Data scraping tool for non-coding journalists launches

A tool which helps non-coding journalists scrape data from websites has launched in public beta today.

Import.io lets you extract data from any website into a spreadsheet simply by mousing over a few rows of information.

Until now import.io, which we reported on back in April, has been available in private developer preview and has been Windows only. It is now also available for Mac and is open to all.

Although import.io plans to charge for some services at a later date, there will always be a free option.

The London-based start-up is trying to solve the problem of the fact that there is "lots of data on the web, but it's difficult to get at", Andrew Fogg, founder of import.io, said in a webinar last week.

Those with the know-how can write a scraper or use an API to get at data, Fogg said. "But imagine if you could turn any website into a spreadsheet or API."

Uses for journalists

Journalists can find stories in data. For example, if I wanted to do a story on the type of journalism jobs being advertised and the salaries offered, I could research this by looking at various websites which advertise journalism jobs.

If I were to gather the data from four different jobs boards and enter the information manually into a spreadsheet it would take would take hours if not days; if I were to write a screen scraper for each of the sites it would require knowledge and would probably take a couple of hours. Using import.io I can create a single dataset from multiple sources in a few minutes.

I can then search and sort the dataset and find out different facts, such as how many unpaid internships are advertised, or how many editors are currently being sought.

How it works

When you download the import.io application you see a web browser. This browser allows you to enter a URL for any site you want to scrape data from.

To take the example of the jobs board, this is structured data, with the job role, description and salaries displayed.

The first step is to set up 'connectors' and to do this you need to teach the system where the data is on the page. This is done by hitting a 'record' button on the right of the browser window and mousing over a few examples, in this case advertised jobs. You then click 'train rows'.

Building an extractor using import.io

Building an extractor in import.io

It takes between two and five examples to teach import.io where all of the rows are, Fogg explained in the webinar.

The next step is to declare the type of data and add column names. For example there may be columns for 'job title', 'job description' and 'salary'. Data is then extracted into the table below the browser window.

Data from different websites can then be "mixed" into a single searchable database.

Dataset page import.io

The dataset page

In the example used in the webinar, Fogg demonstrated how import.io could take data relating to rucksacks for sale on a shopping website. The tool can learn the "extraction pattern", Fogg explained, and apply that to to another product. So rather than mousing over the different rows of sleeping bags advertised, for example, import.io was automatically able to detect where the price and product details were on the page as it had learnt the structure from how the rucksacks were organised. The really smart bit is that the data from all products can then be automatically scraped and pulled into the spreadsheet. You can then search 'shoes' and find the data has already been pulled into your database.

When a site changes its code a screen scraper would become ineffective. Import.io has a "resilience to change", Fogg said. It runs tests twice a day and users get notified of any changes and can retrain a connector.

It is worth noting that a site that has been scraped will be able to detect that import.io has extracted the data as it will appear in the source site's web logs.

Case studies

A few organisations have already used import.io for data extraction. Fogg outlined three.

    British Red Cross

The British Red Cross wanted to create an iPhone app with data from the NHS Choices website. The NHS wanted the charity to use the data but the health site does not have an API.

By using import.io, data was scraped from the NHS site. The app is now in the iTunes store and users can use it to enter a postcode to find hospital information based on the data from the NHS site.

"It allowed them to build an API for a website where there wasn't one," Fogg said.

    Hewlett Packard

Fogg explained that Hewlett Packard wanted to monitor the prices of its laptops on retailers' websites.

They used import.io to scrape the data from the various sites and were able monitor the prices at which the laptops were being sold in real-time.

    Recruitment site

A US recruitment firm wanted to set up a system so that when any job vacancy appeared on a competitor's website, they could extract the details and push that into their Salesforce software. The initial solution was to write scrapers, Fogg said, but this was costly and in the end they gave up. Instead they used import.io to scrape the sites and collate the data.

Source:http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/data-scraping-tool-for-non-coding-journalists-launches/s2/a554002/

7 Strategies for Writing Product Descriptions that Sell

Creating compelling product descriptions that encourage consumers to purchase is one of the most important content creation tasks. Perfecting your skill in this area can open up new opportunities for you as a writer and can allow you to leave your mark in the retail world.

These short bites of text provide solid information for consumers and promote the product lines of online retail stores, making them a good source of income for talented writers. Here are seven tips to polish your skills in the product description field.

