In the era of the internet, as we know it today, one of the essential tasks for any business is to monitor competitor websites.
This helps companies keep up with the competition, get new ideas, improve their products or services, etc.
One way to do this is by manually visiting each competitor’s website frequently and noting any changes or new content.
But imagine if you had hundreds or even thousands of competitors.
This would quickly become a very time-consuming and practically impossible task.
That’s where web scraping comes in.
Web scraping is the process of automatically obtaining data on the internet without physically copying it.
This technique may be used to scrape data from one’s own website as well as retrieve data for competitor websites monitoring.
It is helpful for various applications but did you know one can use it to keep track of your business competitors easily?
Web scraping allows you to quickly and easily get data from competitor websites and track any changes occurring over time.
This reveals how they promote themselves and the keywords that are important to their success.
Also, the sort of material they publish on their websites and what extra features or services they give.
Why Should You Monitor Competitor Websites?
There are many reasons to monitor competitor websites, some of which may be more important to your business than others.
In general, though, keeping track of the competition will give you a better idea of what strategies are working well for them.
Giving you a chance to adapt and improve upon them.
Some specific reasons for monitoring competitor websites include:
Improving your products or services: By knowing what your competitors are doing well, you can improve upon it. Allowing you to make your products or services even better.
Better understanding your target market: Keeping track of what your competitors are doing will give you insights into the needs and wants of your target market.
Tracking changes in the marketplace: By monitoring competitor websites, you can keep up with changes in the market and adapt your business accordingly.
Contacting competitor customers and making better offers to them: By extracting contact information of your competitors’ customers, you will have the ability to offer them better conditions.
Getting new ideas for content, features, or design: If you see that a competitor has implemented a new feature or design element on their website, this may give you ideas for your website.
Staying ahead of the competition: If you know what your competitors are up to, you can stay one step ahead of them.
And much more.
Now that we’ve gone over some of the reasons you might want to track competitors’ websites, let’s look at how you can actually do it.
How To Track Competitors With Web Scraping?
Web scraping, or the practice of websites content extraction, is one of the simplest methods to begin assessing your business competition right away.
Allowing you to swiftly and cost-effectively gather data on your competitors to gain important data-driven insights.
These insights are used by businesses to improve performance, keep ahead of rivals, revamp marketing campaigns, and more.
In a nutshell, with web scraping, you can gather needed information on your business rivals.
This data will help you shape and improve your business strategy.
For example, If you operate in a firm that depends mainly on data gathering, especially a digital company, web scraping is a potent weapon in your toolbox if you want to take the company to new heights.
Thorough competitor analysis is essential for every successful company.
In reality, the need grows because you’re competing with other websites in the city, region, country, and the wider world.
After all, if you don’t know what your rivals are doing, how can you stay ahead of them?
Understanding the importance of competitor website monitoring and grasping how to execute it are two entirely different things.
Web scraping makes it simple to obtain the data you want.
Allowing you to thoroughly examine your competition and determine what you need to do to compete.
Top Use Cases of Web Scraping for Competitor Analysis
Web scraping can be used for a vast number of purposes.
To get initial data on the competitor’s capabilities, domain information scraping is the best way.
The following steps depend on the specific cases.
We’re only scratching the surface with this list of competitor analysis use cases, but it should give you a good idea of what can you achieve:
Track Competitors’ Product Pricing
Customers have fast access to massive amounts of data.
They compare pricing and products in a matter of seconds.
Allowing you to make sure you’re on pace with your competitors.
Sure, the team could just go to a competitor’s website and see what they’re asking for a comparable product.
Still, that strategy doesn’t provide profound insights into their genuine pricing methods.
However, when you utilize web scraping to monitor competitor websites, you will instantly obtain the latest data on your rivals’.
Such as their pricing and when they are charging it, among other important metrics.
You could learn that your competitors run flash specials on specific days of the week.
Also, how they package their items to increase sales.
When one collects price data, one will be able to make timely decisions about how to conduct sales.
As well as which goods or packages to add for generating more sales and keeping up with their competitors.
Web scraping also allows you to keep an eye on the channels where your competitors are selling, such as Amazon.
Because the eCommerce giant now accounts for over half of all online retail transactions.
Meaning that tracking Amazon data might be a crucial competitive difference for your company.
Knowing where your rivals stand on pricing guarantees that your plan generates the most sales and profits.
It also enables one to monitor their rivals’ ranks to understand what potential consumers are looking for entirely.
Examine Their Product Offerings And Categories
Have you ever questioned why your rivals always appear to have the most outstanding items?
As well as categories while you are scrambling to find suppliers and wholesalers?
Scrape through your competitors’ product lines and categories to check out what they’re utilizing.
As well as their features and benefits and how they’re grouped to gain better insights.
As you perform competitor websites monitoring, you’ll see patterns and trends in the industry.
If you learn that one design or color is more desirable than another, you may alter your items appropriately.
This is where you may scrape again.
Once you’ve determined which suppliers and distributors your rivals use, you can scrape their websites for real-time pricing.
This guarantees that your product pricing remains as competitive as possible to attract price-conscious buyers.
Audit Their SEO Strategy
Instead of envying a competitor’s online success and asking how they perform so well in the market, examine their SEO approach.
Use web scraping tools to find keyword phrases and audit landing pages.
This will enable you to learn more about the terms and links your rivals are utilizing.
In addition to automatically searching keywords on websites, SEO crawlers may throw light on what the competitors are doing wrong.
Examine which phrases they rank poorly on Google or which keywords they mostly ignore.
This is your opportunity to design a powerful SEO strategy and gain an edge where other competitors are falling short.
Conclusion
There’s a wealth of information that can disclose exactly what your competitors are doing.
All you have to do is access it.
With web scraping tools, you can effortlessly automate the entire process and optimize your findings in a matter of a few minutes.
It would take you a lot longer to dig in manually.
In short, when you actively monitor competitor websites, you obtain the power to make well-informed decisions about your prices, products, and categories.
As well as understand what your rivals are doing to succeed in the market.