How to Scrape Websites for Data without Programming Skills

Searching for data to back up your story? Just Google it, verify the accuracy of the source, and you’re done, right? Not quite. Accessing information to support our reporting is easier than ever, but very little information comes in a structured form that lends itself to easy analysis.

You may be fortunate enough to receive a spreadsheet from your local public health agency. But more often, you’re faced with lists or tables that aren’t so easily manipulated. It’s common for data to be presented in HTML tables — for instance, that’s how California’s Franchise Tax Board reports the top 250 taxpayers with state income tax delinquencies.

It’s not enough to copy those numbers into a story; what differentiates reporters from consumers is our ability to analyze data and spot trends. To make data easier to access, reorganize and sort, those figures must be pulled into a spreadsheet or database. The mechanism to do this is called Web scraping, and it’s been a part of computer science and information systems work for years.

It often takes a lot of time and effort to produce programs that extract the information, so this is a specialty. But what if there were a tool that didn’t require programming?

Enter OutWit Hub, a downloadable Firefox extension that allows you to point and click your way through different options to extract information from Web pages.

How to use OutWit Hub

When you fire it up, there will be a few simple options along the left sidebar. For instance, you can extract all the links on a given Web page (or set of pages), or all the images.

If you want to get more complex, head to the Automators>Scrapers section. You’ll see the source for the Web page. The tagged attributes in the source provide markers for certain types of elements that you may want to pull out.

Look through this code for the pattern common to the information you want to get out of the website. A certain piece of text or type of characters will usually be apparent. Once you find the pattern, put the appropriate info in the “Marker before” and “Marker after” columns. Then hit “Execute” and go to town.

An example: If you want to take out all the items in a bulleted list, use <li> as your before marker and </li> as your after marker. Or follow the same format with <td> and </td> to get items out of an HTML table. You can use multiple scrapers in OutWit Hub to pull out multiple columns of content.

There’s some solid help documentation to extend your ability to use OutWit Hub, with a variety of different tutorials.

If you want to extract more complicated information, you can. For instance, you can also pull out information from a series of similarly-formatted pages. The best way to do this is with the Format column in the scraper section to add a “regular expression,” a programmatic way to designate patterns. OutWit Hub has a tutorial on this, too.

OutWit Hub isn’t the only non-programming scraping option. If you want to get information out of Wikipedia and into a Google spreadsheet, for instance, you can.

But even when pushed to the max, OutWit Hub has its limitations. The simple truth is that using a programming language allows for more flexibility than any application that relies on pointing and clicking.

When you hit OutWit’s scraping limitations, and you’re interested in taking that next step, I recommend Dan Nguyen’s four-post tutorial on Web scraping, which also serves as an introduction to Ruby. Or use programmer Will Larson’s tutorial, which teaches you both about the ethics of scraping (Do you have the right to take that data? Are you putting undue stress on your source’s website?) while introducing the use of the Beautiful Soup library in Python.

Source:http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/digital-strategies/e-media-tidbits/102589/how-to-scrape-websites-for-data-without-programming-skills/

Website Design For Your Local Landing Page

Great Web Design For Local Landing Pages For Websites

A Local Landing Page is the page where your website visitors land i.e. arrive after they click on a link. The local landing page can be your home page or any other page on your website specially designed to welcome your visitors. Local landing pages can provide customized sales pitches for visitors. By designing great landing pages you can seek to engage visitors more effectively and increase your conversion rates.

Local landing pages are a better way to welcome visitors that simply making them arrive on the home page. This is because when you know where the visitors are coming from, you can address their specific needs and offer customized solutions for the same. By giving visitors exactly what they need, you can captivate their attention and acquire a following of loyal audiences.

Local landing pages are especially useful when you know where your visitors are coming from and you want to take particular actions like register themselves, sign-up or purchase something. If you are paying for the traffic through banner ads, sponsored links or PPC, then it gets especially important that you design specific landing pages.

Here are some tips to design effective local landing pages that will engage visitors and provide higher ROI.

Focus on One Key Message

The content of the local landing page should work to promote something specific. Don't get lost and try to showcase everything you have. Rather, focus on one key message and make your content precise and concise. It should focus on one appealing message that is sure to attract visitor attention.

Make it Visually Appealing

Only content seldom makes a sale. Make sure your support your content with relevant images that illustrate the quality of your products or even services. Images can highly impact the decisions of the users. Moreover, they make the page more vibrant and add beauty to what would otherwise have been long scrapes of information.

