Dubai & the UAE
Freelance Web Developer for Dubai & UAE Businesses
Most UAE web traffic arrives on a phone, often on hotel or mall wifi, and a large share of it is not reading English as a first language. Those two facts decide more about whether a UAE site converts than anything on the design brief — and they are the two things I build around.
Already working here
I built and maintain Alsinan Transport, a Dubai transport company whose bookings come almost entirely from mobile.
Arabic and English on the same build
A UAE site that only speaks English is leaving customers on the table, and bolting a translation plugin onto a finished theme usually breaks the layout the first time a right-to-left string is longer than the English one. I build multilingual in from the start with WPML, so the Arabic version is a first-class version of the site rather than an afterthought that nobody wants to maintain.
Mobile-first, not mobile-also
Desktop-first sites that were squeezed down afterwards are the norm, and they show it — slow first loads, tap targets that miss, forms that fight the keyboard. I start at the small screen and let the layout grow, because that is where your customers actually are.
Built for the sectors that dominate here
Transport, hospitality, real estate and clinics all share the same shape of problem: a catalogue or fleet or listing set that has to stay quick to browse, and an enquiry path short enough that someone finishes it on their phone in a taxi. That is the shape of work I have done most.
Working hours
The UAE working day and mine overlap almost completely, so you are not waiting overnight for a reply to a question you asked at 10am.
“Almost all our bookings come from mobile. The old site was slow and people left before finishing. Yasir fixed that. Enquiries come in daily now, and we did not increase our ad spend.”
How it runs
From first call to handover
- A call about the problemNot about what you want built — about what is not working now. Half the time the thing a client asks for is not the thing that fixes it, and that is worth finding out before anyone quotes.
- Written scope and a fixed quoteYou get the scope in writing: what is included, what is not, the milestones, and the price. Nothing starts until that is agreed, so there is no moving target later.
- Build in milestones, on a live staging linkYou get a staging URL from the first week and watch it fill in, rather than waiting in the dark for a big reveal. Problems surface while they are still cheap to change.
- A proper review roundYou go through it, list what is wrong, and I fix it. Feedback is expected — it is part of the build, not an inconvenience at the end of it.
- Handover you actually ownCode, access, a walkthrough of how to edit things, and documentation for anything non-obvious. No lock-in: you can hand it to another developer tomorrow and they will know where they are.
Ways to work together
Pick whichever fits the work
Price depends on scope, so it comes after the first call rather than off a menu.
Fixed-price project
A defined build with a clear finish line
- One agreed price, set before work starts
- Milestones with a payment against each
- Scope in writing, changes quoted separately
- Best when you know roughly what you need
Hourly
Work that cannot be scoped up front
- Joining an existing codebase
- Debugging, audits and one-off fixes
- Exploratory work where the shape is unclear
- Time logged and reported, no minimum block
Monthly retainer
A site that needs someone on it every month
- A set block of hours each month
- Priority over ad-hoc requests
- Updates, fixes and small features
- Someone who already knows the codebase
Closest examples
Live sites you can check yourself
Every one of these is in production. Click through and judge it.
Palace Luxury Living
Premium real estate and luxury living website
Before you ask
Common questions
Can you deliver the site in Arabic as well as English?
Yes. I build multilingual with WPML from the start rather than adding a translation layer at the end, so the right-to-left version has its own layout treatment instead of inheriting a broken one. You supply the Arabic copy or your translator does; I make sure it fits.
How do payments and invoicing work from the UAE?
International bank transfer or Wise, invoiced in USD or AED. Milestone payments against the agreed scope, so you are never paying far ahead of delivered work.
How long does a build take?
A straightforward marketing site is usually a few weeks; a store or an application with real logic behind it is longer. The honest answer is that it depends on how ready the content is — the delay on most projects is waiting for copy and images, not the code.
What do you need from me to start?
Whatever you already have: existing site, brand assets, content, and a clear sense of what the site has to make happen. If the content is not written yet, say so at the start — it changes the timeline more than any technical decision.
Do you handle hosting and domains?
I set up and deploy to hosting, and I will recommend what suits the project. The accounts stay in your name and you keep the billing, so you are never locked out of your own infrastructure.
Can my team update the site without calling you?
That is the goal on every build. WordPress work is set up so editors can change content without touching layout, and for custom builds I hand over documentation for whatever is not self-evident.
What happens after launch?
You get a period after launch for fixing anything that turns out to be broken — that is part of the build, not extra. After that, ongoing work is either ad-hoc hourly or a monthly retainer, whichever fits how much you actually need.
What if I do not like what you have built?
You will have seen it on staging from the first week, so it should never be a surprise at the end. Review rounds are built into the process, and structural feedback is much cheaper early — which is exactly why you get the link early.
Tell me what you need built
Describe the problem and I will tell you what it actually takes to solve it — including when the answer is that you do not need me.
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