While many companies have started working from the office, some others have implemented the hybrid work model. But what about the freelancers? Do freelancers with technical skills stand a chance to make more money as compared to those with corporate Jobs in 2023?
Well in some cases they do. Web scraping is a skill that anybody can learn with basic programming skills. If you are planning to learn new skills and make money working remotely, you may be interested in web scraping. If you are new to this technical term, I would recommend you learn web scraping from Python. Why Python though, you may ask.
Simply because it has a very big community and the programming language itself is simplified and flexible. Many forums like StackOverflow, GitHub, etc already have the answers to the errors that you might face while coding.
What Web Scraping Actually Is?
Web scraping refers to the extraction of data from a source mainly a webpage. The information is then exported in a human-readable and systematic manner.
There are many tools that can be used for data collection. However, by creating a web scraper of your own using a programming language you can collect unlimited data from different sources for free.
Here are some facts about data and web scraping you may want to know: –
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Data is used by almost every organization, it is the core need and is in demand by companies for constant growth.
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Web scraping can be done by anyone, anywhere, and doesn’t need many resources.
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Web scraping isn’t illegal until and unless you are extracting data that is publically available
How You Can Make Money Working Remotely With Web Scraping
Remote work has become a hot topic and, it is the trend. With better work-life balance, flexibility, timeliness, and higher productivity people are switching to this mode. A recent study by Demandsage stated that there are currently 70.4 million people working as a freelancer in the USA alone. And this is forecasted to reach 90.1 million by 2028.
The main purpose of web scraping is to extract data from different sources, it can do wonders for freelancers or remote workers. In this blog, we will look into 5 ways in which remote workers can earn money from web scraping.
Here are 5 ways you can make money via web scraping
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Web Scraping for Email List Building
With all those new platforms coming into the market, top marketers still consider that email marketing is the best way to pitch in products or services to potential new customers. So, to generate new clients companies are always looking for ways to get more email addresses.
Web Scraping can be used by freelance marketers or remote workers to generate leads in the form of Emails.
If your target audience is writers you can scrape Medium, if you are looking for CEOs, CFOs, or CMOs you can find them on Linkedin further web scraping them from the platform gives you the desired data.
A Screenshot from Upwork, where the hourly rate for generating email leads is ~$25 to $80.
As you can see the skill is in high demand from the rating of the top freelancers is high numbers. There may be freelancers or remote workers who will be doing all this manually, but by web scraping, you can extract data in millions within a few minutes. This gives you an edge over other remote workers.
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Web Scraping Phone Numbers
Companies selling physical products do cold reaching by calling phone numbers. It is much easier for them to convey their message on phone calls rather than getting into the Email boxes of their customers.
Hence, they either collect this manually with an in-house team or outsource this work to a freelancer.
Identifying sources where you can find target leads and their phone numbers could be and further web scraping to collect this data can earn you some bucks.
Typically, you can get the phone numbers data from Yelp, Yellow pages, or other platforms that list down the businesses and their phone numbers. And this would be enough to generate the required leads.
However, if you see the screenshot below, in some cases you might have to extract the data from different websites.
A Screenshot from Freelancer.com
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Web Scraping LinkedIn Profile
With high talent demand and most of them present on LinkedIn, it is difficult not to include this platform on this list. However, scraping LinkedIn can sometimes cause you trouble. In Europe, LinkedIn has GDPR & legality compliance.
This is a screenshot taken from Guru.com. The average price for scraping a LinkedIn profile lies between $250-$500.
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Web Scraping for Content Curation
Scraping can also be used to curate content from different sources and develop the web. This content curation can be done for aggregator websites.
If your client needs a lot of content, web scraping the content from different channels and collecting it in one place can help them & hence they would look for a content curator.
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Web Scraping Ecommerce data
Data scraping for the eCommerce industry is in high demand. Online sellers constantly check prices from other vendors to match demand pricing for their products. With a wide range of products in the e-commerce domain, the pricing strategy is important for them.
Web scraping eCommerce sites like Walmart, and eBay can earn you a good amount of money while working remotely.
This is a freelance work posting from freelancer.com wherein the seeker wants someone who can scrape prices as per his requirements. The data in demand is heavy, you can make around $150 from this.
Conclusion
Being in remote work you can constantly grow with time and ensure better skills. Web scraping will only enable you to do work, you still have to outreach your prospects. And you can also do that by web scraping.
That means you can generate leads for yourself also with web scraping. Also, registering on platforms like Upwork, freelancer ensures stability for your remote work when you are just starting out. Over time you will find out ways to promote yourself as a web scraping expert
Interesting Related Article: “Quick Guide to Web Scraping“