How to create a company website in the UAE, step by step

To create a company website in the UAE, define what the website must do for the business, register the domain in the company's name, and choose between a website builder, WordPress and a custom build. Then plan the pages in English, with Arabic where the buyers need it, and test the build on mobile. Add data protection consent to every form, and launch with Google Search Console and a Google Business Profile in place.

1. Define the job: enquiries, bookings, online sales or support for a sales team.
2. Register the domain: .ae, .com or both, in the company's legal name.
3. Choose the platform and hosting: a builder, WordPress or a custom build.
4. Plan the pages: English first for most B2B sites, Arabic where buyers need it.
5. Build and test: on mobile, every form and payment, with HTTPS on every page.
6. Add consent: a data protection notice on every form.
7. Launch and connect Google: Search Console, the sitemap and the Business Profile.

Three decisions settle whether a business website still serves the company 3 years later: who holds the domain and the logins, when a builder stops being enough, and what the UAE's data protection law asks of an enquiry form. The sections below take each step in order.

What should a company website do for the business?

A company website should do one main job, defined in one sentence before any design starts: generate enquiries, take bookings, sell online, or support a sales team that meets clients in person. That job decides the platform, the pages and the budget. It comes first.

In the UAE the website is often read before a meeting is agreed. A procurement team will check the licensed name, the office address and past clients on the website before replying to an email. Define the one action a visitor should take, and how that enquiry reaches the business: a call, a WhatsApp message, an email, or a form that feeds a CRM such as Zoho or HubSpot.

Decide, too, who in the company will update the website after launch. A website that only an outside developer can edit goes out of date whenever that developer is unavailable.

How do you choose and register a domain for a UAE company?

Register both a .ae and a .com where the budget allows, in the company's legal name, choose one as the main address, and redirect the other to it. A .ae is open to any person or business and needs no documents. AEserver, an accredited .ae registrar, listed it on 11 November 2026 at AED 125 for the first year and AED 145 a year on renewal, both before VAT. Registrars list .co.ae for holders of a UAE trade licence or trademark.

A .ae reads as a UAE business to a local buyer, and a .com travels beyond the Gulf and often already carries the company's email. AEserver states that .ae domains carry no WHOIS privacy, so the registrant's name is public. That is one more reason to register the domain to the company, with a company email address that more than one person can open.

Three accounts should be held by the company, not by a freelancer or an employee: the domain, the hosting, and the website's admin login. If the person who holds them leaves, the company can lose control of its own website and its email. Request all three logins in writing at handover. Keep them on file.

Should a UAE company use a website builder, WordPress or a custom build?

For a services company that wants enquiries from Google search, WordPress with a design made for the site is the right choice. Use a website builder such as Wix or Shopify when the site is small, connects to nothing else and must go live within weeks. Choose a custom build on a framework such as Next.js when the website must connect to a CRM, an ERP or a booking system, or serve English and Arabic from one content source.

WordPress runs 39.3% of the websites W3Techs tracks (data as of 11 November 2026); Shopify runs 5.4% and Wix 4.2%. A builder keeps the site on its own servers, so before choosing one, ask the vendor whether the company can take its pages, products and customer data away later. Wix, for example, offers export to code only for its newer Studio Two sites, as a beta, and the exported site still runs on Wix's systems.

Webzenia has built on Shopify, WordPress and Next.js. The job decides which. Euroblast Middle East, an industrial equipment supplier in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, runs a 235-product catalogue on WordPress. Its pressure-washer range was restructured without changing any of its 1,584 existing page URLs, and three withdrawn models were redirected to their replacements rather than left to return errors.

The table sets the three routes side by side.

Can AI build a company website?

AI builders produce a first draft of a company website in minutes, and every page still needs checking by someone who knows the business. Wix announced its AI builder, Wix Harmony, on 21 January 2026, and Hostinger's AI Builder creates a site from one written prompt. Framer describes its AI as helping you "move faster while you make the final design decisions".

None of the AI builders Webzenia checked on 11 November 2026 (Hostinger, Wix and Framer) adds the licence details or a data protection consent notice on its own, and any Arabic they produce still needs a native writer. Use AI for a first layout, then have someone in the company confirm every claim, price and contact detail.

Where should a UAE company website be hosted?

Host a UAE company's website on servers in the UAE or nearby, on a plan that matches the platform. AEserver listed shared hosting on servers in Dubai from AED 19 to AED 79 a month on 11 November 2026, a 50% sale price on 36-month billing, before VAT (the regular rates were AED 39 to AED 159). Microsoft Azure runs a cloud region in Dubai, UAE North. A builder such as Wix or Shopify includes its own hosting.

Compare the renewal price, not only the first price, since hosts quote a monthly figure for a multi-year term. Every page should load on https://: free SSL certificates are available from Let's Encrypt, a non-profit certificate authority, and most shared hosting plans include one.

What brand basics should be ready before design starts?

