Dubai Forums Dubai Business Dubai Business Talk

If you enter "visit dubai" into Google UK , www.visit-dubai.co.uk is TOP.
If you enter "visit dubai" into Google .com , the site is second.

So why aren't Dubai businesses advertising their products GLOBALLY on such a world-wide site?

It is £50 Sterling for a year !! Immensely cheap!!
Dubai needs to advertise to THE WORLD on the internet and sell things!!.........Including property!!

Have you seen that site www.you-earn-money.co.uk ?
Anyone can get 20 per cent commission if they find advertisers for Dubai web-sites.

Looks alright !! Promotes Dubai and earns money for people. Worth looking into I'd say.

No comments about marketing Dubai, then ?

Dubai businesses could be selling more products on-line instead of just in shopping malls. Put "dubai creek jewellery" into Google and "18 carat gold in Dubai" and "dubai gold souk" and note what keeps coming up, especially on Google UK !
It is visit-dubai.co.uk that appears on those search terms. So it must be a good markeing site .

Wistech,

You say "Who is searching through Google UK "? The 60 MILLION PEOPLE OF THE UK......that's who!!

You say 99 per cent do NOT use Google UK.....
[1] Where is your evidence?
[2] WHO are you talking about?......not UK people!!
[3] UK people are amongst Dubai's TOP CUSTOMERS!! Your own bias and parochialism is extreme ! You cannot IGNORE BRITISH PEOPLE and their search engines!!

Besides, America is the main internet-user country, but the USA IS FURTHER FROM DUBAI THAN ANYONE IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE ..........LOOK AT A MAP!!

So where will Dubai tourists come from?? Places like the UK .That's where!

Wistech,

I would like to take you up on your arguments. First of all , you are not British, so you dismiss the marketing of Dubai in the UK as unimportant when it is not.
Not only that ; your command of English is not perfect.

You say "Highly low competitive". That is NOT English. It does not make sense. Nor is "no body search". The phrase is "NOBODY SEARCHES " to be grammatical.

So who is "making a fool of Dubai business people" ? NOT ME!!
If your command of English is not good , how can you deal with the VAST English speaking world using the MOST international language in the world?

You mention Google.com

OK . Put "dubai souq" in there and www.visit-dubai.co.uk is 4th on front page.[ That is ALL SOUQS/SOUKS .....not just the Gold souk!!]

Put "Dubai gold souk " in and the site is 8th on the 1st page.
Put "gold price dubai dirhams" in and it is 5th.
Many useful phrases such as these are used to search Google.com and www.visit-dubai.co.uk appears in the first two pages. When I have time, I will give you more examples.
However, don't forget! To write to English speakers you must have a FULL COMMAND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!

You can use www.statcounter.com FREE to gauge web traffic to a site and find out what search terms are used.

i have no idea about this.. will try it later

Statcounter is a good site. It gives you all sorts of information about a web site, without charging.

Who said I am angry,Wistech? I am merely defending myself.

Google.ae might not be big , because Dubai and Abu Dhabi only have a small population.
However, the UK has 60 MILLION people, so Googleuk has a LOT of following!! We get more site visits , by far, than that which you claim.......on www.visit-dubai.co.uk . A lot go on because there is a variety of Useful information on there.

There does not seem to be much response to my business postings. I wonder how many in Dubai are actually interested in marketing the place?
Moaning about this and that will achieve nothing. Dubai needs to advertise its properties and holidays more widely globally in multi languages. I have just had my Dubai site translated into Dutch. I'm not allowed to mention it by name. Look UP I say !!!!
What do you think of the translation Robby? You speak Dutch. Is it a good professional job, or could you have done better?

Not seen it yet , Robby ? I will have to try and contact Mr Cyntaf Ebrill to seek his opinion. He is fluent in Dutch, Welsh and English and an EXPERT on financial matters.

There is not much ACTION on this thread. It sums up Dubai. Unless Dubai markets ITSELF and ITS PROPERTIES and PRODUCTS far more openly and enthusiastically on the internet, it will continue to die instead of thrive..

The site mentioned on March 18th has now been translated into Dutch. I wonder what RobbyG thinks? He speaks Dutch.

RobbyG is the guy with that Inveztor blog !! Very good it is too!

RedKite wrote:There does not seem to be much response to my business postings. I wonder how many in Dubai are actually interested in marketing the place?
Moaning about this and that will achieve nothing. Dubai needs to advertise its properties and holidays more widely globally in multi languages. I have just had my Dubai site translated into Dutch. I'm not allowed to mention it by name. Look UP I say !!!!
What do you think of the translation Robby? You speak Dutch. Is it a good professional job, or could you have done better?

Redite, some constructive comments from me if I may.

