Do you want to beat your competition without bringing another marketing tool into the mix? Well, I know how – to use your SERP data on SERPS.
What is a SERP & How Can It Help Beat My Competition?
In short, search engine results pages (otherwise known as SERPS) are the results delivered when you search for anything on a search engine, such as Google and Bing.
The SERP data is then the information which sits within each individual result on the SERP. This data is available for free, & this public web data can help you enhance and boost your positions in search engines across the globe.
SERP information can be pulled from both paid and organic search results and can grant you full visibility into what your competitors are doing with them. SERPs can be used to:
- Improve your paid advertising
- Uncover hidden trends
- Understand how content performs from location to location
- Expose content gaps (that you could work to fill)
But how can you easily find this information to better your chances of visibility and your content?
Well, you can have it automatically collected by a SERP scraper – which allows you to gain the data immediately so you can build up your SEO strategy sooner.
How To Easily Collect Free Competitor Information Using SERP Scrapers
SERP scrapers (or SERP AIs), work to easily and automatically collate SERP data from different search engines.
As you probably already know, there is a lot of (fantastic) data to collect due to the different factors which affect a SERP, including; location, device and search history.
Naturally, these ever-increasing elements continue to make it a challenge to perform manual SERP data collection, but with SERP scrapers you no longer need to worry about doing it by hand.
This solution simplifies the data collection process, pulling together web data from countless different sources all at once, and in real-time. Providing you with the large volumes you need and can use to stand tall against your competitors.
As a result, you’ll get higher visibility into competitor research as their data scale increases & you’ll save yourself a lot of time too.
Automating Competitor Research with SERP Scrapers
To ensure a full SERP data collection, businesses are currently running their SERP scrapers through the public web data collection infrastructures.
Running a SERP scraper automation can help with the following:
- To instantly see the SERP content that is working for your competitors.
- Receive Geotarget requests from web users to gain an understanding of the different targeting techniques.
- To unlock content behind those walls that are blocked by search engine bots, for example, CAPTCHA solving.
How Can I Setup My Own SERP Scraper
Setting up your own SERP scarper from scratch can be a time-consuming option, but thankfully due to advances in technology, there are now faster options available.
Use SERP APIs
Most web data providers will deliver SERP APIs which require little to no coding experience in order for you to collect the web data from results pages.
Specifically designed to target all major search engines, these tools work to automatically pull data from the results pages when users search.
Once you’ve found your chosen SERP scarper, you must then configure the AI and work on gaining access to the free competitor data.
Configuring Your Research Parameters
When using your SERP API dashboard, you’ll be granted the ability to designate the various parameters for search requests that are custom to your data needs and workflow. These specific parameters can include:
- Geo-targeting.
- Language used.
- Search filters.
- Safe mode SERPs.
- Device used.
- SERP features, such as maps, shopping, hotels, flights, news, etc.
Increasing Your SERP Access
Just like a data collection infrastructure, some SERP AI tools have powers of unblocking technology, which allows you to scraper search as a real user. Your chosen scraper should also be able to avoid CAPTCHA checks in order for you to gain a full competitor breakdown.
How To Setup Automatic Algorithm Updates
When choosing your SERP AI, make sure that this will grant you the possibility to make updates when search engines make changes to the results pages.
This is incredibly important to consider as there are constant updates being made to the structure and algorithm of SERPS, and these pages are known to frequently feature new features.
If your scraper isn’t fresh with new updates, it will return either incorrect data, or not be able to read the page and deliver the desired data requested.
Creating An In-House SERP Scraper & What To Look Out For
Should you wish to create an in-house scraper, you need to ensure you manually update its code regularly to ensure it matches the structure of your site. However, this does not apply when using one designed by a web data provider, as they will monitor these changes themselves.
How To Compile Together SERP Data Using A Serp Scraper – An Example
Say you want to collect public web data on a restaurant – including offers, prices, how to book a table and more.
How To Conduct Restaurant Competitor SERP Research By Hand
If you were to manually research this SERP, Google Travel & Google Search are great tools to use.
- Enter the restaurant’s name into Google Search.
- Take a look at the initial details in the resulting knowledge graphic, including their current offers, booking a table & their prices.
- Compare their prices and offers to understand what you can deliver to compete.
- Uncover their booking popularity to help drive your own sales and campaigns.
- Continue your quest on manually uncovering more and deeper data.
After conducting your search, you can tailor your strategy, opening more avenues to manually research additional options and data points.
How To Conduct Restaurant Competitor SERP Research Automatically
Through a SERP API, you can carry out the tasks one to five automatically and they will also include the ages of customers, whether a free cancellation policy is applicable and collect additional price combinations.
In Summary,
As we can see from the above, using SERPS can be highly advantageous for any business, no matter what your sector and using an already existing SERP scraper can work better in your favour, than building one yourself.
Thanks for reading,
Myk Baxter, eCommerce Consultant
