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

How to Trick Google With Your SEO Articles and Web Content

So you're spending time writing SEO articles and creating highly optimised web content, or you're using an article service to create articles for you? What made you click on the link that brought you to this article then?

Perhaps you're looking for a sneaky little trick that will power your articles to the top of the search results in no time at all? You're looking for an edge that no one else has got that will let your content rush to the top of the results like a flatulent cork in water wings? Well read on...

Even the most average internet marketer cannot help but to have become aware that keyword stuffing is no longer effective. Indeed, keyword stuffing is highly likely to see a website demoted or even blacklisted. Today there is a need for high quality content, and for content which is unique and original, as well as popular. The trouble is that this can make the job much harder. Having to spend time creating good, solid, readable content which is useful and interesting is time-consuming.

Having to spend time creating content which might be considered worthwhile by real people is a lengthy an involved process. It used to be so much easier when you could just fling any old rubbish online and let the search engines lap it all up like hungry dogs. Today it seems that those dogs have turned, and unless you want them to bite, you need to spend time actually thinking about your potential customers, rather than just those nice friendly bots and spiders you've been so used to.

This is clearly a difficult situation, and the only option seems to be to succumb to the will of the search engines and spend time creating well-written, highly optimised content that appeals to both the search engines and real people. Goodness - you might even write something people really find interesting, and may want to link to. You never do know these days.

But of course, you clicked the link for this article, because you're looking to change all that. Rather than spending time crafting you'd rather be churning; rather than writing readable content you'd prefer to be chucking out text that looks as though your word processor and your thesaurus have been having an affair!

What you really want is to be able to press a magic button and have your articles fly up the search results, and magically draw thousands of keen, enthusiastic customers flooding to your website, ripping open their purses and wallets with such feverish excitement that you'll hardly know what to do with all that easy cash you'll be wallowing in.

As someone who provides an article service to internet marketers and business owners, and who writes SEO articles for a living, I have a few words of advice for those of you who want to try to get your articles above mine, who want to see your articles power ahead of mine and take hold of the search results pages by the horns.

Whilst I may sit here taking time to research each and every article I write, plan every article so that it has something to say, write it in a way that makes it entertaining, enjoyable and informative for those real live people who exist out there on the other side of the web, craft articles in a way that takes full advantage of Google's algorithms, optimised for latent semantic indexing, yet making it almost entirely undetectable, you want to discover a secret formula that will launch your articles with barely more than a flick of your wrist.

You probably want to find out what this secret formula is so that you can spend less time hurling hundreds, perhaps thousands of articles out every week just to scrape by. Meanwhile, I'll write an article once every week or so. You'll notice them because they always end up boosting my website up to the very top of Google for all the major keywords and key phrases I have chosen, despite several billion other sites all appearing for the same searches.

Well, here it is. The magic formula, the button you want to press is coming right up. Forget those black hat techniques that simply blast meaningless content at thousands of identical directories. To really achieve success with your SEO articles and enjoy the same level of exposure as my article service, the magic formula is this: forget writing SEO articles. That's it. When you're writing your next article, forget that it's an SEO article.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Trick-Google-With-Your-SEO-Articles-and-Web-Content&id=4078570

Restaurant Internet Marketing - It's Not Your Father's Yellow Pages

As a restaurant owner or manager are you taking advantage of all the opportunities offered up by the Internet or are you still counting on word of mouth and a traditional print marketing program to get diners filling your place? Are you even aware of what the Internet marketing can do for you? If you're not you're giving up business to your competition.

Take a moment to Google your type of restaurant (Italian, seafood, deli etc) and the name of your town and see what comes up on the first page. Do you see your name? How many competitors do you see? Now ask yourself "How many potential diners are going to come to my restaurant based on these results"? The answer of course is nada. Can you afford to give that business to your competition?

Location, location, location

Many local small and medium sized businesses have discovered the value of having an internet presence but it wasn't always that way. Most local businesses thought the internet best served big companies. On top of that, most small local businesses simply didn't have a clue how to participate effectively and they were too busy running their businesses to learn how.

The fact of the matter is that 72% of all searches are related to a search for local content. Nearly a year ago the monster search engine Google changed their algorithms so that local results show up on a search inquiry whenever appropriate. That means your shop can be just as competitive as a national restaurant chain when it comes to being found in search.