When I was living in the UK I always used google.com and not .co.uk to search because I did not want my seaches to be restricted. Google UK will favour UK sites and will return more UK sites as top results than overseas sites. Correct? Despite the opening up of many more national web domains, a .com site is still seen as global (not just American) so surely savvy people worldwide looking for info on overseas matters will search using .com and not their local domain based Google servers.

Secondly you are saying that your posts here are getting little response, but there have been quite a few views of this thread. The one guy who did reply you bashed quite heavily for his poor choice of a phrase 'making a fool of' and his bad grammar, although both I would suggest are forgivable if you consider that English is not the guy's first language. The rest of his post seemed quiote factual (whether he was correct or not I have no idea). Maybe your aggressive response could put some people off?

I'm not putting you down, but trying to think how you can best acheive your goals. Another small thing, the liberal use of CAPITAL letters still makes your posts look unprofessional which definitely defeats your purpose. I'd be glad to see you (and Robby) succeed, and I'm only making these suggestions with good motives.

Good luck boyo!

First of all , Speedhump, you will NEVER hear a Welshman say "boyo" . I have lived in my West Wales town for most of my 62 years and never hear anyone say it. The word is hardly ever uttered in Wales!! I have travelled all over Wales.

Only the arrogant English media, in trying to patronise and belittle the Welsh, say "boyo" to the Welsh , or refer to them as such.
It is now an ENGLISH cliche...not a Welsh truth.
In fact , BHOYO [ with an H] is supposedly an Irish expression.

With due respect, Speedie, if you check your last posting, you will find it is redolent with errors. Some may be hurried typos,[ eg Redite , seaches , quiote etc] but others are probably spelling mistakes[ eg acheive] . I hope you do not accuse me of pedantry, since I am also trying to be constructive.
I always use capitals for emphasis, because it is impossible to shout in print!
As for the .co.uk and .com.........many Brits use Google UK for international searches because they do NOT think.
Besides, put VISIT and DUBAI into Google.com and note the VERY high position of the .co.uk site!!

As for my criticism of the foreiger !! He had picked on ME FIRST!! I defended myself and said that if he was creating sites for English speakers, that he had to be grammatically correct.

He was bragging about his web designs , if I recall.
Well!! They must be understood in English !!

Sorry.....FOREIGNER , not FOREIGER....TYPO!!

RedKite wrote:Sorry.....FOREIGNER , not FOREIGER....TYPO!!

Apologies for the unintended slight, so what do Welshmen call each other to be nice? Thanks for the 'arrogant' when describing the English, letting your fixed smile slip a bit there. Also calling the other poster 'foreigner' today; it really wasn't necessary. On this forum surely we are all foreigners, as the Internet is stateless. Don't be so parochial RedKite, you're trying to be an international businessman!

All typo's I'm afraid, my spelling is superb, in fact. Of course you just proved how easy it is to make typos (in a one line message no less, *chuckles*). By the way, place a space before an opening bracket and don't place one after it and before the first word. Also no space between the last word of a sentence and a punctuation mark. It annoys me as it's incorrect. I'm a grammar disciplinarian too!

You said my post was 'redolent' with errors and quoted four as 'examples' (that's what e.g. means. Also you forgot the full stops; this is an abbreviation of two Latin words so needs stops after each letter), however they were not 'examples' they were the ONLY errors, and were due to my hurrying the post (obviously a mistake when replying to you, I know that now). You twisted the truth there, old son (and I hope that's not impolite!).

I'm sorry but this is all pedantry, you're not a schoolteacher and this is not a classroom! Correcting others' spelling and grammar here is tantamount to insulting them, whatever your motives.

Shouting in what you want to be a serious business thread surely is incorrect and I am certain is not professional enough to be taken seriously by any prospective partners reading your posts. I was not the only person to point out before now (in the spirit of being constructive) that it just doesn't look good. Anyway, if you still feel differently let's leave that one.

Finally your reply to wisbech DID somehow look angry which I can see was not your intention. I still think it's mainly the overuse of capitalisation. Above I've used single word stresses (and only occasionally) which is softer than whole sentences.

Anyway, I repeat my wish for good luck and success in your business venture. If you want to limit your market to the U.K. then so be it, but you are ignoring other huge markets for Gulf tourism (e.g. India?) if you stick to UK servers.

Cheers taff (JOKE!!!)

Postscript: I can't help feeling that you're missing the wood for the trees. I agree 100 percent that correct use of English is essential for a serious UK based website (forget the Americans, that's a lost cause ). I do however think that most people will be more tolerant and will forgive some errors in an overseas website, and I don't expect that it will diminish its business effectiveness. Maybe I'm wholly wrong; just my two Fils.

When I called Wisbech a "foreigner" , that was not an insult....merely a fact. He is a foreigner to British people and English is a FOREIGN LANGUAGE [ for emphasis, again] to him. Therefore, I do not expect perfect grammar.Foreigner is not an insult.
However, a man who writes like that to the English-speaking market, should not criticise my postings in the first place ! HE tackled me first , and I merely defended myself!!

