Keep these in mind
The essentials, at a glance.
Define one useful objective
Connect creative to its destination
Review meaningful customer actions
Start with your site and the customer question
Before asking for a monthly fee, describe the website, the services you actually sell and the places you serve. Include the pages that matter commercially and any planned redesign. A service website, a multilingual store and a site migration can require different work.
This guide does not present an average Dubai market price or an ABAB rate card. A useful budget discussion starts with a specific scope and a written quote. It should be possible to explain why each proposed activity matters to your business.
Separate diagnosis from implementation
A review can identify problems and recommend priorities. Implementing the recommendations is a separate responsibility. Ask whether the proposal includes investigation only, hands-on website changes, developer coordination, or all three.
For example, a recommendation to repair old page links needs an agreed list of affected addresses, an implementation owner and a check of the result. Our redesign redirect checklist explains that specific task. An audit document by itself does not mean the repairs have been made.
Define the content work precisely
Ask which existing pages will be reviewed, which new pages are proposed and what customer question each page answers. Specify who provides product details, verifies claims and approves the finished copy. Page quantities alone do not describe research, editing or implementation.
If Arabic and English are both needed, define research, translation or original writing, review responsibility and publishing for each language. Do not assume that adding another language has a fixed cost multiplier. The workload depends on the agreed pages and process.
Compare the budget in separate lines
Use a comparison table to make exclusions visible. These are planning categories, not mandatory components of every project.
| Work area | Question for the quote |
|---|---|
| Initial review | What will be checked, and what prioritised output will you receive? |
| Website changes | Who implements and verifies each agreed repair? |
| Content | Which pages, languages and review rounds are included? |
| Ongoing review | What will be monitored, explained and acted on? |
| Other costs | Are development, subscriptions or advertising billed separately? |
Then confirm the payment schedule, approval points and process for additional work. A lower quote may cover fewer tasks; a higher quote is not evidence that the work is suitable. Compare the same responsibilities and outputs before comparing the totals.
Set useful review points, without a ranking promise
Agree dates for controllable work, such as completing the review, publishing approved edits and checking implementation. Separate those milestones from search performance, which is not fully controlled by a supplier.
Google’s guidance on hiring an SEO warns against guaranteed first-place rankings and explains that advertising does not improve organic placement. Treat a proposal as a plan for work and evaluation, not a purchase of a search position.
Ask how the team will explain results and limitations. Keep search impressions, website visits, contact clicks, received enquiries and booked work separate. Define how your own team will classify enquiry quality so a contact-button click is not reported as a confirmed customer.
Agree access, change records and handover
Identify who controls the website and search reporting, which permissions contributors need and who can approve a live change. Ask for a record of significant changes so a later review can connect a recommendation with what was actually implemented.
State what you receive when the work ends: approved content, completed task records, outstanding recommendations and a clear account-access handover. Keep credentials and private enquiry details out of public reports.
Bring a clear brief to the pricing conversation
Share your website address, priority services, actual markets, language requirements and any known technical issues. Describe which work your internal team can deliver and which tasks need external support. That makes a quote easier to assess and easier to adjust if the budget changes.
Explore ABAB’s digital marketing services, website design and development, or book a project conversation. You can also send your site and priorities to start a scope discussion.
Have a project taking shape?
Explore digital marketing with ABAB, or bring your questions to a project conversation. We will help define the next useful step.