    Highlight One Important Feature
    Address Consumer Concerns
    Personalize Your Approach
    Keep It Short and to the Point
    Stick to the Facts
    Write for Your Target Audience
    Maintain a Consistent Tone

1. Highlight One Important Feature

Rather than simply reciting a list of the general attributes of a commonly sold item, focus on one unique feature, attribute or use of the item. For example, an everyday No. 2 pencil in a cheerful shade of yellow could be described in this way:

Fill in those standardized test papers with a little help from our sunny No. 2 pencil. This writing instrument is ideal for everyday use and features a handy built-in eraser to correct any mistakes quickly and easily.

This approach is less useful for complex items with numerous distinguishing characteristics. However, it can provide a solid basis for short blurbs on common household or office items.

2. Address Consumer Concerns

One proven way to create compelling product descriptions is to put yourself in the buyer's shoes. What would you want to know about the item?

This is especially important for large-ticket items that constitute a major investment for most consumers. For automobile purchases, fuel economy and performance may be the primary concerns.

A description of a towel rack should include information about the material used and the surface finish to help consumers determine whether the item will match their existing decor and will stand up to regular use.

By considering the likely concerns of buyers and addressing them in your description, you can produce better results for your retail content customers.

3. Personalize Your Approach

A cold, clinical description can turn off your readers and result in fewer sales. By maintaining a somewhat more informal tone and adding humor when appropriate, you can boost the appeal of your product descriptions and create a more conducive mood for purchasing decisions.

Consumers will respond better to a warm, friendly tone in most cases and will reward your efforts with increased sales.

4. Keep It Short and to the Point

Consumers in the online world tend to have short attention spans. Your descriptions should hit the high points and provide adequate information on which to base a purchase decision. However, there's typically no need to include a history of the product in the consumer marketplace or a loving description of the process by which the item was made.

Stick to the point and deliver the information you would want and need as a consumer to provide the greatest benefit for your clients in the retail marketplace.

5. Stick to the Facts

Product descriptions are not the place for flights of fancy or false information. By providing factual descriptions with no misleading embellishments, you can ensure that consumers get the necessary data to make a purchase while ensuring that your representation of the product is accurate and fact-based.

This can protect your corporate clients from legal entanglements and ensure continued demand for your content creation services in the product description field.

6. Write for Your Target Audience

Doing a little market research on the demographic groups most likely to buy your chosen item can help you to hone your writing skills and produce exceptional copy for product descriptions. By pinpointing your target audience, you can increase their engagement with the product and win more sales for your clients.

A minivan, for instance, is generally purchased by families looking for extra room for passengers and plenty of cargo space; writing your product description with those concerns in mind can significantly improve the results of your work.

7. Maintain a Consistent Tone

While you may have developed a unique voice in your writing endeavors, product descriptions require that you adopt the client's tone as your own for best results. By reading over the site and paying careful attention to other product descriptions or online copy, you can create product descriptions that fit into your client's online catalog seamlessly and naturally.

This can increase the value of your writing to your client and can provide a more organic experience for consumers who visit the site.

Closing Thoughts

By incorporating these strategies into your writing process, you can create compelling and persuasive product descriptions for your clients and help them to increase their sales in the online marketplace. This can ensure repeat business from your established clients and help you to build a reputation for excellence in the content creation field.

Additional Resources

For more information, check out the resources below for the aspiring product description writer.

Source:https://www.crowdcontent.com/writer-resources/product-descriptions

Scraping software, services and plugins sum up

Since we have already reviewed classic web harvesting software, we want to sum up some other scraping services and crawlers, scrape plugins and other scrape related tools.

Web scraping is a sphere that can be applied to a vast variety of fields, and in turn it can require other technologies to be involved. SEO needs scrape. Proxying is one of the methods which can help you to stay masked while doing much web data extraction. Crawling is another sub-technology indispensable in scrape for unordered information sources. Data refining follows the scrape, so as to deal with the unavoidable inconsistency of harvested data.

In addition, we will consider fast scrape tools, making our life better, and some services and handy scrapers which enable us to obtain freshly extracted data or images.