The difference between search and traditional advertising

So why is search such a big deal? The reason it is so much more effective than traditional marketing is that it responds to a specific need at a time when the potential diner is interested in the information. Unlike a weekly flier that's dropped in the home mailbox every Thursday, search doesn't clutter up a prospective diner's life but rater provides relevant information when the diner wants it not when the USPS delivers it.

When that potential customer is thinking about where to go for lunch he or she is going to search "pizza san pedro, ca" to find what's available in the area. In other words search delivers the information when the searcher is most receptive to it.

But wait there's more

Search by itself is reason to have a presence on the internet but the benefits certainly don't end there.

How would you like to be able to:

- Notify all of your customers what your daily specials are every day automatically.
- Invite your customers to place their order in advance so they don't have to wait for their food and do it without spending any time on the phone.
- Accept and confirm reservations electronically.
- Run promotional campaigns without spending a dime on advertising.
- Build solid customer relationships that will strengthen your word of mouth referrals.

And that's just the beginning. A professional internet presence will cost you significantly less than you are currently paying today for marketing. What's more, professionally managed internet presence keeps on giving even when you stop paying. Can you say that about your Yellow Page listing or print ads?

Online Reputation Management

There can be a potential dark side to this whole internet thing. You live or die on your reputation and it is important that you manage that reputation online. Never has the consumer had such an easy way to post anonymous comments for all the world to see. If you have a customer who has a bad experience don't be surprised if he or she posts it to a blog or a forum or gives you a bad review in the business directories.

Speaking of business directories, you already are on the internet even if you didn't know it. These directories scrape information out of Yellow Pages and other sources and add it to a business profile. You have a right to claim those listings and they are actually a great way to promote the business. But registered visitors also have the right to post reviews and if the only review your store has is from that disgruntled customer...your rep is shot.

There are just too many reasons that you have to get involved with the internet marketing. To not do so is to pass up an incredible opportunity for new business and to cement loyalty with regular customers. It's effective, inexpensive and essential if you want to remain competitive.

WebFrootz is an internet marketing agency, Baltimore website design, and Baltimore web development company MD specializing in comprehensive marketing solutions for small and medium business including branding, Website design and development, graphic design, copywriting, and SEO.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Restaurant-Internet-Marketing---Its-Not-Your-Fathers-Yellow-Pages&id=6498349

Infinity Logo Design Launches Content Writing Services

Infinity Logo Design recently added Content Writing Service to its pool of services, available at a staggering discount of 70%. Following the huge success of its Animated Video Service, Infinity Logo Design has now officially commenced its Content Writing Service as well. With a clientele of nearly a million, Infinity Logo Design is one of the fastest growing design companies of the world. And its recent diversification advocates the fact that the company looks fanatical in achieving its goals and objects with one of them being "to become the number 1 design & development company of the world". Providing a complete range of Content Writing services which includes Web Content Writing, SEO Content Writing, Creative writing, Press Release writing, Article Writing and Brand/Product Name Suggestions, Infinity Logo Design is dedicated to providing a superior experience to the readers.

According to the company's Creative Manager, "We have been offering Content Writing service as a secondary service for quite some time, but following its augmented demand and some great feedback from our clients, we decided to launch it officially. We consider Content Writing as an art that truly fascinates and inspires the readers, and makes them believe in the message that the writer is trying to covey. Our copy writers are handpicked, and have a proven track record. We provide our customers with nothing but the very best!"

Infinity Logo Design believes that Content Writing in an effective tool for customer retention and generating a profound user experience. Infinity Logo Design is offering this service at quite a substantial price, and its exceptional discount of 70% is a bonus for all those who are in pursuit of quality content at an affordable price. Judging from the company's recent endeavors, there's no denying that we'll be seeing some great things from them in the years to come.

About Infinity Logo Design:

Infinity Logo Design is one of the world's leading design companies. The company offers a wide range of services including custom logo design, website design, brochure design, banner design, stationery design and promotional items. ILD provides high-quality designs to small- and medium-sized businesses at the most competitive prices. In addition, the company engages the services of skilled and talented designers who can create your design exactly according to your specifications. The Company also offers 100% satisfaction and 100% money back guarantee, making it one of the most sought-after design companies in the world.

