The challenge
SEM Elegant Voyage sells tailor-made trips to a French-speaking audience. The site had grown messy: Spanish and English versions of pages diluted the authority of the French originals, hreflang and x-default tags were invalid, and the HTML language was set to English on French pages. A CSS and JavaScript issue made the site take around a minute to become interactive, and the lead form, the main conversion point, was broken.
This is the same set of problems we see on many bilingual Gulf websites: language versions competing instead of supporting each other, and technical debt that quietly caps growth.
What was done
- Authority consolidation. Spanish and English duplicates were 301-redirected to the French originals to concentrate link equity.
- International targeting. Invalid hreflang and x-default tags were fixed, and the HTML language attribute was corrected from English to French.
- Performance rescue. The CSS and JavaScript issue behind the one-minute load was resolved.
- Lead capture rebuilt. The broken lead form was rebuilt with a clearer French UX.
- Topical authority. 50 articles were published in a pillar and cluster structure.
- Technical hygiene. FAQ schema was implemented and the sitemap and robots.txt were cleaned up.
The results
Within three months, total organic clicks grew 991%. Monthly clicks from France rose from 25 to 455, and the site started earning clicks from Belgium and Switzerland as well.
What this means for bilingual Gulf sites
If your site runs in Arabic and English, the same principles apply: every language version must be complete, correctly linked with hreflang and x-default, and fast. Fixing that foundation is often the quickest win available.