Web Scraping directory (classified by function)

Crawling
   
Proxy for scrape
   
Scrape services

Scrape plugins
   
Anti-scrape service
   
Tracking for change

Scrape for SEO
   
Fast scrape
   
Handy scrape
   
Scrape legal issues
   
Fast Scrape

Often I need to get something fast from the screen into my pocket. How to do it without invoking web scraping applications? What can help me?

Scraper, the Google Chrome extension is what makes my life easy. I’ve installed this extension in my favorite browser

( :-) ) and have this tool always embedded in the right-button menu. I highlight the sample area and right-click, and the same page area content is on the display, and with the next click, the content is on a Google spreadsheet. It is as easy as possible: no applications to run, no data samples, no target folders and other such things.

Another data extraction tool available, called TheWebMiner,  is one in the cloud. This cloud scraper lets you just manually enter data samples from the target site, and it will automatically define similar data and harvest them. The result is downloadable in CSV, XML and JSON formats.

Scrape services and tools

Among the scrape services we take note of:

Grepsr scraping service. This service allows administrators to set up a scrape project but still be able to control the scrape scheduling and other data extraction steps.

Inspyder, the application for scrape and crawl. It’s good for crawling first as many pages as possible, and then scraping by applying a predefined pattern.

The A1 Website scraper works to extract text, URLs etc., using only Regexes. The output is saved into a CSV file. This scraper allows multifaceted tuning for web scraping. However, in mass data gathering, it consumes a lot of time.

Anti-scrape service

Since web scraping methods are being commonly used, many are concerned with malicious scrapers stealing website data, mirroring proprietary databases or throttling a site’s bandwidth. Why not have some protection against these invasions? We’ve reviewed an anti-scrape service, called Distil, that proved to be very robust and trustworthy. What I liked about it is that among other anti-scrape services, it’s quite user friendly.

Crawling tools

Then there are cases when users or companies do not need to get much data from the web, but rather they just need to crawl some web pages and index them based on certain criteria. What tools can help here? How about the 80legs service that does web crawling utilizing the power of thousands of widely distributed consumers’ computers while they are in idle mode? The claimed crawling speed is one to be ranked with modern search engines.

Scrape plugins

Need to acquire some fluctuating data to insert into your Word Press driven web page? The Web Scraper Shortcode plugin is good for that. Just insert it into the html code with the specified URL and desired element notation, and your page gets enriched with the elements of the extracted pages with set limits.

Another geeky tool is the WP Web Scraper, the Word Press plugin that works to extract web data into custom Word Press pages. The scraper uses a cURL extraction library for scraping and phpQuery for parsing HTML. This tool is a highly flexible plugin having plenty of the optional arguments: Regex replacement, basehref adding to the links, cache data timeout, target page decode and others.

Scrape for SEO

How can scrape help your website’s SEO? To fix the broken links to your website requires identifying them. In the video of SEOMoz you can watch how to do it and also find out more about XPath and Regex techniques. The link to the simple Twitter scraper is available there as a bonus.

Sometimes you need to gather together all your blog’s posts as they are indexed by Google. How to do a custom Google search results scraper (based on Outwit Hub) is really interesting to watch in this video.

Tracking a webpage for changes on it

Web scraping is often needed in conjunction with tracking particular info. Why harvest the whole content if no or only tiny changes occurred? In this case you do not need to scrape the page but rather only be aware of some changes on the monitored sites. These kinds of tools, keeping track of target page changes, both free and paid are reviewed at this post: Web Page Change Tracking.

For how to apply one of the free change tracking tools to a particular target page, you can go to this post.

Proxy for scrape

How do I set up my own scraper with proxy without programming or sophisticated proxy services sign up and tune up? The ScraperWiki is a toolset and a platform that makes this possible. This free service allows you to load and run any scraper written on PHP, Python or Ruby. Yes, its original purpose is to let people write or adopt a scraper for non-profit data gathering, but, in my experience, I’ve run my custom scraper on ScraperWiki for the sake of proxying.

Handy scrape

Why spend extra time and effort to visit the same page just to monitor tiny elements? If you want to look over a picture of the week or news of the day, use the Handy Web Extractor comfortably residing in your PC tray. This tiny handy tool will make life easier for you, emancipating you from the daily opening of the same pages.

Scrape legal issues

The legal issues concerning scrape or employee monitoring have always been an important consideration and worthy of careful attention for most lawful web users. So we call to your attention two posts: How to alarm if your website is under illegal scrape and Ethical issues of using employee monitoring software.

