Choosing a platform · 5 min read
How do I choose a website builder in the UAE?
The short answer
Judge every option, a builder you use yourself or someone you pay, on four checks. Does the Arabic version read properly right to left? Do WhatsApp enquiries land somewhere you can track? Is the domain registered in your name? And who will update the site in month seven? The template comes after those.
On this page
A builder or someone to build it: what you are really choosing
Search "website builder UAE" or "website builder Dubai" and you are usually weighing two routes, whether your business is in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Sharjah. On a builder, you pick a template and do the work yourself, evenings included. If you pay someone, they build it, and often they also become the only person who can change it. We weigh the two in general in should I use a website builder or hire a web designer? Here is what changes in the UAE.
Neither is right by default. What decides it is a short list of things that matter more in the Emirates than in most places, and any option, a builder or a person, can be held up against them. Go through them in order and the choice usually makes itself.
Check 1: Arabic that reads right to left
In the UAE, a website in two languages is normal, not an extra. Some of your customers read English, some read Arabic, and many switch between the two.
Arabic is not a translation you paste in. It reads right to left, so the whole layout has to mirror: the menu, the columns, the icons, the form fields, the direction an arrow points. A translation widget sitting on an English layout is technically Arabic and visibly wrong, and an Arabic-speaking customer notices in a second.
So ask any option to show you a real Arabic page it has made, and look at it on a phone. Then ask who keeps it up to date, because an Arabic side that falls six months behind the English one is worse than none. We go through how to do it properly in how do I add Arabic to my website?
Check 2: enquiries that start on WhatsApp
For many small businesses in the UAE, WhatsApp is where the enquiry happens. A customer finds you, taps the button, and the conversation starts there.
That is fine for talking and poor for keeping track. An order or a booking that exists only in a chat has no date, no status and no record anyone else on your team can see. The question for any option is whether your site gives that conversation somewhere to land: a form, a booking, an order with its details attached. We set out how in how do I take orders on WhatsApp without losing them?
Check 3: the domain, .ae or .com, and in whose name
A .ae ending tells a visitor at a glance that you are in the Emirates. A .com says nothing about where you are, which suits a business that also sells to customers abroad.
Who can register a .ae, and on what terms, is set by the .ae registry and applied by each registrar, so read your registrar's eligibility rules before you settle on one. We worked through the same decision for Lebanon in a .com.lb domain, or is .com fine? The reasoning carries over, though each ending has its own rules.
The ending matters less than whose name it is in. Whichever you choose, the domain should be registered to you, with the login in your hands, not sitting in a designer's account.
Check 4: who owns it, and who updates it in month seven
Launch day is the easy part. The real test comes months later, when your opening hours change, a new service starts, or Ramadan needs its own timings on the page.
On a builder, that update is yours, and so is the evening it takes. With a designer, ask before you start: who changes the text after launch, how quickly, and whether you can make small changes yourself. Then ask what happens if you part ways. Who holds the domain, the content and the files? Get the answer in writing. Who owns my website? covers what to confirm, and what happens if I stop paying for my website? covers each bill that can stop.
Bookings and orders on your own site
If you take appointments, table bookings or orders, look at where they are completed. A marketplace or a booking app can bring you customers, but each booking then happens on the platform's page, and every repeat visit goes back through it.
A booking or an order completed on your own site keeps the customer, and their details, with you. You can keep a marketplace listing as well. The point is that your own site should do more than link out to someone else's. See how do I add a booking system to my website?
Where Helm fits
Helm is a third route, between a builder and a designer you depend on. We build the site for you, then give you a dashboard to edit your own content, so the update in month seven is yours to make, not a request you send to someone else.
- On every plan: editing your content, a media library, version history, your team, your own domain, messaging, and forms and email.
- On Standard and Business: bookings and a shop are available.
- User accounts are included on Standard and Business. Loyalty & membership is one of the 3 tools you choose on Standard, and is included on Business.
- Quizzes (with Leads) and courses are tools, so on Standard they count among your 3. Both run on user accounts, which both plans include.
A site in two languages is built as one site, with the Arabic laid out right to left, and in the dashboard each field shows English and Arabic one above the other. The shop takes orders paid on delivery, or paid ahead by a transfer you confirm yourself, with each method named in your own words. It does not take card payments online today. A domain you registered yourself and connect to Helm stays entirely yours.
Helm is run from Beirut, Lebanon. We have no office in the UAE.