Web design in El Hajeb, gateway to the Middle Atlas

A provincial capital below the cliffs

29 km from Meknes. 1,045 metres up, under the line of cliffs where the Middle Atlas starts. People call El Hajeb the gateway to the Atlas, but it’s also the capital of a 2,193 km² province that had 247,016 inhabitants in 2014, 41,359 of them in the town.

The province lives mostly off the land. Cereals, fruit, livestock, olive groves and vineyards around the town. Trade gathers in the main centres, El Hajeb and Ain Taoujdate among them, where people from the rural communes come for paperwork, shopping and the weekly souk.

Springs, cliffs and hikers

Water runs right through town. Ain Khadem rises in a public garden backed against the cliff, and Ain Bou Teghzaz, Ain El Madani and Ain Dhiba are close by. In 2019 a 59-million-dirham programme was announced to restore these four springs, with the aim of building up tourism in the province.

Hikers come for the rocks, cliffs and caves in the hills around. Between the Cantina and Chiba districts, what’s left of a kasbah still has part of its walls.

Almost none of it shows online. The guide, the guesthouse or the café with a terrace that posts real photos, directions from Meknes and its hours starts well ahead. Foreign hikers especially search in English, and right now they find very little.

Who needs to be online here

Roadside cafés, restaurants and shops come first. For them the Google profile matters more than anything else. Photos, accurate hours, a phone someone answers.

• Guesthouses and guides, with a site in English, French and Arabic about the springs, the walks and how to get there.
• Farms and cooperatives. A clear page on what you produce, for buyers in Meknes and Fes.
• Services in the provincial capital. Driving schools, engineering offices, clinics, tradespeople. The whole province searches for your trade followed by “El Hajeb”.

What we set up, and in what order

The Google Business profile first. Right category, pin in the right place, recent photos, replies to reviews. On a through road, that’s what makes people pull over.

Then, if the business calls for it, a light website built for phones and patchy mountain signal. A “how to get here” page from Meknes, Azrou and Ifrane. A call button at the top of every page.

And tracking. How many people asked for directions, how many called, which words they used to find you. Those figures come from your own Google tools, not from a guess.

Our office is in Meknes. We also work in Boufakrane, on the same road, and across the area on our Meknes page. To start, go to the contact page.