Summary

Web scraping, web mining, data extraction and website scrape encompass indeed a wide range of application technology. In spite of some malicious use of them, web data scraping serves well for business intelligence in the following areas (but not limited to these):

    web crawling services
    data scrape services
    seo improvement
    changes tracking
    fast scrape

The adjacent area of the web scraping is the website changes tracking and monitoring.

Source:http://scraping.pro/scraping-software-services-and-plugins-sum-up/

Document scanning taken to the next level

Managing a whole firm is work. Whether it be little, moderate or big - to be the head of procedures may be sometimes overwhelming. It is usually smart to use outsourcing for a few of the administration crucial areas to other businesses. It is possible to outsource statigic planning, advertising and even data processing. There has been other intriguing outsourcing techniques experiments through the years but none of them succeeded. One break through of outsourcing that is gathering popularity these days is document scanning services. This type of service will manage your whole databases of documents. You don’t need full containers of documents available anymore.

This document scanning company is concentrated just on document scanning service. Whatever happens to your head office - you may rest assured that your valuable paperwork are kept and protected in an additional place. There've came out a number of document scanning companies on the market. Many are clearly better than others. Even so, one of the better and the most well-known document scanning firms is recognized as Saxon Archives. These men have been on the marketplace since 1995 and are at present serving hundreds of companies. This document shredding company is ranked one of the better in the field. The company is more than pleased.

In case you are fired up to find out more regarding Saxon Archives then you should go to their formal online site at the following website saxonarchives.com. Here is the best document shredding florida business for your use. You'll be able to get rid of all the undesired documents in an instant. Should you be looking for a first class, secure and straight forward florida document shredding answer - this is the greatest one. The mobile shredding choice provides a grin to your face. All your difficulties can go away with simply one phone or a touch in an software on the cell phone.

The mobile document shredding alternatives have been getting the marketplace quite some time but no-one can really say their level is the same as of those guys. The Saxon Archives’ document scanning business services are rated the best on the internet. You can check out the critiques and testimonies - they talk on their own in regards to the good quality and the exceptional assistance. Also, in case you are thinking about creating a data source from office document scanning paper then these kinds of gentlemen will also help you with all the daunting job. They'll digitalise all you report database.

Source:http://coltsdigital.me/development/index.php?do=/blog/76937/document-scanning-taken-to-the-next-level/

Foursquare Data Scraping

Benefits Of Foursquare Data Scraping Finding out information about people and potential clients is a great tool for a business.

The problem is many people are not sure about how to get this data and not even aware of the benefits of using foursquare data scraping to help them out. Once the businesses are aware of these benefits, they will not want to use anything else to help them out in their market research. The first benefit the businesses can find with this type of work is they are able to get the information for a low cost compared to other market research. So the business can find out more information about the customers, but not have to be concerned about paying a fortune to get all the studies done. Without this, the company may have to do the long and drawn out research studies which they do not want to do because of the cost.

Another benefit the company can find is this type of work does not take long to complete. Completion of this type of research because of how it is completed on the computer does not take long to get the results people want. Since they are getting these results in a timely manner, they do not have to be concerned about their research taking years to complete, leading to a potential loss of revenue or customers. Something else is this can help establish a profile of the customers who are coming to their business and what other likes they have. Typically people check into various places using this program.

By knowing what other shops people are checking into the business can determine where the customers are going and what other stores they are visiting. Having information on the customers can be a great thing to have. However, some people need to have some knowledge on the benefits of using the foursquare data scraping. By knowing about the benefits these can provide in market research for a company, they will see this as a great option. Then the company will not want to look for any other form of market research to help keep them competitive.

Source:http://thewebscraping.com/foursquare-data-scraping/

How Linkedin Profile Scraping Can Help

Your Business As the world changes and technology evolves, there has been an increased demand in automation tools. These tools help to reduce the amount of labor personnel that businesses need to hire. What used to take a long time is now done in a couple of minutes when automated tools are used. Linkedin Profile Scraping services allow businesses to get a huge list of contacts in just a matter of minutes. These services cut the burden on employees and increase the speed at which the job is done. These services allow any business to quickly and effectively collect information without having to hire someone to sit there and do it manually.

