UAE and Saudi Arabia businesses most interested in digital transformation

New results released by SEMrush identifies the UAE and Saudi Arabia as clear leaders in GCC-wide online searches relating to digital security and transformation, over the last 12 months.

The back-data study covered four key strategic digital terms: digital transformation, digital marketing, cyber security and computer security, with the significant increases in searches highlighting how the two Gulf states are setting the regional data protection agenda and leading demand.

In terms of online search volume trends from August 2018 to August 2019, the UAE’s most searched term was digital marketing, closely followed by cyber security. As for year-on-year growth, the fastest growing UAE search terms are digital marketing at 28%, followed by cyber security at 25%, digital transformation at 24% and computer security at 23%.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia witnessed the largest single market jump in related search volumes during the same period. The fastest growing related term was digital transformation, which witnessed 123% growth, with digital marketing and  and computer security at 84% and 30% growth, respectively.

In recent years, the GCC has witnessed major digital initiatives by the public sector that have accelerated interest on the importance of moving forward issues such as digital transformation, digital marketing and cyber security. In line regional digital infrastructure and technology investment, the SEMrush search data identified these digital trends and sheds light on opportunity areas that could be enhanced further to boost public awareness.

“These insights provide marketers working within this sector greater clarity into the interests of residents and companies across both the UAE and Saudi Arabia. By harnessing this data, they will be able to support their own marketing campaigns and outreach to acquire new business leads as interest and investment grows,” commented Adam Zeidan, Corporate Communications Manager at SEMrush for MENA region. “According to Internal Data Corp, the UAE and Saudi Arabia will dedicate $8 billion and $11 billion, respectively, to IT and digital transformation in the next year, something marketers need to be monitoring.”

Adds Fernando Angulo, Head of Communications, SEMrush, “Online search engine optimisation itself continues to be one of the most important trends of the year. SEO is expanding with the introduction of new elements such as voice search. SEO has a lot of different elements of the digital kind and marketers need to understand most of these to succeed. As long as search engines remain as the primary source of information then SEO will never die and businesses around the globe will need to stay closely tuned to the digital frontier to succeed.”