This articles is discussing web scraping services from business (entrepreneur wise) prospective, not “how to code” the thing and is part of Engagement based dialog via email featuring tools for business.
Outline
How it works in a nutshell
- Script scans website
- collects desired data
- and put everything in a database of some sort (CSV, SQL, etc.)
- Sometimes it also requires a further work of a human operator
I’d even say that web scraping is just a part of the process of data enrichment. Something like
- Collect
- Process
- Use
Case studies
Global parts zone
Head of Globalpartszone.com tells how the company reached a $1 million turnover. All with just two programmers, courier, prepaid orders and no warehouse.
Tennis shop we used to run
A guy came to me and said that he has an excellent logistics scheme for sporting goods. We need to parse the supplier’s website with over 5 000 items across seven significant categories (twice a day to keep info updated) and make an online store on top of this database.
Web scraping tools
It is some script coding. For example, once I had to collect a database of local businesses. I found a decent directory (similar to Yelp) and asked a developer to obtain phone number, name and website link for every company listed. From there we took on evaluating each business manually and feeding these data to call center on outsourcing.
Coding
Unless you are a tech-skilled entrepreneur, I won’t code scrapers myself. So, options are
- freelance (Upwork will solve the thing for sure)
- dev studio (like GRIN tech, duh!)
- Cloud-based SaaS. There are some for sure, but I never tested one because their pricing is outrageous.
Not-coding : )
Web scraping as a way of data extraction can be achieved via indirect tools, meaning that the fact of getting some information in bulk also qualifies for web scrapping. For example:
- Ahrefs. Helps with SEO related questions.
- Lead IQ – a tool to lookup for direct contact details on LinkedIn. In a nutshell, you search for companies – open their profile and look up for the desired position (e.g., C-level executives)
To sum it up on web scraping
In the modern world ability to collect, process and utilize data for business is vital. The bigger your company is, the bigger is benefits.
If you are signed up for Engagement based dialog via email featuring tools for business – think of some information that could help your business in bulk – I’d pitch you few ways to get it.