Have the logo, the brand colours, the fonts and a set of real photographs ready before design starts, because the designer builds every page from them. Give the designer the logo as a vector file (SVG, AI or EPS) and as a PNG on a transparent background, with the Arabic version where the company has one, and each brand colour as its HEX code.

If the site will carry Arabic, choose an Arabic font alongside the English one at the start, and check that the logo works in a right-to-left layout. Google's guidance for the logo in its search results asks for at least 112 by 112 pixels on a plain white background. Text colours need a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 with their background under WCAG 2.2, the W3C's accessibility standard.

Use photographs of the actual office, team, products or site work. In a 2019 study of About pages by Nielsen Norman Group, a US usability research firm, stock photography made visitors less satisfied.

How do you plan a UAE company website so that it is found on Google?

Plan one page for each service the company wants enquiries for, and write each page for the searches a UAE buyer would make for that service. Look at the pages that already rank on Google for those searches before writing, and make each page answer the buyer's questions more fully than they do.

Give every page a title and a description of its own: Google's SEO Starter Guide asks for a title that is unique to each page and describes it accurately. Google Keyword Planner, free inside a Google Ads account, shows how often each search is made in the UAE, in English and in Arabic. After launch, Search Console shows the searches each page already appears for.

Which pages does a UAE company website need?

A UAE company website needs 5 pages at a minimum: a home page, a page for each service or product line, an About page, a Contact page and a privacy notice. A company that sells to consumers should plan each in Arabic as well as English. For most B2B companies, English ships first, on a structure built so that Arabic can follow.

The same Nielsen Norman Group study found that visitors look for what the company does, whom to contact, and a real address and phone number. Layouts that did not work on a phone made them less satisfied, and visitors compared a company's claims with its reviews elsewhere.

On a UAE company website, the pages should carry:

• Contact: the licensed company name, the office address with its district, such as Business Bay or JLT, a phone number and a WhatsApp number.
• About: who runs the company and since when, the trade licence number, and the licensing authority, such as Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) for a mainland company, or a free zone such as DMCC or RAKEZ.
• Services: one page per service, each stating what it is and whom it suits.
• Proof: named clients where permission exists, case studies with numbers, and a link to the company's Google reviews.
• Privacy notice: what the forms collect, why, and how to request access, correction, or that processing stop.

The UAE Government portal (u.ae) states that the Consumer Protection Law, Federal Law No. 15 of 2020, covers every supplier to consumers on the mainland and in the free zones, and that the consumer's invoice "must be in Arabic", with other languages allowed alongside it. eCommerce businesses must also give product information in Arabic. The law does not cover sales to UAE customers by eCommerce businesses registered outside the UAE. Webzenia found no equivalent rule for a company that sells only to other businesses; such a company should confirm its position with its legal adviser. Either way, plan right-to-left layouts at the start: they cost less to allow for in the first weeks than to retrofit.

How much does a company website cost in the UAE?

A company website in the UAE has two costs: a one-time build and a yearly running cost. The lowest-cost set-up listed on 11 November 2026 was a .ae domain at AED 125 for the first year (AED 145 on renewal) and AEserver's Essentials hosting at AED 19 a month on 36-month billing, about AED 810 to start, before VAT. The running cost also covers any annual maintenance contract with the developer.

This guide gives no build price, because the page count, the Arabic version and the integrations change it more than anything else. UAE vendors add 5% VAT to their invoices; for services bought from a platform outside the UAE, ask the company's tax adviser how VAT applies.

A Shopify store includes hosting: Shopify listed its plans in US dollars on 11 November 2026, Basic at USD 24 (about AED 88), Grow at USD 69 and Advanced at USD 299 a month, billed yearly. Wix listed plans from about USD 17 (Light) and USD 39 (Business) a month. Confirm the billing currency and VAT treatment with each vendor before comparing quotes.

Four things affect the build cost most:

• Pages and templates: a 10-page site and a 200-product catalogue are different projects.
• Arabic: a full right-to-left version, written by a native writer rather than translated by machine.
• Integrations: a payment gateway, a CRM, a booking system or WhatsApp notifications.
• Content: who writes the text and who commissions the photography.

Request a written scope with a page list and a fixed price before any work starts, so that quotes can be compared on the same basis. Webzenia fixes the scope before the build begins.

How long does it take to build a company website in the UAE?

A builder site can go live within days if the content is ready. A first company website build with Webzenia takes 12 weeks, with a working preview address from week 7 that is refreshed every week. Content is the step to plan first. Pages cannot be finished without it.

Name one person in the company to collect the content and approve each stage. Webzenia's 12 weeks run in this order:

1. Weeks 1 to 2: a sitemap planned from what buyers search for, agreed before design.
2. Weeks 3 to 6: the designs, with a load-time budget on every component, on a site structure ready for Arabic.
3. Weeks 7 to 12: the build, on a preview address refreshed every week, then handed over with training for the people who will update it.

