The Internet is a powerful tool in the hands of businesses, the place is filled with many public data insights, answers, and trends that can power a business on its own. For those lacking time to extract data from public websites, companies like Coresignal can greatly help with collecting, cleaning, and categorizing the data.

What is public web data?

Public web data is information from publicly available online sources that anyone can use, share, and redistribute without restrictions. It withholds data from various sources, in diverse formats and sizes, and can come as structured or raw unstructured data points.

While there is a popular thought that public web data is only used by the government to control and detect troubles, many skip over the fact that this data is a great tool for businesses and data providers.

Research has found that there are about 2 billion websites on the internet, from which 400 million are active and constantly producing data. Just think about how much relevant public data is accessible to businesses, who can find relevant insights, answers, and points to fill their business needs.

The key reasons why businesses need to leverage public web data

In a survey between 150 experts, 79% responded they wouldn't be able to operate effectively without access to public web data, with 73% saying they would struggle to achieve important goals without it. What is so important about public web data? Here are reasons why it is essential for every business to leverage public web data:

Better customer understanding

As you monitor data you can notice trends in user searches, many similar searches, or ones specific to your industry and business. You can use the information you gather to produce products and services for those user searches or develop your existing products to be a better match for customers.

The data can be also used to target prospects that have shown interest in products related to your industry. Data can help you learn about the interests of prospects and their character so that you can create the ideal target campaign.

Competitor analysis

61% of organizations utilize public web data for pricing comparisons and competitors' inventory monitoring. Each business owner has his own set of competitors and is always on the lookout for how to become better than them. Public web data allows these businesses to identify their weak spots, monitor the prices and promotions of competitors, as well as learn about the tools and employees that influence their business.

Risk management

New product or service announcements are always a great thing for a growing business, however not at times when risks are big. Use data to keep an eye on regulatory changes, public relations crises, or emergency industry trends that can impact a campaign.

Supply chain optimization

Usually developing a product doesn’t only rely on one business, there is a whole supply chain involved, and if anyone messes up or leaves, the whole business can go down. So businesses must use public web data to monitor their supply providers' performance, and delays, and identify alternative suppliers in the case of an accident.

Trend analysis

World trends can grow big in the blink of an eye and those who are first to be there are the ones who succeed. By analyzing public web data, businesses can learn about trends and develop products before the trend even reaches its peak performance.

The most common ways to collect public web data

Public web data is available to the public, meaning anyone who wishes can collect it without restrictions, but here are some actual ways to collect web data:

• Manually: Manually collecting web data is hard labor, but businesses that are just starting can use this free method to save money and practice their data skills.
• Web scraping tools: There are many tools available to scrape data from various websites on defined industries and keywords.
• APIs: Websites can allow all businesses to retrieve data from the site in a structured and organized file.
• Dataset providers: Big companies often turn to dataset providers like Coresignal for ready-to-use datasets, the datasets are 100% reliable, filled with insightful data, and can be tailored for each business.

Conclusion

Public web data is an essential business tool that provides insights, competitive advantages, and even risk management. Businesses that harness the data gain a competitive edge over other companies in understanding the customer's needs, analyzing the industry's competitors, being ahead of any rising trends, and avoiding business breakdowns caused by broken supply chains.