Qatar has taken the reins from areas such as UAE (particularly Dubai) and continued the Arabic world’s rapid development online.
Although Qatar has a relatively small population of only 1.8 million, they are fast shaping the online world with internet penetration rates increasing by 500% over the past ten years. With natural resources, an educated population and major events to look forward to, Qatar is likely to have a strong 2012.

Below we’ll look at some recent events that have shaped Qatar’s digital landscape, how the population uses the internet and how best to target this market.

What happened?

Qatar has seen a rapid rise in internet activity due to the timely growth of urbanization. Qatar’s development has been particularly strong over the past few years, just as broadband internet became more mainstream. Broadband internet is at 100% penetration rate and plans to create free WiFi access nationwide will only fuel more online activity in 2012.

Let’s also remember that the Qatari government has itself decided to create a stronger online presence in 2012. Announcements in 2011, such as the creation of Qatar TLD (.qa), indicated that online will be an increased focus for the government and for ICANN, who are keen to get more Arabic-based content out there.

How does the population use the Internet?

(Source: Alexa, 2012)

The top 10 most visited sites in 2011 highlight the westernization of Qatar’s online activities, with only ‘Qatar Living’ – the UGC community – breaking into the top 10. However, if we look at 10-20, we can see a stronger pattern emerging.

(Source: Alexa, 2012)

Within the top 20 are websites such as Maktoob (now owned by Yahoo), Youm7, Moi.gov, Kooora and others which are Arabic-focused sites. These highlight the expected trend that as more of the Arabic-speaking population of Qatar gains access to the internet, they are searching in and looking for Arabic content.

Below are current local search volumes for ‘Qatar’ in both Arabic and English. There is undoubtedly a market in Qatar for both Arabic and English online activity: “qatar” – 27,100 vs. “قطر  ” l14,800

How do I target this population?

There are two main areas to target for Qatar populations – search and social media – and both require a bilingual approach.

Search is apparent with Google.com.qa the #1 visited site in 2011 and whilst search is still mainly conducted in English, 1 in every 3 searches is now being conducted in Arabic. This means that an English-only site will alienate over 30% of the online population but an Arabic-only site for Qatar will be problematic within search results – and also for the high number of foreign nationals who live in Qatar.

Social media is strong across most Arabic states and this is also the case for Qatar. Facebook enjoys some of its strongest penetration rates across countries such as UAE and Qatar due to the high westernization of its social media but also because it was one of the first to provide an Arabic platform. Most activity undertaken on Facebook in Qatar is Arabic-driven so any form of targeting must be in Arabic.

However, other platforms such as Twitter were much slower to create an Arabic friendly platform – but Arabic populations have still been keen to use it. This means that Twitter is run mainly through English, so requires English-targeted advertising.

So what can I do to target Qatar?

Here is Wordbank’s step-by-step guide to getting the most out of Qatar:

Buy a .qa TLD and use a localization specialist to understand how to set up a website in Arabic.

Translate your website into Arabic but also have an English version targeting Qatar. Do not use ip-address-to-location mapping. Use Arabic targeted to the Middle East, not Northern Africa.

Run Arabic and English PPC campaigns and run a strong SEO strategy taking advantage of a .qa TLD.

Don’t forget social media targeting but ensure that you are targeting the right people in the right language – again, localization specialists can help.

Now I turn it over to you! Where do you think India stands in terms of growing global markets in 2012? How have you approached Qatar/Arabic online marketing? What successes/failures have you seen?