Every business needs a long list of contacts if it wants to be successful. It is impossible for a business to succeed without contacts in the industry. The problem is that this contact information is often hard to come by. When someone does happen to have this information, they are not willing to get rid of it at a reasonable price. Linkedin Profile Scraping companies make this process a lot easier. These companies specialize in scraping up to date data at affordable prices. They have specially designed software that can segment and search through all the databases of people in Linkedin. They can offer such a great discount because their software can do the job with minimal supervision. Once the software is created, there is not a lot of overhead for these companies. They then pass the savings on to their customers.

When you get your project report, the information will be available in an easy to sort text or csv file. This simplified information will only contain the fields that you asked for. This is typically a person’s name, phone number and email address. You can ask for whatever information is relevant to your needs and the company can scrape it for you. Linkedin Profile Scraping companies offer a simple solution to a problem that has plagued businesses for years. They offer a simple alternative to the usual ways of obtaining contacts. You can easily amass a large amount of contacts when using one of these companies.

Source: http://thewebscraping.com/linkedin-profile-scraping/

Insights Into Effortless Yellow Pages Scraper Systems

Highlighted in this short article is one particular of My Zip’s showcased bundled advertising and marketing companies that submits enterprises to over a hundred and forty community directories and then maintains the method. This services is readily available with or with out a site, as My Zip develops a landing site for each and every small business and also contains the neighborhood business enterprise in its ZipTag Listing. To make issues even less complicated, My Zip presents a area Neighborhood Professional to consider care of it all for you!

As stated previously, your corporation can see a excellent improve in visibility by means of Internet advertising and marketing. If obtaining information of your merchandise to the suitable buyers all over the entire world is beyond the arrive at of standard commercials, World-wide-web promoting will typically do the trick. A perfectly-crafted online marketing campaign can and backlink you to best clients all about the globe, and making use of the recommendations you have just examine can aid you get started out.

Projection Engineering which includes a place draw pen for the reason of creating the overall experience enlivening as we can generate visual photos or make essential highlights in fraction of seconds. A different feather in the cap of Benq is the ultra limited-toss projection technological innovation which is all over again an immensely well-known characteristic presented by Benq.

There are now authorized land mines for any small business if they carry on to use interns and spend them a lot less than least wage. If organizations do incorporate them to the payroll for the summer months, don’t ignore the needs for unemployment compensation contributions, FICA and Medicare contributions, trip and ill depart that you would normally offer an worker ‘” and most likely even ObamaCare contributions. In order to meet the Labor Section (and now authorized precedent) needs for an unpaid internship, companies ought to satisfy 4 conditions.

Does this vet supply unexpected emergency solutions? Most veterinarians offer you standard services these as diagnosing animal health and fitness problems vaccinate versus diseases, this sort of as distemper and rabies medicate animals struggling from bacterial infections or health problems treat and gown wounds set fractures conduct surgery and recommend entrepreneurs about animal feeding, behavior, and breeding. These basic veterinarians will often refer you to a professional if there is a will need for now. Other veterinary expert services are considerably additional specialized, like VERG, who provide unexpected emergency veterinary services these kinds of as 24-Hour Emergency, Essential Treatment, Operation, Neurosurgery, Neurology, Inside Medicine, Oncology, Cardiology, Ophthalmology, and Dermatology.

It is attainable to also use the Set up, therefore the Tag, to incorporate a hyperlink. So the Put up/Tag could study Fb Fan Site give and the rest in the Submit would incorporate the hyperlink together with a little bit more data about the present. (You may well have a complete of one hundred characters offered on the Publish).

Beneficial evaluations on all these directories assist your regional listings as effectively. Solicit present consumers to give you beneficial evaluations on these directories as effectively as your Google nearby listing.

Source:http://nephewquill83.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/insights-into-effortless-yellow-pages-scraper-systems/

Use Your Yellow Page Savings to Finance Your Internet Local Search Visibility

A Yellow Page Ad Says You're "Open for Business"

Most small businesses that have a storefront or provide a service are committed to a Yellow Page directory ad. It was a safe bet, since buyers went to the directory when they were ready to buy.

Every year owners renew their ad. And steadily the costs go up. Many advertisers "beefed up" their ad, hoping to stand out - making it even more expensive. For too many, their directory ad is their most expensive (or only) promotional activity. While the expense increased, directory use has gone down. Since last year's advent of Local Search, many more people go online than to their Yellow Pages before they make buying decisions.