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1985193

Collecting and Managing Data for Small Businesses

Is your company doing well? Are you profitable? How much longer will it be until you are? Where can you cut expenses? What are your most profitable products or services? Which are the least profitable? What the shelf-life of a particular product? How effective is your marketing strategy?

As business leaders, this type of information is the type of information that we need to have on hand in order to make decisions about the company. Planning solely on what is in the bank, or focusing only on one aspect of what makes your company a) successful or b) keeps it out of closing is a very poor way of operating. This is pure tunnel vision.

If you consider, for a moment, two tools that are widely used in the business world - Porter's Five Forces and the SWOT analysis, you'll notice that part of the analysis is based on things that impact the business - are outside of the business's control. As business leaders, you know that strategically, this cannot occur just in exercise, but must exist in the way that you do business. Monitoring, making adjustments and acting must be an ongoing mentality if your goal is to build an extraordinary business. Several recommendations we have made to clients include:

    Understand what questions you want to answer. Here are some samples:

    How do we know when we can purchase a new building or expand capacity

    How do we know how effective our sales people are

    How do we know how effective our marketing and other business development activities are

    Understand what kind of data you need to collect in order to make your decisions. Typically, these are going to be things such as your financials - sales, cost of goods sold, expenses, profit, investments, interest and taxes, your business development activities, manufacturing costs and rates, etc.

    Determine how to collect the data - including what is feasible. Take into consideration how you operate - does it need to be mobile? does the information need to be housed in a cloud?

    Determine how the data needs to be delivered. If you have a ton of data and like to drill down from "high level" analysis down to the details, perhaps you want something more visual. If you like to play with the numbers yourself and run scenarios, perhaps you like to play with the raw data.

•    Decide how much your level of investment. Consider this:

•    No Investment - If you don't get the data to make decisions, the likelihood of success is minimalized.

•    Your Time - If you collect and mine the data yourself, what else could or should you be doing to build or grow the business.

•    Your Resources - You could have a qualified employee collect and mine the data for you.

•    Your Money - You could invest in a software solution - be it customized, off the shelf, or a combination of the two - that could collect the data. We have used and recommend a product called Work, Etc., to centrally house most transaction that occur in the business in order to give us a single data-collection source.

    Research solutions that will work best for your company, considering the factors we pointed out above. You may consider other factors that are specific to your company, such as the ability to sync with certain existing solutions or the ability to be housed on a centrally located or remote server, etc.. May companies look at Open Source solutions such as xTurple or SugarCRM. Despite your choice, consider the total cost of ownership of the solution before investing in it.

    Determine how the solution will be implemented and how training on the software will roll out. This may mean hiring a consultant, going to a class or classes, investing in an online training solution or spending time with tech support for a self-install. Consider the different types of investment.

    Plan to re-enforce the need to use whatever solution is recommended. Change takes time. Habits take time. By providing some structure, you will increase the likelihood of success.

Your company's ability to collect and decipher the data from the activities in and around your company can be the determine factor between a series of successful ventures and a series of hit-or-miss activities. Even the simplest data-collection activities should help you determine your company's path.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Collecting-and-Managing-Data-for-Small-Businesses&id=6923386

What to Look for When Hiring WordPress Developers?

The toughest part about hiring WordPress developers is that you don't really have an idea about what you don't know! Quite evidently it sounds like stating the obvious. Some of these "how to do" tips are really practical and will be easy to follow.

So this is what to look for when hiring WordPress developers:

Portfolio:

OK - this again may seem supremely obvious - but I have seen a lot of people offering WordPress customizations or design services (especially as WordPress grows, there are plenty of people jumping into this arena) - however, they don't have any sample work with them.

What's the Process?

a. Are you going to communicate over the phone?
b. How frequently are you going to do that?
c. What is the time period?
d. Will you receive updates?
e. Which kind of communication processes can you expect?

Design/Graphics:

When your graphics are finally done and your site looks fantastic - who ultimately owns the right to the final work? Do you have the right to use the artwork/graphics however and wherever you want to?

If you have paid for custom graphics, you have to make sure that you have the luxury and liberty to use them as and when you want them to! However, on the other hand, if you are using stock pictures, then you have to strictly follow the copyright guidelines enlisted on the site from where you have purchased the work.