What does UAE law require on a company website?

A company website that collects personal data through a form must obtain consent, with limited exceptions, under the UAE's Personal Data Protection Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021. The law has been in force since 2 January 2022, so every form should state its purpose and collect consent now, whatever the timing of the detailed regulations.

Those executive regulations had not been issued as of August 2026, according to BusinessDubai, and Morgan Lewis reported in June 2026 that the newly announced Federal Authority for AI and Data would finalise them. Companies registered in DIFC or ADGM follow those free zones' own regimes instead: the DIFC Data Protection Law of 2020 and the ADGM Data Protection Regulations of 2021. According to BusinessDubai's August 2026 guide, the mainland and the other free zones fall under the federal PDPL.

Selling online needs a licence with an eCommerce activity: for a mainland company, from the emirate's economic department, such as DET in Dubai; for a free zone company, from its free zone authority. The UAE Government portal states that every eCommerce licence also needs approval from the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), and that a seller must give customers a clear digital invoice for every transaction. Payment providers check the licence before they process payments; Stripe, for example, requires a valid UAE trade licence or freelancer permit.

VAT rules govern the company's invoices, not its website. The standard rate is 5%, and registration is compulsory above AED 375,000 of taxable supplies in 12 months. The Federal Tax Authority's guidance puts the supplier's Tax Registration Number (TRN) on every tax invoice. The FTA documents Webzenia reviewed contain no rule that the website itself must show it.

A company that invoices other businesses or government entities must also issue those invoices electronically, through an accredited service provider (an approved e-invoicing provider). Under the Ministry of Finance's guidelines of 26 October 2026, companies with annual revenue of AED 50 million or more appoint one by 31 October 2026 and go live by 1 January 2027; the rest appoint by 31 March 2027 and go live by 1 July 2027. Sales to consumers are outside the programme.

Which payment gateways can a UAE company website use?

For a first company website, Telr or Stripe is the simplest start, because both publish their fees. PayTabs, Network International and Checkout.com also take card payments, and Tabby and Tamara offer instalments. Telr, PayTabs and Stripe publish what they ask for: a UAE trade licence (for Stripe, a licence or freelancer permit), a UAE bank account and the owners' identity documents.

Telr also publishes what it checks on a website before approval: content that matches the licensed activity, prices and currency, Terms naming the licensed company, a privacy policy, a cookie policy, delivery, refund and cancellation policies, and a Contact page with the company name, phone, email and address. Build those pages before applying, so that approval does not wait on the website. Network International and Checkout.com, which holds a Retail Payment Services licence from the Central Bank of the UAE, onboard through an account manager, who confirms the documents.

How do you make a company website load fast in the UAE?

Build and test the website for mobile first: 67.8% of web page views in the UAE came from mobile devices in October 2026, according to StatCounter. Google's Core Web Vitals set the targets: the main content loads within 2.5 seconds, the page responds to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and the layout does not jump while it loads.

On a fast connection, most of the wait is the server preparing the page, so server speed is the part a company controls. On the Euroblast catalogue, with page caching (the server keeps a ready-made copy of each page), the median time before a product page started to arrive was 0.13 seconds, against 1.08 seconds without it, measured on 30 September 2026. Google is clear that good Core Web Vitals do not guarantee top rankings. Relevance comes first.

Before launch, request a PageSpeed Insights report on the home page and one service page, images in WebP sized for a phone, and the removal of any plugin or app the site does not use.

What should you check before a UAE company website goes live?

Before a UAE company website goes live, check every form, every payment, HTTPS on every page, the Arabic pages where there are any, and that search engines can read the site. A form that fails at launch can send nothing for days before anyone notices, so submit each one before the site goes live.

What should you do after a UAE company website goes live?

After launch, verify the website in Google Search Console, submit its sitemap, and claim or update the company's Google Business Profile for each office, which costs nothing. If the new website replaces an old one, set up a permanent (301) redirect from every old web address to its new page before launch, so that pages Google already knows still lead somewhere.

Verify Search Console ownership with a DNS record at the domain registrar: it covers the whole domain, including a .ae and a .com held together, and survives a redesign. Google calls a sitemap optional for a small, well-linked site of about 500 pages or fewer, but WordPress and most builders create one automatically. Connect Google Analytics 4 so that it records a visit only after the visitor accepts the consent notice, and so that each enquiry can be traced to the page that produced it.

Should a UAE company build the website itself or hire an agency?

Build it in-house on a builder if the website only needs to confirm that the company exists: under 10 pages, no payments and nothing to connect. Hire an agency when the business will judge the website by the enquiries or sales it brings, when it must run in English and Arabic or connect to payments or a CRM, or when it replaces a site that already has search traffic.

Whoever builds it, request a fixed scope with the page list, a date for each approval, and written confirmation that the domain, hosting and admin logins will be held in the company's name. Webzenia's website design and development page sets out the 12-week process, and the Euroblast case study shows one such build in detail.