Ensure Rich User Experience

More then anything else, make sure that your visitors have a smooth and flawless user experience on the page. The navigation pathway should be clean and intuitive and the call-to-action should be clear and succinct.

Use Catchy Headlines

If your headline is able to catch the attention of visitors, only then they will read further. When visitors arrive on your landing pages, make sure they see clear and direct headlines. The headlines should be direct and simple statements that tell visitors what needs to be accomplished.

Use Abundant Whitespace

The beauty of the web page elements only come through if they can be viewed clearly. And for a clean view, there needs to be abundant white space on the page. Don't forget that Internet users scan through web pages. Clean use of space makes it possible for visitors to scan and understand the key messages of the web pages.

Deliver Value Propositions

The key to successful web communication is to answer visitor queries even before they ask you. Answer all the 'what', 'why', 'how' that visitors may ask with value propositions. Instead of long scrapes of plain text, use bullet points to present answers in a concise and easily comprehensible manner. Instantly inform them about the benefits of your products and services.

Make the Message Compelling and Convincing

If your website design is done correctly, your local landing page should be your best salesperson. It should persuade the visitors to make a purchase or hire your services. The message of your page should convince the visitors and compel them to take the desired action.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Website-Design-For-Your-Local-Landing-Page&id=5890276

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

Assuring Scraping Success with Proxy Data Scraping

Have you ever heard of "Data Scraping?" Data Scraping is the process of collecting useful data that has been placed in the public domain of the internet (private areas too if conditions are met) and storing it in databases or spreadsheets for later use in various applications. Data Scraping technology is not new and many a successful businessman has made his fortune by taking advantage of data scraping technology.

Sometimes website owners may not derive much pleasure from automated harvesting of their data. Webmasters have learned to disallow web scrapers access to their websites by using tools or methods that block certain ip addresses from retrieving website content. Data scrapers are left with the choice to either target a different website, or to move the harvesting script from computer to computer using a different IP address each time and extract as much data as possible until all of the scraper's computers are eventually blocked.

Thankfully there is a modern solution to this problem. Proxy Data Scraping technology solves the problem by using proxy IP addresses. Every time your data scraping program executes an extraction from a website, the website thinks it is coming from a different IP address. To the website owner, proxy data scraping simply looks like a short period of increased traffic from all around the world. They have very limited and tedious ways of blocking such a script but more importantly -- most of the time, they simply won't know they are being scraped.

You may now be asking yourself, "Where can I get Proxy Data Scraping Technology for my project?" The "do-it-yourself" solution is, rather unfortunately, not simple at all. Setting up a proxy data scraping network takes a lot of time and requires that you either own a bunch of IP addresses and suitable servers to be used as proxies, not to mention the IT guru you need to get everything configured properly. You could consider renting proxy servers from select hosting providers, but that option tends to be quite pricey but arguably better than the alternative: dangerous and unreliable (but free) public proxy servers.

There are literally thousands of free proxy servers located around the globe that are simple enough to use. The trick however is finding them. Many sites list hundreds of servers, but locating one that is working, open, and supports the type of protocols you need can be a lesson in persistence, trial, and error. However if you do succeed in discovering a pool of working public proxies, there are still inherent dangers of using them. First off, you don't know who the server belongs to or what activities are going on elsewhere on the server. Sending sensitive requests or data through a public proxy is a bad idea. It is fairly easy for a proxy server to capture any information you send through it or that it sends back to you. If you choose the public proxy method, make sure you never send any transaction through that might compromise you or anyone else in case disreputable people are made aware of the data.

A less risky scenario for proxy data scraping is to rent a rotating proxy connection that cycles through a large number of private IP addresses. There are several of these companies available that claim to delete all web traffic logs which allows you to anonymously harvest the web with minimal threat of reprisal. Companies such as offer large scale anonymous proxy solutions, but often carry a fairly hefty setup fee to get you going.

The other advantage is that companies who own such networks can often help you design and implementation of a custom proxy data scraping program instead of trying to work with a generic scraping bot. After performing a simple Google search, I quickly found one company  that provides anonymous proxy server access for data scraping purposes. Or, according to their website, if you want to make your life even easier, ScrapeGoat can extract the data for you and deliver it in a variety of different formats often before you could even finish configuring your off the shelf data scraping program.

Whichever path you choose for your proxy data scraping needs, don't let a few simple tricks thwart you from accessing all the wonderful information stored on the world wide web!

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Assuring-Scraping-Success-with-Proxy-Data-Scraping&id=248993