Skills:

Yes, this is indeed another point that seems pretty obvious, isn't it? I had a few clients who recently hired individuals to make WordPress customizations, however surprisingly enough; they were not really acquainted with WordPress.

There are situations where the clients hired individuals who were graphic designers. They worked mainly with Dreamweaver; numerous client pages were made in Dreamweaver, and then pasted on to the WP editor. In such instances, if the client attempted to adjust things without understanding the HTML, they ran the huge risk of throwing the entire page off.

If you bring in somebody to help create a custom WordPress theme or create a WordPress customization, ascertain the fact that they really understand the features of WordPress! If you can't use the things that make WordPress what it's intended for - it is defeating enough and it seems like a vain uphill journey.

Functionality:

This relates straight to training. If additional features /options are uploaded on your website (as for example: shopping cart, video & audio plugins etc.), are you aware as to how to use them productively?

What exactly is included with set up? Let's take a shopping cart for example:

- Is the autoresponder integrated properly? (If at all possible)
- Are your products being effectively added?
- Is the Thanks page for purchases being set up?
- Are Product images (cropping/ editing, etc.) included?
- Is the Payment gateway installation included?

Many of these functionalities demand additional effort and time. Strive hard to understand in a crystal-clear manner what is being included for any such additional features.

Support:

When your website is done completely and your contract also is complete, is there any support available?

a. Enquire whether the support is handled through help desk, email, or a phone call?
b. Enquire about the charges for support?
c. Can there be an option for monthly maintenance/ support?
d. In case your designer does not offer support, are they able to refer someone else?

So, these are some of the important criteria, I would suggest that you consider when hiring anyone to create a WordPress website for you. Hope this can help!

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?What-to-Look-for-When-Hiring-WordPress-Developers?&id=8047568

Internet marking is the finest method of increment of popularity in commerce

In today’s world key to any business is right kind of marketing strategy that needs to be implemented for the success of any entrepreneurial project. One of the fastest growing ways is to get the listing of your company in top search engines. SEO is one of the ways which can help in increasing or diverting the traffic on any website. People should understand the search result of their website is displayed on the World Wide Web. Different search engines work in different ways by providing different ranking to websites according to the search of the people.

This is why same website has different ranks on different search engines. Basically, website owner provides the keywords to the SEO providers which are appropriate to their business. Business SEO providers make sure the owners are charged low and also providing correct information to search engines. Providing better SEO in Ottawa is the basic feature that service providers aim at, their main motive is to make these services available to all the common people so that they can benefit there business in a better way. A good SEO mostly uses popular sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yellow pages etc.

These SEO companies make sure that the listing of their clients is upgraded by repeated updating and also there ranking reaches top on search engines. Consultations with SEO service provider can be availed for free by the website owners. SEO companies carefully chooses keyword for their clients because it has to be unique and commonly used to make them reach at the top .They do so by carefully analyzing the owners website and competitors website and then the strategy is made to determine the perfect keyword for their clients.

Owner should make sure that the prices charged to him are competitive according to market. Consultation and Analysis are important because the keyword formation is directly dependent on these two parameters if the SEO service provider fails to submit the proper keyword it would result in failure of whole SEO services for the owner.

SEO provider can re create and also modify the keywords for any website. If anyone specifically looking to create a new SEO website for him then the Looking internet marketing company in ottawa specialists can help them in determining a new domain that could be related to the business of the owner. Secondly, good hosting service is provided by them which help a website fast to access by any user. The biggest task for Internet marketing specialist is Link building because it represents more than 80% result of SEO. For any website owner good SEO link building can be good in this competitive world because it attracts the people.

A good SEO developer plays a pivotal role in developing a perfect keyword for the company. Ottawa SEO companies are very famous to deliver their services to the customers at very reasonable prices. SEO services are available online one can visit their websites see the list of services offered by them, read the testimonials of the existing and choose from them pay online and get started.

For further detail about Business seo service in Ottawa please visit the website.

Source:http://blogs.siliconindia.com/businessseo/Business/Internet-marking-is-the-finest-method-of-increment-of-popularity-in-commerce-bid-cf9206bx84461691.html