The best content you have right now does not guarantee search traffic. But knowing Google analytics or understanding the crawlability of your site will help you improve your search engine optimization (SEO) foundation.
Before moving forward, remember that you are not alone on the web, far from it. According to Statista, there are around 1.88 billion websites as of 2021. Most likely, these websites also want to be on top of the search pages like you.
With this rising competition, companies resort to web scraping or extracting data from competitors’ websites without their knowledge. Some companies use a web scraping proxy to make sure that they do their scraping anonymously.
This proxy helps you extract data from other websites, and the data you recover can give you valuable insights you can use to plan your own digital marketing strategy.
This proxy can also help you avoid roadblocks, saving you time and effort in your web scraping. But first, let’s dive deeper into the benefits of web scraping to your SEO efforts.
How Does Web Scraping Help Your SEO Results?
SEO experts do not follow a straightforward, fixed method to succeed in their campaigns. Search engines always update their algorithms, presenting new ways to rank higher. For this reason, you need data to sustain your growth.
SEO success comes with a strategy comprising keywords, quality content, high-performing website and other components. Through web scraping, you will be able to gather data in large volumes rather than taking them manually.
As previously explained, web scraping is the act of extracting data from a website. It allows users to get information and export the data into useful formats. Most businesses do web scraping when they want to know what’s lacking in their strategies and what’s working for their competitors.
Some invest in scraping bots that allow users to collect data in real-time. Real-time data is important to attain better SEO results. Further, a web scraper speeds up your data extraction since it only takes seconds to complete the task, unlike manual scraping, which can take hours.
As mentioned earlier, SEO changes. That is why web scraping that allows you to get real-time data would be beneficial to your overall SEO strategy.
Here are other benefits of web scraping and how it helps your SEO efforts:
1. Web Scraping Includes Keywords
Keywords are a vital SEO element. They are, in fact, considered the lifeblood of any website. Why? Because they allow you to exist and land on top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). So, part of a good strategy is to incorporate optimum keywords into your web pages and other content properties.
But how does web scraping come into the picture? Web scraping allows you to gather insights into the keywords that your competitors are using and keywords that help them rank.
For instance, you are writing about web scraping. In most cases, the top two keywords you might use are “web scraping meaning” and “web scraping tools.” However, you don’t add these keywords for the sake of crawlability and indexability alone. Google does not function that way; it understands what your article is all about regardless of your keywords.
So, you have to get creative and use tools to help you identify key terms that both Google and your users find useful and relevant to your site. This is where web scraping comes in.
It helps you find which keywords your competitors are ranking for, what metadata they’re using for their blogs and even the type of pay-per-click (PPC) ads they’re running.
2. Web Scraping Extracts Metrics Data
Aside from keyword search, web scraping also allows you to identify the pattern of your high-performing content. This tool will give you an idea of how your content resonates with your audience. By running your web scraper, you can identify which content from which website has high engagement (aka has the potential to increase your rankings).
Since not all content ranks on the first page on SERP, you may analyze your data from your most engaging shared content and apply these insights to the rest of your content marketing materials.
Through data extracted by your web scraper, you can come up with a content strategy that enables you to fuel your other underperforming blogs and web pages.
3. Web Scraping Improves Search Results Through Backlinks
Backlinks are vital elements in SEO. They let Google know that a specific website is relevant, authoritative and valuable to users.
Backlinks also tell Google that your website has legitimate sources. If Google believes your content has linked authentic resources, you have greater chances of ranking high on SERPs.
However, not all backlinks are made equal. Some of them come from spammy sites and only serve to bring your rankings down. That is why you need to check link quality before including them in your content.
When you do web scraping, it makes it easier to discover which links are working for you and which ones are harming your chances of ranking.
Keywords, metrics data and backlinks are a few of the elements necessary for SEO. But like we said, too many backlinks from poor-quality sites can be counter-productive. With a functional web scraper, getting rid of these links is made easier for you.
Conclusion
Web scraping allows you opportunities to improve your SEO efforts. And if you don’t have the resources and time to perform it manually, there are scraper bots to complete the task for you.
However, some websites have enhanced security and can detect web scrapers, bots or not. One can easily look for your IP address and your activities while visiting these websites, compromising your own privacy. For this reason, scrape proxies would be helpful. When you are using a proxy, your IP address will no longer be identified, giving you the chance to scrape website data anonymously.
Web scraping has proved its importance in building SEO strategies and helping site owners rank their pages on SERPs. So, the next time you’re planning out your campaign, consider web scraping as part of your overall strategy.
