In this guide, you’ll learn ten effective web scraping business ideas. Here’s what makes them valuable and profitable:
As technology advances, the demand for customer data across industries inevitably increases as it is the most efficient way to understand consumer needs. To gather rich and relevant data, using the right method is essential. Commonly used by the e-commerce and retail industry, web scraping is fast becoming one of the most effective ways to gather data.
Web Scraping Explained
Web scraping, also known as web data harvesting or web data extraction, is the automated process of extracting data from a website. This data, whether it be texts, videos, or images, is then stored within a database wherein it can be easily replicated at will.
As opposed to screen scraping, web scraping is much more intricate. Screen scraping only has the ability to copy the pixels that are being displayed, whereas web scraping is intelligent enough to extract the underlying HTML code of a website.
Since web scraping is such a powerful and structured process, there are many ways to utilize it for the purpose of business development. This article will show you ten examples of exactly that: web scraping business ideas that will show you just how much potential this technology has to make you and your company a reliable stream of income.
Web Scraping Has Tremendous Business Potential
Despite being just a data extraction tool, the web scraping market has a compound annual growth (CAGR) rate of 13.48% and is an ever-expanding industry.
Forecasted to reach $1.14B in 2027, this industry is expected to continue expanding at an exponential rate. In fact, this skill cannot even be simply described as “useful,” as it has become an indispensable aspect of e-commerce businesses in recent years.
Currently dominated by the North American region, web scraping services are a lucrative market with plenty of opportunities. No longer just a tool for large businesses or search engines, small firms can jump on the bandwagon with affordable web scraping tools.
Some utilize web scraping in-house, but there are a vast number of businesses that outsource web scraping tasks to third parties. This is where the potential lies for you to develop a web scraping business model.
Web Scraping Business Ideas Anyone Can Do
The beauty of web scraping software lies in its versatility. Web scrapers have nearly infinite technological capabilities, and yet, they aren’t that difficult to comprehend.
It’s important to note that web scraping can work in both B2B and B2C areas, depending on the business idea. It could be focused solely on companies that need data efficiently and in a timely manner, or it could be developed into a platform that works with customers to meet their data needs.
To give you some inspiration as to the many ways you can develop a web scraping service, here are ten business ideas to start your web scraping business today.
- Sports Statistics
Gone are the days of scouring for fresh and talented players, like searching for a needle in a haystack. In these modern times, coaches and managers use sports data to determine winning combinations when acquiring great players.
Generating over $2.58B of revenue in 2021 for sports analytics alone, scraping data for strategic market research in the sports sector is one of the most popular web scraping niches. With the CAGR rising at 22.9% across different sports, from football to basketball, using real-time data to execute strategic gaming moves is the next big thing.
There’s plenty of room in this market for growth despite its saturation. From high school teams to the big leagues, sports are dynamic, and the need for quality sports data will likely never recede. So, how can you fill this need in a way that can earn you a profit?
Start a Sports Website
Simply create a customized one-stop solution site that displays statistics of every sport. Consider all of the popular sports, choose one, and find a niche in the market you can fill. Consider a subscription-based service to diversify your income as a regular provider of the latest news and statistics.
Private Data Provider
Another route is not to publicize the data you collect but instead, sell it to sports clubs or coaches. Gaining these actionable insights is something that many will pay a pretty penny for.
- Travel Rates
Travel is more popular than ever! Tourism is booming with increasing accessibility to online bookings. Travelers spend a lot of time researching airlines, destinations, and other factors that will affect their trips.
This is where your web data extraction can lend a helping hand.
Data specific to travel is estimated to reach $350M by 2032, booming at a staggering CAGR of 15%. Scraping data is the natural step to providing cutting-edge travel solutions.
What kind of assistance could you provide? Well, who doesn’t want to save money? People want to know where to get the best deals.
To fulfill this need, you could curate a website to inform travelers of the best prices for booking trips. With web data harvesting, you can simultaneously monitor the prices of travel across multiple websites and companies. Acting as an independent provider assures consumers that you are providing information that is in their best interests.
You could also implement a subscription program within that site, with exclusive web pages alerting subscribers about sales, price drops, or sudden fluctuations related to their desired destinations. They get the best deal, and you get a loyal subscriber. It’s the best of both worlds!
- News Aggregation
With the boom of globalization, digital news websites have become a critical source of information for the masses. As a news aggregator, the main difference is the abundance of choices. It does not just gather news from a single site, it uses web scraping to extract data from multiple websites.
Expected to rise steadily with a CAGR of 2.73% till 2027, the digital media market is projected to hit $38.6B in 2023. You can eliminate the need for endlessly scrolling through a search engine or news website by compiling a site that contains links to previously published information. Subscribers can receive news data alerts when there are updates, and third parties who want their work to be featured can submit relevant news data for you to include, for a small fee, of course.
- Product Sales
Online shopping is extremely popular, and it makes it easier to compare prices on products. Not everyone wants to take the time to search several websites to see who has the best deal, though. There is a need for a quick, one-stop website for thrifty and frugal individuals to find the best deals before they make that tough decision. You can use financial data scraping to create a web scraping service that helps those who want to save money on their retail needs.