You miss a major point. Visit-dubai.co.uk may have a ".co.uk" ending, but www.statcounter.com findings show that Google India ; Google Portugal ; Google Italy; Google France; Google Norway etc etc .....all over the world......ALL find that site whilst entering words like "dubai gold souk" into their Google searches.

This thread is about MARKETING Dubai.

It is obvious that there is far more interest in chit-chat on this forum , than there is in ACTUALLY marketing Dubai and its products on the internet.

Well I guess message boards/forums are just for chat, they always used to be. The most business ads I usually expect to see when I come here are for bring and buy sales! It's a shame that over the years more and more of the Internet has become about making money. The web is now the worst example. many searches for hard to get information just return pages of useless advertisement websites or parked URL's bought by people hoping to make money from them one day. At least Usenet (newsgroups) are still relatively commerce free, and there are many technical and others groups where people hang to share information and experience (yep, most people don't know that it's not all about pr0n and music swapping...).

Still it's only as I have said before, human nature contains a large amount of acquisitiveness and it will come out.

Sorry RK, I'm chatting in your business thread again. I apologise and it will stop now!

Speedie,
You said back there that I "called the ENGLISH arrogant"......Not so ! Speedie!!

Check back.......I said "ARROGANT ENGLISH MEDIA ".......The NOUN is "MEDIA" , not the "English" .
"English" is merely an adjective here........but you have twisted my meaning by turning the adjective into a noun!!

The important word was MEDIA!!

That is how propaganda works!!

No need to apologise about chatting, Speedie.
However, Dubai is about BUSINESS !! That is the ONLY reason that this country of Dubai, pays you expats from all over the world TAX FREE INCOME!!

You chase tax-free money......then you "DESPISE" talk of money.........yet you have gone half way around the world to hang on to all of yours and avoid paying taxes to Governments !!

Sorry,...... smells of hypocrisy!!

Dubai needs to MARKET in these trying times.......ON THE INTERNET !!
That is the only way it can keep all you expats in your privileged tax-free jobs!!

You must have a secure job out there...or YOU WOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT MARKETING EVERYTHING IN DUBAI......TO BRING IN INCOME TO THE EMIRATE ......SO THAT THEY CAN EMPLOY EX-PATS LIKE YOU TAX FREE!!

HI RK,

I never said I despise talk of money, where on earth did that come from? Only upper class twits say talking about money is vulgar. My point was that it belongs in business forums of which there are several on Dubai Forums. It's your job to make them better read if you want to use this site as a marketing tool.

You have my position totally wrong in fact. I wouldn't mind paying a little tax and it may happen that the UAE does start direct taxation at some point, it's been mentioned a few times over the past years. I came here not only because of the lack of tax, in fact that really wasn't the main driver, although it did mean that my business projections (see, I do talk money...) were more healthy before I took the step. I came as it is closer than UK or Europe to my customer base (Middle East, Subcontinent, Far East) and is a hub for my industry; to bring my family to a safer environment, where they could meet other cultures (and they do happily, it was a great move for them); and to receive a better level of education (my daughter has more GCSEs than is usual in the UK, with all a-b grades except one, and here it's the norm, in London city schools it's usually only Indian children who succeed to that level unless you can afford private education).

For myself, I think I must be a bit SAD (seasonal depressive) because the biggest kicker for me was the weather! Believe me, money ain't everything. Quite a few people here who have suffered financial reversal over the past year or three (due to the horrendous rent increases, before the financial crisis) have said that the fact that they can pull back the curtains and see sun every day and go to the beach etc. whenever they want is the main reason they will stay as long as they can. It's not a superficial thing, weather is a big emotional factor for most people, whether they realise it or not.

I believe that money is your big driver, but believe me not everyone here is making a huge pile of cash. So just think about the other reasons they are here.

Talk of money on these forums is fine RK, I have no problem. But most threads here are just for chat, which is a nice thing.

As I've said several times in the past here I would be quite happy for Dubai to lose its pre-eminence, to Abu Dhabi say (or even another GCC country). My work can be done anywhere so I would stay in Dubai and enjoy the pure retro feel after everyone has left

I agree that Dubai for its own purposes needs to be more open to gain international acceptance, and I suppose along with that goes better attention to advertising its PRECISE business attractions.

We are not disagreeing, you just misunderstood my position.

Last thing, you seem to be following the misapprehension that a lot of posters to DF have, that expats working here are working for or employed by the UAE, and are totally beholden to the UAE and its Rulers. It's wrong. Most expat BUSINESSMEN are in private enterprise with no connection to the Government. Many have to have a local sponsor as you must know, but that is usually a non-participatory arrangement only. Particularly, in Free Zone companies ALL the money you make is freely transferrable overseas (and no sponsorship necessary). The UAE benefits by the increased size of the economy surrounding the whole structure.