oa Content for the web is different! Make it count

With over 80 million Internet users in the Arab world, Arabic content growth continues to grow dramatically but lags behind other languages in comparison to the number of global Internet users. Many factors are challenging the growth of Arabic language content on the web. Just like any market and economic formula, supply and demand complement each other. The greater demand on content, the greater the need for supply. However, the supply must be in the same language and format which the web consumer is demanding. Content for the web is significantly different from the traditional media (newspaper, magazine, radio and TV). Content must be relevant, local, and original to become highly ranked on search engines and served to browsers. Understanding the habits of the online reader is important to supply the appropriate content across multiple screens. Online content should follow certain formats, such as shorter paragraphs (online documents should not be more than 1,000 words) and should keep the reader in mind when writing or presenting rich content as people on the web are impatient. People on the web are looking for information and if you make it easy to find, they will thank you. Put the important content in the second or third paragraph and you risk losing the reader. In a similar approach, rich media content, such as videos, needs to be direct with very little distractions. Ideally, videos should be recent and not longer than 6 minutes to retain the browser. The web is a combination of EPC (experience, product and content). In order to promote Arabic content on the web, the user experience must be natural, easy to navigate through, simple and appealing (think of site maps, fonts, colors, etc.); with a product that is reliable, stable and modern (think of iPads); and content that is local, original, and engaging (think two way engagement and search engine optimization).