How to Scrape a WordPress Website to Build a Backlink List

With the explosion of platforms like Shopify, WordPress, and Medium, it is now easier than ever to launch a business or brand. But, with ease comes responsibility, as you now have access to a global audience that can be used to grow your business and take it to the next level.

If you’re looking to improve your site’s SEO and grow your audience, you’re in the right place. We’re going to teach you how to scrape a WordPress website and use the content to build a backlink list that will help your site climb its way to the top.

The Demographics of a Popularity Contest

It’s 2018, and digital marketing and SEO are still going strong. If you’re looking to enter a popularity contest, you need to do some research into the demographics watching the relevant videos and taking note of the phrases used. From an SEO perspective, you’re looking to rank for as many different terms as possible, so make sure you incorporate these keywords into your content.

For example, if you’re doing a cooking video blog, make sure you include words like “bread,” “butter,” “cheese,” and “margarine.” You want your videos to be rich in those keyphrases so your video can stand out among the rest. It’s always recommended to target as many keyphrases as possible because if you happen to rank for a single term, you’ll likely still get traffic from people looking for other terms as well.

Scraping a WordPress Website

Depending on your needs, you could either hire someone to do the dirty work for you or take the time to learn yourself. We’re sure there are plenty of tools out there that can help you automate and manage the process of scraping content from various websites, but for the purpose of this tutorial, we’ll be using the freely available tool, ScraperWiki.

To get started, head over to ScraperWiki and enter the URL of your desired website in the field provided. Once you’ve entered the URL, click the blue button to start the process.

What you’ll see next is a screen that looks similar to this:

You’ll notice that the results are broken down into different categories, including videos, articles, and social media. For the purpose of this tutorial, we’re only going to be looking at videos. Once you’ve found the videos you want to scrap, click the magnifying glass to the right of the results to see a full list of the relevant metrics for each video.

Video Metrics:

Views:

This is the number of times the video has been viewed (including today). Keep in mind that video views can and often do change, so take this statistic with a grain of salt. However, it’s always a good place to start.

Since we’re optimizing for video content, it’s important to take a look at the video’s stats regarding size and duration. First off, let’s take a quick look at the video’s height and width.

A video’s height is how tall it is (in pixels) compared to the video’s original size. The height of a video is typically expressed in pixels because different display devices (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, and large-screen monitors) have different pixel dimensions.

A video’s width is how wide it is (in pixels) compared to the video’s original size. The width of a video is typically expressed in pixels because different display devices (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, and large-screen monitors) have different pixel dimensions.

Now that we’ve got our metrics in order, it’s time to move onto the next piece of information, the video’s duration.

Duration:

This is the length of time (in seconds) that the video has been played. Again, this is a metric that can change based on a variety of factors, so take this result with a grain of salt. However, you may find this to be a good indicator of how engaging the content is and if it’s worth watching in its entirety or if you should skip to the next video.

Like/Dislike:

This metric refers to the number of people who have liked or disliked the video. While this information can be useful, it’s not entirely reliable. After all, people can and will lie on social media about liking or disliking something. Take this result with a grain of salt, but it’s still a good place to start when trying to understand the general sentiment regarding a video.

Other Metrics:

Embed Code:

If you’ve ever used a video hosting site such as YouTube to share a video with your audience, you’ll know that there’s a snippet of code you need to insert at the end of the video to make it work. It’s similar to a coupon code you’d need to insert if you were buying something online—except you’re sharing a video instead.

You can get this code from YouTube, or if you’ve used the video hosting site directly, you may see this field already filled in.

Videos per Day:

This metric refers to the average number of videos published per day. Naturally, this will vary based on several factors, which we’ll discuss in a little more depth below.

Country:

This refers to the country from which the content originates. If you’re looking for international backlink prospects, make sure to check out the other metrics available as well, especially if you’re marketing to countries outside of North America.

Language:

Here’s where you can find the language used in the content. If you’re marketing to a specific country or region, make sure to check out the other metrics as well, especially if you’re marketing to countries outside of North America.

Updated:

This refers to the last time the content was updated. If you’ve ever published a piece of content and later decided that it wasn’t ready to be published, you’d need to update the piece of content before you could start the publication process again. From an SEO perspective, you don’t want to rush your content, especially if it’s been a while since the last update.

As you can see in the screenshot above, we’ve got a lot of information at our fingertips. From a video’s overall stats to specific demographic information about the person or group who played the video, we’ve got a lot to go over. But first, let’s break down the overarching metrics so we can have a clearer picture of what we’re looking at.

Video Clips:

Once you’ve found the videos you want to use, you can either download them or click the red icon to the right of the results to see a list of the various clips within the video.

Video Transcript:

While video content is typically viewed as being more aesthetically pleasing than text-based content, it doesn’t mean that video content isn’t valuable. Indeed, video content can and often is more valuable than text-based content. From a marketing perspective, you may find a video’s transcript to be a valuable tool. For example, if you’re looking for international backlink prospects, make sure to look at the video’s transcript to see if there are any mentions of specific names or phrases that you can use to target the right audience.

Video Tags:

This refers to a list of keywords and phrases used to describe the content within the video. If you’ve ever taken the time to analyze the keywords and phrases used on a website, you’ll know that they can be very valuable when utilized strategically. From an SEO perspective, keywords and phrases can be used to find websites that are highly relevant to your niche. They can also be used to find videos (usually through a video search engine like YouTube) that are relevant to your niche.

Video Analysis:

This refers to a detailed analysis of the video’s popularity. While it’s always a good idea to look at a video’s popularity overall, it’s more beneficial (and a lot more useful) to look at a video’s popularity compared to other videos within your niche. This can be easily found by clicking on the video’s cover thumbnail.