Through this kind of web scraping project, users can select which specific product they want to monitor over time. As prices change, the web scraper will alert them when the best possible time arrives for the purchase to be made.
A web scraping tool like this is especially useful because it can be very versatile. You can concentrate on monitoring products from one particular industry or company, or you can be incredibly broad and keep track of several sites simultaneously.
- B2B Sales
Adopting a data-driven approach to understanding consumer behavior is the best way for companies to maximize their profits. That’s why B2B companies are beginning to become more and more reliant on web scraping services. As a web scraping tool, you can offer support to these businesses in a number of areas.
Search Engine Optimization
An oldie but a goodie, this kind of data scraping is vital for businesses that want to stand out among the crowd. Using web scraping methods to identify the strongest SEO keywords and exactly what business ideas to go with, you can develop an indispensable lead generation tool.
Price Monitoring
The saying goes, “Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.” This also applies to organizations. To get ahead, it is critical to know your competitors. Hence, one of the best web scraping business ideas is providing information to help companies analyze their rivals. Consolidate large datasets that include a history of product pricing and production materials across multiple contenders. This allows marketers to understand their competition intimately and to tailor their marketing or product development strategy.
Market Research
Every product needs to have a value-added feature. Assist companies in developing their unique selling point by helping them understand their target market. Web scraping lets you retrieve important information about every product or consumer online. From product reviews to purchases, firms would be able to identify industry patterns.
- Job Search Aggregator
Unfortunate as it may be, layoffs are commonplace in our current economy. People are constantly looking to find a new job, whether because they’re out of one or because they want to move up the corporate ladder. In either case, conducting a job search in one job aggregator is much more convenient than scouring dozens of career pages to find a solid match.
A job aggregator works by scraping data about job openings that correspond to particular criteria. There are job aggregators that are exclusive to a particular niche or industry, and there are job aggregators that are incredibly broad.
The fact is that people are always going to look to be employed. This kind of valuable data will never become obsolete, making it one of the most concretely vital web scraping project ideas on this list.
- Specific Search Engine
The Internet is known for vast information that rarely has a filter. When you’re looking to find something specific, it can be akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. That’s why creating a search engine that’s adjusted to a particular niche is a very lucrative web scraping project.
This kind of web scraper can work to curate search engine results that contain all the relevant information with none of the fluff. Whether it’s something like children’s boutique clothing or SaaS solutions, you just need to find a niche that lacks representation on current search engines and work from there.
- Brand Management
Companies want to know exactly what people think about them, their products, and their practices. Using web data extraction, you can provide these businesses with everything their consumers have been saying, all in one concentrated place.
Provide data collection on client reviews, breaking news involving the company, and how it’s being discussed on any social media platform. They can then take the results of this data to understand what their brand is doing right and what their brand should focus on improving.
- Lead Generation
One of the fastest ways to get customers is by attracting your target audience before your competitors.
An easy web scraping business, the CAGR for lead generation is estimated to grow at an incredible rate of 17.5%, leading to $9.6M by 2028. Simply provide businesses with potentially profitable leads with your web scraping skills by pulling data into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
As a lead generation tool, scrape data from social media platforms to get sales leads using a simple four-step process:
- Identify your sources: Export data from social media profiles, directories, job listings, and emails.
- Choose the type of data extraction: The most straightforward way is to extract it to Microsoft Excel to make it easier for any cleaning or formatting after.
- Extract data: Use a free web scraping tool that automates the process into Microsoft Excel for efficiency and effectiveness.
- Format the dataset: Produce concise, clean, and clear data by structuring raw data properly before sending it to your customers.
- Affiliate Marketing
Since introducing e-commerce products and services, affiliate marketing has boomed exponentially. Renowned as one of the best monetization plans, web traffic is key in helping site owners incur passive income.
Lucrative and with no signs of stopping, affiliate marketing is projected to be $17B this 2023. Web scraping can be an excellent addition to help marketers determine great content, products, and price according to incoming web traffic.
Web scraping combined as a project idea in this aspect has multiple uses, such as:
- Identify Quality Content: Scraped data can help affiliate marketers determine the latest industry topics or trends to focus on.
- Choose the Right Product: Data scraping is essential for identifying the right products to sell on a website based on other affiliate marketing sites.
- Predictive Product Pricing: Apart from the product’s availability, you can entice shoppers to buy a product based on predictive history and fluctuations. Not only does it capture the reader’s attention, but it also increases potential sales.
- Determine an Affiliate Marketing Network: This can be challenging for newcomers. With a free web scraping tool, you can select the highest-performing product as a safe entrance into the market.
Don’t Let Your Business Get Left Behind
Web scraping services used to be just a form of data extraction. Yet with the advancements in e-commerce, it can be a strong monetization tool. With massive potential in several industries across the globe, starting a web scraping business is a no-brainer. Don’t risk missing out on the opportunity to make massive financial leaps using the power of data scraping.
Start your web scraping service with Online Success Genie today! Change how you make money with a simple extension that extracts data to Microsoft Excel automatically. Provide invaluable insights to your clients within minutes.
Interested in learning more? Check out our Business Tools to do more, earn more, and save more with Online Success Genie.