More and more businesses are starting to incorporate data collection processes as the need for information increases. Businesses have realized the benefit of using vast amounts of information to make data-driven business decisions. Web scraping or harvesting is one method businesses use to collect data. However, how does it work?
In this article, we’ll explore web scraping and what it is more closely. We’ll also look at some of the processes that web scraping tools go through. Finally, we’ll also look at the benefits of web harvesting and why small businesses should consider implementing this process.
What Is Web Scraping? Summarized
When described simply, web scraping is an automated process of collecting public information across different websites. There are many different processes that can be utilized during this form of data collection, from writing simple code to collect data from static websites to automated browsing that can complete simple instructions and collect information from more complex websites.
The type of web scraping process you choose will depend on the scale of your scraping efforts, your budget, the frequency at which you’ll be scraping, and the technical knowledge of your team. If you decide to manage the entire web harvesting process in-house and have a team with knowledge of a programming language, you can build your own scraping tools.
Alternatively, you can use pre-built tools. These are more expensive than building your own, but you don’t have to worry about fixing the bugs, and these usually come with support. To use these tools, you’ll still need some basic knowledge of how they work. If you want to outsource the web harvesting process completely, there are services that do this all for you. While they’re more expensive, you don’t have to worry about any of the collections and will just get the results.
Essential Processes in Web Scraping
A few essential processes occur when you use a web scraping tool. Let’s take a look at them.
Data Collection
The power of this feature can vary depending on how the scraper was built. For example, a simple scraper might only be able to collect data from static web pages. Alternatively, a powerful scraper will be able to collect information from dynamic or complex websites, and they will even be able to overcome CAPTCHAs.
Data Parsing
Data parsing is an essential and often overlooked action in the web scraping process. Data parsing is the process of taking machine language and code and converting it into a format that humans can understand. When scraping tools collect data, it’s usually in a raw machine language. Without a parser, humans won’t be able to understand the content and, therefore, won’t be able to use it.
What Can Web Scraping Be Used For?
Businesses can use web scraping in many different ways. With access to more data, business owners can make better-informed decisions based on fact-based research and trends.
Web harvesting is especially valuable for marketing. These tools can help you learn more about your target audience by collecting their likes, dislikes, and shopping preferences and behaviors. This information can help you create better marketing campaigns with a higher chance of converting leads.
You can also use web harvesting practices to monitor your competitors, analyze their tactics and find out what’s working for them or where they’ve left openings that you can capitalize on. You can also collect product descriptions and pricing details to ensure your pricing strategy is competitive and dynamic.
Web harvesting can also be used for PR and brand management. You can use these tools to collect any mention of your business or brand across the entire internet. You can analyze the customer sentiment and draft an appropriate response from here. By doing this, you can also get ahead of any potential issues with unsatisfied customers and address these before they do any damage to your reputation.
One of the newer uses of web harvesting is risk management and compliance. You can use these tools to crawl your own website and identify any issues that need to be addressed. This is essential because as your website ages, links might become broken, page layout might change, or information might become outdated. With a clear indication of these issues, they can easily be fixed. Using these tools, you can also gather information from legal websites to ensure you are compliant with any local regulations.
Benefits of Web Scraping for Businesses
Since it has so many different uses, web scraping can offer a range of benefits to businesses. Here are some of the benefits you can expect when using scraping tools to collect data:
- Increases in web traffic
- Improvements in lead generation
- Higher search engine rankings
- Helps build interactive pages
- Gather information to create error-free pages
- Discover customer’s likes and dislikes
- Improve price-setting
- Provides an overview of the market
- Makes your services and products more competitive
- Make smart business decisions
Final Thoughts
Web scraping is a simple and easy way for businesses to automate their data collection processes. This is essential for businesses to make informed data-driven decisions based on factual research and data. Whether you build your own tools, use pre-built tools or enlist the help of scraping services, you can rest assured that you’ll have the data you need to steer your business in the right direction.