The Walking Fingers are Walking on the Keyboard

"Let your fingers do the walking" means calling a business to get desired answers before visiting the store. Nowadays, instead of opening the directory, 70% of buyers head to the Internet to conduct searches. Already, 36% of such searches are looking for local vendors. Of those, 45% have a buying intention. Yet 54% of the qualified small businesses don't appear in those results. So customers select from those who do - a major handicap for those left out.

Older businesses depend on the directory more than newer ones. 78% of enterprises open over 20 years rely on the directory, compared to 52% of firms under 10 years. Younger operations are more willing to incorporate online exposure, and thereby out-pace their well-established competition. Ouch!

Of course, every Yellow Page category is different. Some get a lot more use than others. Maybe it's true for you. But the only way to know is to track where your new customers come from. And if you're bothering to track, how much is coming to you via the Web?

Local Search Appeals to Computer-Savvy Buyers in your Town

A Local Search occurs when a person adds a geographic term (city, state, region, zip code) to a search engine query. The results only show enterprises in that area - florists in Cheyenne - displayed on a map.

Who searches for local businesses? The locals, certainly. But so do travelers, people intending to move there (or just arrived), and those who want to do business with an enterprise in that town (flowers for Aunt Mildred). Most have no prior contact (or preference) with your competitors.

Yellow Page directory listings were added to search engine data bases. So even the cheapest ad gets a business listed. And there's no evidence that a more expensive directory ad can accomplish any more than that. That's why your savings from cutting the size or options of your directory ad could cover the costs for your initial online exposure.

Your directory ad gets you into the search data bases, but won't make you stand out there. And just being listed isn't sufficient. Where are you listed? In an obscure section that doesn't get searched? Under what keywords? Is your information accurate or complete? Probably not.

Take an Active Role to Assure Plentiful Search Engine Results To get the steady flow of customers search engines can deliver, you need to get involved. Make sure information about your enterprise is accurate, complete and consistent - everywhere it appears.

Look for yourself online. Conduct various Local Searches from the buyer's mindset - what terms do they look for? How hard are you to find? And who does appear in such results? What are they doing that you're not? Enough said.

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves methods to boost one's search engine rankings. Be wary of most SEO advice. It can be expensive and time consuming - and unlikely to work for you anyway. As a small or mid-sized enterprise, you're not competing for a front position related to the entire Internet. You only need to appear at the front of search results geared to your community, and ahead of your local competitors.

Get listed in the various Internet Yellow Pages (IYP). Some are free, some aren't. Some are national, others regional. But the few dollars spent for enhanced listings or links to your site, can pay real dividends. Shop around and compare what works best for your region and type of business. Start by checking where you're already listed.

Businesses with Websites Benefit Most from Local Search

Even a small website provides more complete and useful information than any directory ad. And you'll appear in many more categories of search results. Look for resources designed for brick-and-mortar enterprises that bring effective search engine results - without it being expensive or overly complicated. They're out there.

Yellow Page Smarts, explains how to combine your Yellow Page ad with your website for maximum profits.Capture ready buyers wherever they're looking for information - online and offline.

Local Search lets small businesses show up before buyers when they're ready to spend. And it needn't cost you more than you already pay. Shave some of your Yellow Page directory expense and put those dollars to work on your website and IYP. You'll multiply your exposure and traffic.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Use-Your-Yellow-Page-Savings-to-Finance-Your-Internet-Local-Search-Visibility&id=68087

Collecting Data With Web Scrapers

There is a large amount of data available only through websites. However, as many people have found out, trying to copy data into a usable database or spreadsheet directly out of a website can be a tiring process. Data entry from internet sources can quickly become cost prohibitive as the required hours add up. Clearly, an automated method for collating information from HTML-based sites can offer huge management cost savings.

Web scrapers are programs that are able to aggregate information from the internet. They are capable of navigating the web, assessing the contents of a site, and then pulling data points and placing them into a structured, working database or spreadsheet. Many companies and services will use programs to web scrape, such as comparing prices, performing online research, or tracking changes to online content.

Let's take a look at how web scrapers can aid data collection and management for a variety of purposes.

