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E-commerce rapidly expandingand in 2023, 20% of global sales are projected to be online. Each new technological advance opens up new opportunities to improve marketing strategies and reach more consumers, often without the need for significant investment.
The downside is that online markets are very competitive and According to the 2019 Startup Genome report, 80-90% of new e-commerce ventures fail.. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use internet technology to increase your income. It’s important to come well-prepared, and proxy technology is one way to do this.
What is a proxy?
A proxy is a device that acts as an intermediary between a user and the Internet (or between a server and a client in technical terms). All online traffic is redirected through an additional proxy that takes over the online communication.
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Although the concept is quite simple, the scope of possibilities is much larger than expected. This is because proxies hide the user’s original IP address – think of it as the “home address” for computers.
It protects the privacy of users on the Internet by neutralizing various methods of tracking IP addresses. The proxy server’s IP address is used to communicate with servers, so network activity cannot be traced back to users. In terms of business operations, it provides much-needed privacy for sensitive operations such as competition monitoring. However, it is very important to choose secure proxy servers because IP address leaks can expose data that you would not want your competitors to know.
But proxies offer much more than just security. Here’s how you can use them to grow your business.
Data Scraping
One of the most significant changes brought about by the Internet is the sheer amount of information available. What used to have to be done manually and often required long business trips, can now be done in a few hours from the comfort of the office, if you know how.
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Accessing online information sounds easy, but in practice it is not so easy, especially when you need a lot of information, such as big data analysis. Businesses are reluctant to share their information.
One way or another, businesses try to restrict access to information, whether private or public. They deny access to data if they notice multiple requests coming from the same IP address, and soon you can’t view their websites from the company’s network. Instead of using your unique IP address, you can use multiple proxy servers for targeted websites without revealing your identity.
Residential proxies are best for data sanitization because they come from real users with physical devices, not from IP farms. They are almost invisible and have the highest success rate. However, if your scraping operations do not require privacy, you can use much more accessible data center proxies.
Basing business decisions on factual and verifiable data is called Data driven decision makingand numerous studies show its benefits.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best channels for driving organic traffic to your website.
To rank well, you need to optimize your content with relevant keywords, which is what SEO experts do. Also, using keywords that are specific to specific geographic locations is critical because they have significantly different volumes. This is where proxies come to the rescue.
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You can connect to a proxy server in the selected country to browse the Internet as if you were there. You can check what people are searching on Google and what phrases they are using and include them on your website. Google will notice that your page responds to certain queries and offer it to web users.
Finally, you can combine web scraping and SEO. You can target your competitors to extract their keywords and change your proxy SEO strategy accordingly. In the current state of e-commerce, almost all businesses track competitor keywords, which makes proxies an extremely popular technology.
Access to data around the world
The Internet is divided into regions with different access rights. For example, some US websites are not available to European users due to GDPR laws. Sometimes it restricts access to important information such as prices, product release dates, user reviews, etc.
You can bypass geographic restrictions by connecting to a proxy in another country. To collect SEO keywords, you will get a local IP address and websites will think you are nearby. People also use proxies extensively to unblock more streaming content like Netflix or HBO’s worldwide libraries if you need some downtime after a hard day’s work.
There are other proxies use casessuch as corporate network security, website access control, data caching, etc. However, we have identified the three most important practices for business growth. It takes some time to master proxy servers, but once you do, you will improve several key business operations.