H3.
- Add descriptive alt text to meaningful images.
6. Create helpful, accurate content
Search engines reward content that genuinely answers questions. Explain your services clearly, add FAQs, publish real case studies, and avoid statistics or claims you cannot back up.
7. Measure and keep improving
- Connect Google Search Console and Google Analytics at launch.
- Check indexing, errors and Core Web Vitals every month.
- Update important pages as your services, prices and the market change.
Need an SEO-ready website?
Whetstonez builds bilingual websites with technical SEO built in from day one. Learn about our website development services, read 7 steps to take after a website launch, or contact us.
