In the last few decades, most modern markets fell victim to modernization. With digital data storages, IT, telecommunications for conversing with clients, partners, and employees, and marketing campaigns centered around the internet, it is rare to see a company in 2022 that survives and thrives without digitalization and presence on the web.
With downsides that entice addiction in consumers, the modern world is unimaginable without IT systems and devices. The entire corporate environment today favors the modern businessman that is a geek at heart. Even the skills that emphasized client outreach and effective communication in the past depend on modern IT solutions for successful ads.
Even understanding and researching competitors, as well as maintaining a realistic view of yourself in the residing market requires technical proficiency. You have to collect and analyze information, find the best partners, and create the most profitable prices faster than other businesses, while each competitor utilizes computer software to push the efficiency of these tasks to new heights.
Market research is a massive topic, and it makes sense to tackle it one step at a time. Let’s start with the simple process of data extraction, and the tools that bring automation into the equation – web scrapers. In this article, we will focus on scraping bots for market research, but the benefits of newly acquired knowledge and skills can spill over into your personal life. Businesses use them to collect information from search engines through a SERP API, gather data from social media networks, and extract the most valuable knowledge from competitor websites – inclusion of new products and price sensitivity. Using a SERP API already offers an opportunity to collect information much faster, and with scraping bots, companies can automate the process and sort the information into understandable segments. Continue reading to learn about the modern approach to market research and why web scraping is a necessary process for modern businesses, or read more about SERP API and how it can help automate the search for relevant information.
The benefits of web scraping
Web scraping tools are separated into two parts: a simple scraper and a parser. The first step is the easy one – businesses set up bots with customizable features to retrieve the HTML that is usually rendered on a browser of your choice. Then, parsing tools dissect the written code to separate the most important bits in accordance with desired filters or organize the information by using tags.
Companies use web scrapers and many bots at the same time to accelerate tasks or gather general data about the market. Price intelligence is one of the most researched strategies that organizes competitor prices into an easily digestible format, so a company can utilize the researched data to make adjustments. Many retailers use web scraping for these goals, and some take a step further to guarantee continuous surveillance of competitors.
A tech-savvy internet user can program a scraper and adjust tools from popular parsing libraries to make them ready to work with extracted pages and organize them into an understandable format. Of course, with enough resources, companies often outsource these tasks to data analysis experts or use no code scrapers with comfortable interfaces if the business model is less dependent on research and extracted information. Web scraping tasks need proficient employees because even the most effective parsers will not guarantee the successful extraction of data on all websites. With a good organization of tools for information aggregation and skilled workers to keep the wheels turning, web scraping operations are crucial for fast and efficient market research.
SERP API utilization
Modern search engines are arguably the best IT invention. Thanks to them, internet users today have access to tons of valuable information that could have been useful and even lifesaving for our ancestors. By bringing the most relevant sources of information together, search engine results pages (SERP) offer the most valuable data at your request. For an effective collection of knowledge about the market and its competitors, we recommend using a SERP API.
You might think: why would I pay money for a tool that I could achieve with a web scraper instead? The answer is simple – search engines hate bots. Without a good proxy provider, your IP may get flagged and banned in the process. If the usage of many tools at the same time makes your tasks clunky and hard to manage, SERP APIs come in a whole package built by data analysis experts. You can choose any location in the world to learn about different results, and rotating proxies will keep your connection safe and secure as you continue researching without any doubts and fears. Automated extraction tools will help you find the most relevant information about your market, its top competitors, and the most effective ads that reach potential clients. The company with the best understanding of its position and surroundings has the biggest chance to succeed in the modern business environment.