Improving On Manual Entry Methods

Using a computer's copy and paste function or simply typing text from a site is extremely inefficient and costly. Web scrapers are able to navigate through a series of websites, make decisions on what is important data, and then copy the info into a structured database, spreadsheet, or other program. Software packages include the ability to record macros by having a user perform a routine once and then have the computer remember and automate those actions. Every user can effectively act as their own programmer to expand the capabilities to process websites. These applications can also interface with databases in order to automatically manage information as it is pulled from a website.

Aggregating Information

There are a number of instances where material stored in websites can be manipulated and stored. For example, a clothing company that is looking to bring their line of apparel to retailers can go online for the contact information of retailers in their area and then present that information to sales personnel to generate leads. Many businesses can perform market research on prices and product availability by analyzing online catalogues.

Data Management

Managing figures and numbers is best done through spreadsheets and databases; however, information on a website formatted with HTML is not readily accessible for such purposes. While websites are excellent for displaying facts and figures, they fall short when they need to be analyzed, sorted, or otherwise manipulated. Ultimately, web scrapers are able to take the output that is intended for display to a person and change it to numbers that can be used by a computer. Furthermore, by automating this process with software applications and macros, entry costs are severely reduced.

This type of data management is also effective at merging different information sources. If a company were to purchase research or statistical information, it could be scraped in order to format the information into a database. This is also highly effective at taking a legacy system's contents and incorporating them into today's systems.

Overall, a web scraper is a cost effective user tool for data manipulation and management.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Collecting-Data-With-Web-Scrapers&id=4223877

Scraper Pro Gold - The Secret to ENDLESS Leads!

There are a number of reasons that home-based businesses fail today but the primary reason is insufficient lead generation. If you asked the average home-based business owner if they would benefit from having an unlimited source of sales leads available with just the click of their mouse, they would answer with a resounding "YES!" Fortunately, there is an answer to the dilemma where sales lead generation is concerned. It's called Scraper Pro Gold and it is one of the most unique yet effective sales lead generation systems on the market today.

The software enables you to harvest sales leads from the internet by using different targeted keywords. As an example of how this works, you can type in the keywords "home-based business" the Scraper Pro Gold system will pull in dozens of leads from a number of directories and search engines that relates to the keywords you entered. Additionally, you can use the names of different MLM products as keywords in order to obtain a list of their distributors which opens up more sales avenues for you.

Click Here to watch the Scraper Pro Gold video that we have posted there. Once you implement the system, you will be amazed at how quickly you will obtain hundreds of FREE sales leads which oftentimes include e-mail addresses, fax numbers, and phone numbers. You basically start contacting these leads asking them the question "Would your business be more successful if you had an unlimited source of FREE sales leads for life?" You can also contact home-based business owners as well.

Naturally, they are going to tell you "YES" which will give you an opportunity to discuss how the Scraper Pro Gold system works. This is by far the easiest software that you can use and operate. You simply type in the keywords, then choose the directories and search engines (as well as the states) that you want to target. After that, just let the system run and see how you will never have to purchase any sales leads again. It's just that simple.

You're probably wondering "if the system is so great, why do you want to share it with others?" The main reason is that the company that created and developed the Scraper Pro Gold software system has created an outstanding referral program that you will quickly benefit from, along with the multitude of leads! If you visit the scraper pro gold website here, you can learn more about this amazing system and get started generating unlimited FREE sales leads TODAY!

Best of all, there is only a one-time fee for marketing this program and starting to generate hundreds, if not thousands, of ongoing sales leads. You can create revenue in one of two ways with the Scraper Pro Gold system. You can either contact your leads and start telling them about the primary program, or you can sell the program to others if you want. One way or the other, you're going to generate an unlimited amount of leads and start benefiting from the system immediately!

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Scraper-Pro-Gold---The-Secret-to-ENDLESS-Leads!&id=5106877

Corporate Website Development Marketing Tips

Corporate website development is much more than just creating your website and putting it online. When developing your site you must consider marketing as a foundation to the development of your online presence. Businesses who fail to approach development from a marketing mind often find themselves dissatisfied with results of their site.

Corporate Marketing Tips

These are a few things to consider when developing your site that you want to make sure you communicate with your developer. Remember, often times people who develop or build websites are good at the technical aspect of the process but have minimal knowledge as to the successful marketing implementation.

