Web scraping is an important tool to find and utilize relevant data and information as part of a business’ market research strategy. Web scraping has proven to be a beneficial process throughout various business components including market research, lead generation, search engine optimization, online presence and financial strategy.

If your business seeks to partner with an ethical web scraper or is considering the process, read on to see the six key benefits that web scraping can provide for your business.

1. Data Extraction

Data extraction plays a key role in providing relevant information for business use. Using predictive analytics, a web scraper will collect relevant information from public sites and will identify which users a business should send their marketing material to.

One of the main benefits of a web scraper is that it collects data from multiple sources in a single place, making it easier to analyze and extract the information that is both relevant and beneficial to your business. Automation of marketing and the creation of a targeted email list without lifting a finger saves you resources, time and importantly money.

2. Market Research

Once the relevant data has been extracted, a web scraper can compile a potential customer base and opportunities available within your industry as part of your market research strategy. This data can help you gain valuable insight into your direct and indirect competition, informing you whenever there is a change in competitors prices or in the market as a whole.

This helps you gain actionable insight into your own pricing decisions based on any promotions your competitors may be running. Ensuring that your business is up to date on market trends, ensures that your prices and products remain competitive.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

At its simplest, SEO is all about finding ways to boost traffic towards your website and product. Web scraping can improve your SEO by extracting data from competitive websites that have ranked higher in search engine results.

This could include any keyword, links, titles, keywords and descriptions that are being used by competitors who have dominated the web traffic within your industry. Web scraping technology can automatically review your search engine ranking, providing continuously updated and current data. This is important as web rankings change frequently.

4. Lead Generation

A lead can be defined as contact details that fit the specific profile you have identified as a target consumer for your business. As it is estimated that the internet has doubled in size every year since 2012, finding the right customer profile and relevant material for marketing purposes is difficult.

Web scraping provides a method of compiling data into actionable leads.

These leads can be further qualified using the scraper by filtering the criteria and data until you possess qualified leads to add to your customer base.

5. Online Presence

Web scraping can be used to track your online presence, including product or service reviews relating to your business. Tracking the performance of a product or service using a web scraper is a critical tool for business analytics and the development of an Online Reputation Management Strategy (ORM). Web scraping is essential to identifying negative feedback from clients and other areas of vulnerability to your businesses online profile.

6. Accuracy

Many companies employ manual data collection for research, analytics and planning. Web scraping as an automated process is more reliable than manual processes, which can be subject to human error. Furthermore, the data can be extracted accurately and at a fraction of the time that it takes manually.

Data is a valuable asset for any business, and there is no better way of extracting online data than web scraping. When employed correctly, web scraping can extract key data that will help you make better marketing and financial decisions. Web scraping is therefore a profitable process for any businesses looking for new ways to keep their marketing strategies and customer base relevant and effective.