Web scraping is simply using a computer program that can read and analyze the HTML code from web pages. Such a program referred to as a bot†allows you to harvest information and data from websites. Bots have the ability to also do real-time analysis of various pages simultaneously and harvest the required information.
Many businesses and professions are increasingly using web scraping and web crawling as opposed to the time consuming manual web searching which can be time-consuming and prone to human error. There’s also the possibility of overlooking some crucial information.
In media, web scraping tools pay a very crucial role. For data-savvy journalists who intend to get to the top stories first and find exclusive stories that else has gained access to.
Site Specific Crawl and Extraction
Site-specific crawling and extraction, like the name suggests, involves extracting data from specific websites in categories relevant to the particular business. Specific data in categories such as food&drink, fitness, street style, beauty, fashion, home decor or lifestyle using data points such as site name, URL, RSS feed URL and follower account. A crawler is built to extract the required data for the desired frequency be it weekly, bi-weekly or as required. This allows you to harvest data and avail it in your API in CSV format.
The consistent crawling and data flow allows you to avoid data loss and provides an efficient way to handle the progressive coding practice the target sites use leaving you with ready to use data that will power your business.
Continuous Real-Time Newsfeeds
In the media world, getting real-time information is crucial. Media houses and journalists need real-time information and news on politics, sports, celebrities and more within seconds of it appearing online. This requires a very powerful web crawler.
Tech-savvy journalists, for example, have come to realize that real-time newsfeed extraction of data keeps them ahead of the game. They got to report on stories that nobody else has yet, keeping them in a league of their own.
A web crawler program ensures that they do not miss a thing and that the process is smooth and doesn’t consume too much of their time.
Content Marketing
Marketers and copywriters, in addition to their creative process, need data and analytics to create content. Crafting remarkable content is now easier owing to the availability of data on the web and the possibility to crawl and scrape this information.
Using a web crawler, you can crawl major online publications and use them to extract information on what the relevant and trending topics are at any given time. This knowledge ensures that you create content that is relevant, popular and trending. Content that people are interested in, giving you a competitive edge.
Competitive Marketing intelligence
Bots can be used to harvest information from your competitors’ website. This keeps you up to date with what your competition is doing, allowing you to strategize on how to constantly place yourself a step ahead of them. This is what is referred to as competitive marketing intelligence. With the information extracted by crawlers, you are able to fill any gaps in your content plan with ideas you get from your competitors that were previously lacking.
Post-publication insight mining
After you publish your content and distribute it via various channels, understanding whether this content relates to your target audience and how they are identifying with it is crucial. For instance, when producing videos on sites such as YouTube as content, you would be interested in the reviews posted on them for further analyses. Scraping the reviews and comments from the targeted sites can get you this much-needed information, allowing you to organize and implement a very successful content marketing strategy, backed up by concrete, true data. By so doing, you will be able to provide your readers with what they want.
With the application of web crawling and scraping, your business benefits. This process saves you time and avoids human error, giving you timely and relevant information that will help your business soar.
For relevant, timely and trending news and information, bots are the way to go.