1.Prominent and focused call to action - this is the process of leading your visitor down a path that is predefined by you. Most websites fail to guide the visitor down a specific path, which results in a site that does not perform as it should. An example of this could be a video that invites the visitor to put in their information to receive something of value. Additionally, it could be as simple as direct verticals that is has clear navigation and specific action.
   
2.Social media integration - the online world has drastically changed with social media being a driving force effecting the way we communicate and validate as a culture. This corporate website development marketing tip is critical if you want to engage your visitor. Social media integration can drastically increase your marketing results as other people share and approve of your content.
   
3.Blog Integration - this is a must for any new corporate development. This concept is foreign to most businesses as they don't understand the value in having a blog integrated on their corporate site. There are many reasons why a blog should be included. A few main reasons include, adding value to the visitor, giving people a reason to come back to your site, creating relevance in the search engine and increasing website authority.
   
4.Niche Keyword Research - this is a major downfall of most online development companies. They are able to make a nice looking site, however, they fail to understand the importance of developing the corporate website around the keyword research. Think of keyword research as the foundation, just as if you were to build a sky scraper, the strength of that structure begins with laying the proper foundation.

These are just a few of the important marketing tips to consider when developing your corporate website. Focusing on these will position your site ahead of those in your market who don't understand successful online asset development.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Website-Development-Marketing-Tips&id=6087459

Promoting Your Website Through Writing Articles

One of the most popular methods of helping your website is through the writing of articles and then publishing them on websites / ezines who allow articles to be submitted. There are several things to bear in mind for the successful use of articles.

1. For articles to have the best effect they should not be duplicated on your site. If you submit articles already on your site, you will lose the unique content from your site. Unfortunately this approach does mean hard work. If you write a good article it seems a shame not to have it your own site as well. One approach I would suggest is that if you wanted to promote "yoga exercises" I would first create good pages and articles about "yoga exercises". I would put these on my own site. (Before promoting a site you should make sure there is something worthwhile promoting). Then I would write an article specifically for the purpose of promoting this site with appropriate links. This means no matter how many times the article gets copied you will not get any duplicated content issues and not be associated with "scraper sites"

2. Of course there are no hard and fast rules, some people have said they have reproduced their own articles without any adverse consequences. Also it may depend on your goals of writing articles. If it is really good article publishing it in more than one place may give you the benefit of having many people reading it. However I would be careful about doing this too much, especially since Google is likely to be working to devalue this SEO technique.

3. If you want to promote a site on "yoga exercises" make sure you write articles on a related theme. This might be general articles on yoga, meditation, personal well being e.t.c. Links will only be valued when they come from sites and articles with the keywords you want to promote.

4. Related to the above point is developments from Google. Google is working hard to stop "google bombing". Remember the days when "miserable failure" used to return a page on an American President? Now it is no longer does, Google is increasingly suspicious of links from unrelated pages. Thus if you link to your yoga site from an article on "Varieties of English Cheeses during the late medieval period of 1600-1700". Google will probably view your yoga links as "link spam". It is not inconceivable your site may get a bad reputation with Google if you do this too much.

5. Correct linking from your article. Usually ezines allow 1 or 2 links in your article to your own site. To get the most benefit from link I would suggest this:

a) link anchor text of a keyword you wish to promote "yoga exercises" or "guide to yoga"

b) It is also useful to have one link as the site URL make it a live link. This means even if other sites strip out html you will still have a link.

c) Vary links. Don't always use the same resource box. Google likes natural links. Change the anchor link text, link to different pages. Don't just link to the homepage. The key is variety.

d) Putting links in the main body of the article will reduce the chance of it being copied by other sites. However for some articles I will still add a link in middle of text because these are more valuable than links at bottom.

6. The key to success is to write an article that other website will want to copy this will give you the widest exposure and maximum number of links. Good articles are informative, simple and easy to read. They are not ego driven. Also don't make a blatant sales pitch in your article. As Christopher Knight of  says "You are aiming to promote your article not your site"

7. Make sure your title has good keywords. It should be at least 3-4 words and be descriptive of your article. If the keywords are good it will improve your chance of getting good Google ranking for the article. In turn this will increase the chance of it getting copied by other sites.

8. Do try to have a good quality article so that it gets copied by good quality websites. There is little if any benefit from it being copied by many of the scrapper sites. (sites which offer no unique content but just copy others and then add Google adsense)

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Promoting-Your-Website-Through-Writing-Articles&id=434948