Content Marketing · · 2 min read
Writing for How Pakistan Searches: English, Urdu and Roman Urdu
Pakistani customers search in English, Urdu script and Roman Urdu, often in the same day. Here's how to plan content and keywords for all three without creating a mess.
In short:
- Pakistani buyers search in English (“best sunscreen for oily skin”), Roman Urdu (“oily skin ke liye sunscreen”) and sometimes Urdu script.
- Main product and service pages usually work best in English, with Roman Urdu phrases where people actually use them.
- Social content and video often perform better in Roman Urdu or Urdu, because that’s how people talk.
One of the first questions clients ask us is which language their website and content should be in. The honest answer: it depends on where the content lives and what the reader is trying to do.
How people actually search
When you do keyword research for Pakistani audiences, you’ll see three patterns side by side:
- English: most product and brand searches, “price in Pakistan” searches and anything technical.
- Roman Urdu: conversational and how-to searches, like “ghar par facial kaise karein”.
- Urdu script: smaller volume for most commercial topics, but important for news, religious and some local services.
The right mix depends on your audience. A premium skincare brand in Lahore and DHA has a different audience from a mass-market brand selling across Punjab.
Our recommended approach
- Keep core pages in clear English. Product, category and service pages should use the words people search for when they’re ready to buy, which are mostly English.
- Add Roman Urdu where it’s natural. FAQs, headings and short explanations can include common Roman Urdu phrases your customers use, like “COD available” or “delivery kitne din mein”.
- Write separate pages for separate intents, not translations of the same page. A Roman Urdu how-to guide can target a question your English product page doesn’t answer.
- If you build full Urdu pages, make them proper Urdu-script pages with their own URLs and hreflang tags, not machine translation mixed into English pages.
- On social, write how people speak. Captions, reels and voice-overs in Roman Urdu or Urdu usually feel more natural and get better engagement than formal English.
Research before you write
Use Google’s search suggestions, Search Console queries and Google Ads Keyword Planner to see the exact phrases people type. Read your WhatsApp and Instagram DMs: the questions customers ask there are often the exact searches they make on Google.
Common mistakes
- Auto-translating every page into Urdu and publishing it without review.
- Mixing English and Urdu script on the same page in a way that’s hard to read.
- Ignoring Roman Urdu completely because it “isn’t proper”. It’s how millions of people actually type.
PeachTag Team
Led by Zain Ismail, 11+ years in performance marketing. Need help with this? Talk to us.
