Arabic SEM for Google

Numbers of Arabic users online :
Approximately 28 Million internet users are Arabic Speakers, living in the 22 Arabic countries, while an estimated 14 Million internet users are the first and second generation of Arabic speaking immigrants in the Americas, Europe and Australia. Statistically, in the United States, internet users with Arabic Descents, have higher education level and income level than the national average, making them potential targets for segmented marketing campaigns, which address their needs and respect their differences.

Arabic users’ segmentation for online marketing:
By looking at the search volume of the keywords "Ramadan" in English and its translation "رمضان" in Arabic generated from the United States, we realize that most of those who search for this keyword have an Arabic interface browser; a similar amount of search appears to be from French interface browsers, then a much smaller percentage in English interface Browsers. The reason of having a high percentage of french interface browsers is that most North Africans (Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans), some Egyptians, Lebanese’s and few Syrians speak French fluently. Addressing those populations with the keywords they are looking for, with the right ads that grabs their attentions, helps creating a substantial amount of conversions that is easily aquired if targeted the right way.

Problems with Google Adwords - Arabic Keywords
When you start creating some of your ads on Google Adwords, it counts the number of characters differently based on the typeset your are using. If you are using Latin, "Ramadan" would be counted as 7 characters. On the other hand, if you are using Arabic, "رمضان" , which is 5 Arabic characters, would be counted as 16 characters by Google. Try it for your self http://www.google.com/search?q=%d8%b1%d9%85%d8%b6%d8%a7%d9%86 which is equivalent to http://www.google.com/search?q=رمضان . Note that the Arabic search term with work correctly if used in Firefox, not in Internet Explorer. The reason is Arabic letters letters are considered 'two-byte' characters, as are characters in languages such as Japanese and Chinese. English characters are 'one-byte' characters. When using 'two-byte' characters,the limits in AdWords text ads are decreased.

Based on Google Adword support team, for Arabic characters, the following length limits apply:

1st Line: 12 characters

2nd Line: 17 characters

3rd Line: 17 characters.