Table of Contents
Introduction
Modern business development is impossible without web data scraping or content extraction. The purposes of parsing internet data are almost unlimited for contemporary startups and growing businesses. However, many entrepreneurs still fail to realize the huge potential of this process.
Therefore, we devote this article to answering the question of why web scraping is important and why you should use—or at least consider—it when scaling up a project or business.
Who Needs Data Scraping?
Top 10 industries requiring web scraping masters (linkedin)
Octoparse – Turning Websites into Structured Data
According to a recent investigation of LinkedIn’s top ten industries that require data scraping, these industries are:
Additionally, the demand is great in the spheres of oil and energy, consumer goods, healthcare, education, defense, recruitment, education, research, engineering, electronic manufacturing, and government administration.
So, in addition to tech-relevant areas like IT and Engineering, many non-technical jobs and specialists require web scraping skills. On the one hand, it’s a challenge; on the other, the task is not so complicated as it may seem.
Why Web Scraping Is Made Easy Now?
The most significant factor that simplifies the process of obtaining data is technology. Today, almost everyone has access to it, and great technical flexibility allows web scraping at scale to be quite hassle-free. It also raises the bar in terms of innovation and value propositions offered in a business exchange.
To scrape web data, you can use browser extensions. They are simple-to-use and easy-to-integrate right into your browser or software, which should be installed on your computer. You can avail yourself of both variants to the advantage of your business development, but the app-like extensions are often limited. Keep that in mind.
Pre-built scrapers can be downloaded from the web and run right away. Some tools even have such advanced possibilities as JSON exports, scheduling options, and more. You can also develop a custom scraper for your needs, but it requires programming knowledge. The more features you want to parse, the more advanced skills you should have.
A variety of content and tools on the web helps users to master the data collecting process in no time. However, tasks can be complicated and may involve large volumes of information, in which case the professional assistance of data scraping experts is required.
Let’s walk through the principal reasons to scrape data and the benefits one can expect from it.
Why Use Web Scraping?
As we have mentioned above, internet scraping techniques complete different tasks and serve various purposes:
Find below the most common reasons why web scraping is used.
Top Web Scraping Uses for Customers
1. To collect information for marketing research
Data scraping allows you to get data from diverse analytics and market research sources, compile it in one place with appropriate analysis, and extract the details you need. The specific goals may vary: generation leads, monitoring brand reputation and customer reviews—whatever you need.
You can use this information to create an effective development strategy or business optimization plan in any way you choose. The innovative technology of data scraping will help you ensure consistent profit enhancement and steady company growth in the modern informational age.
2. To extract contact information
When you need a list of suppliers or manufacturers in a specific area, you can search the web for people of interest and their respective contact details. By gathering all the contact details in a single database or spreadsheet, you can create a valuable source of supply contractors for your business.
3. To find a job or employees
Web scraping tools can turn your job search into an automated and effortless process. All you need to do is gather data with different filters applied and manually check the most relevant information.
The same works for companies seeking extra staff for their teams. By setting the criteria, hiring managers can easily find the perfect match for a specific vacancy or role.
4. To track prices
Tracking prices works well for individuals who like online shopping. Data scraping tools can make price monitoring and checking for item availability simple and easy.
The same feature is useful for business purposes when you need goods or services for your company or when you need to check your competitive position in the market. Not only can you stay informed about the price changes made by your competitors, but you can also stay up-to-date on their special offers and promotions to adjust your prices and offerings accordingly.
5. To make the right investment decisions
The investment world widely uses web scraping for necessary data collection to spot high-potential investment opportunities and avoid the risk of failure. Since investment-related decisions are often complex and multilayered, a series of actual data scraping procedures are required along with accurate research, model training and experimenting before making a final decision.
6. To optimize a product
Through scraping product data, customer review businesses receive the precious opportunity to innovate faster, optimize their goods and services, and create new ones.
Plus, automated web scraping facilitates faster customer’ feedback, allowing you to cross-examine your fresh product upon launching it, making prompt improvements based on their attitudes.
Final Thoughts
We hope you have no more doubts that web scraping is an essential modern skill worth mastering in the present-day digital world. Not only will it make you smarter and more advanced in this field, but it can drive your business and profit up.
To discover the details surrounding your specific business and to learn why you should use web scraping to scale and promote it, schedule a free consultation with our expert.
We’ll help you start and keep going strong!
