Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Web Research Coordinator

🎯 Role Definition

The Web Research Coordinator is responsible for planning, executing, and delivering high-quality internet-based research to support business strategy, product development, competitive intelligence, marketing, and stakeholder decision-making. This role combines advanced web search techniques, data validation, synthesis of findings into actionable insights, and cross-functional collaboration. Ideal candidates are detail-oriented researchers with strong technical skills in online data collection, familiarity with research tools and databases, and excellent written communication to present findings clearly.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior Research Analyst or Market Research Assistant
Digital Marketing Coordinator or Content Researcher
Administrative or Data Entry roles with strong internet research exposure

Advancement To:

Senior Web Research Analyst / Competitive Intelligence Analyst
Market Research Manager or Insights Manager
Digital Intelligence Lead or Research Operations Manager

Lateral Moves:

SEO Specialist or Digital Marketing Analyst
Business Analyst (market/strategy-focused)
Product Analyst (user and market research focus)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Conduct systematic online research to identify, collect, and synthesize data on companies, industries, competitors, market trends, regulatory changes, and emerging technologies using advanced search strategies, industry databases, and social media intelligence tools.
Design and execute research plans and protocols for ad-hoc and recurring projects, defining objectives, information sources, data collection methods, and deliverables while ensuring reproducibility and transparency of research steps.
Perform advanced search queries using Boolean operators, site-specific searches, X-ray searches, and search engine operators to uncover hard-to-find information across websites, forums, public records, and deep web sources.
Extract, scrub, and normalize data from diverse web sources (web pages, PDFs, social posts, news feeds) using manual methods and lightweight automation (web scraping scripts, browser extensions) while ensuring data quality and compliance with terms of use.
Curate and maintain structured research databases, spreadsheets, and CRM entries with standardized taxonomy, metadata, and version control to enable easy retrieval, reporting, and longitudinal analysis.
Produce concise, well-structured research reports, briefings, and dashboards that translate raw web data into actionable insights, recommendations, and prioritized next steps for stakeholders and leadership.
Monitor news, blogs, social media channels, regulatory filings, and industry publications to maintain real-time awareness of events and signals that impact business strategy, and generate timely alerts and intelligence summaries.
Validate and triangulate information using multiple independent sources to confirm accuracy, flag discrepancies, and document provenance and confidence levels for sensitive or disputed findings.
Coordinate with internal teams (product, sales, marketing, legal) to scope research requests, set timelines, tailor outputs to stakeholder needs, and incorporate feedback into iterative research cycles.
Manage subscription tools and research platforms (e.g., LexisNexis, Factiva, Bloomberg, SEMrush, SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, LinkedIn Sales Navigator) including user access, query optimization, and cost-effective usage tracking.
Develop and maintain templates, playbooks, SOPs, and knowledge bases for recurring research tasks to improve efficiency, consistency, and onboarding of new researchers.
Conduct competitor landscape mapping, market sizing estimates, and feature benchmarking exercises with clear methodology, data sources, and assumptions documented for reproducibility.
Build and maintain dashboard visualizations (Google Data Studio, Tableau, or Excel) to surface KPIs, trend lines, and comparative metrics derived from web research for weekly, monthly, and quarterly reporting.
Execute contact discovery and enrichment workflows for lead lists, including verification of company details, titles, emails, and social profiles, and handoff to sales or outreach teams with quality assurance.
Support compliance and privacy requirements by applying data handling best practices, anonymization where required, and coordinating with legal/compliance teams when research involves regulated sectors or personal data.
Perform competitive ad and marketing intelligence by capturing creative assets, landing pages, ad copy, and tracking campaigns to inform marketing strategy and A/B testing hypotheses.
Maintain a prioritized research backlog, estimate effort for requests, and use basic project management techniques to ensure timely delivery of high-impact research tasks.
Facilitate workshops and cross-functional working sessions to share findings, surface research needs, and align on strategic priorities informed by web intelligence.
Conduct quality assurance reviews of research outputs, provide coaching and feedback to junior researchers, and implement continuous improvement practices for accuracy and efficiency.
Track and report on research metrics (turnaround time, accuracy rate, coverage, tool ROI) to measure team performance and inform resource allocation decisions.
Aggregate and summarize technical documentation, developer community discussions, open-source project activity, and software release notes to support product and engineering planning.
Identify and pilot new web research tools, APIs, and automation opportunities (e.g., public APIs, scraping frameworks, NLP extraction tools) to expand capabilities and reduce manual effort.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to answer tactical business questions and validate hypotheses using web-derived datasets.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by recommending tools, taxonomy standards, and documentation practices that scale research operations.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering or automation requirements and prioritize integration of web-sourced data into internal systems.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within cross-functional teams to ensure research tasks are scoped and aligned with product and marketing initiatives.
Assist in vendor evaluation and management for outsourced research tasks, ensuring SLAs, data quality, and contractual compliance.
Provide subject-matter research support for executive briefings, investor materials, and strategic planning sessions.
Maintain archival records of research queries, saved searches, and data snapshots to support auditability and retrospective analyses.
Train and mentor interns and new hires on best practices for ethical web research, source validation, and data documentation.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expert-level web research and open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques including advanced Google search, Boolean logic, X-ray searches, and site-specific queries.
Proficiency with research and intelligence tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator, SEMrush, Ahrefs, SimilarWeb, Crunchbase, PitchBook, Factiva, and Wayback Machine.
Hands-on experience with data collection tools and lightweight scraping (e.g., Python with BeautifulSoup/Requests, Scrapy, Octoparse, ParseHub) or browser automation (Selenium), with an emphasis on responsible scraping practices.
Strong spreadsheet modeling and data-cleaning skills in Excel and Google Sheets (VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables, data validation, scripting/macros).
Familiarity with databases and query languages (basic SQL) for pulling and joining web-derived datasets.
Experience with CRM systems (Salesforce, HubSpot) and import/enrichment workflows for research outputs.
Competence in data visualization and reporting tools (Tableau, Power BI, Google Data Studio, or advanced Excel) to create dashboards and executive summaries.
Knowledge of APIs and experience integrating or consuming public APIs for programmatic data access.
Understanding of SEO, digital marketing metrics, and ad intelligence to interpret web traffic, backlink profiles, and paid media activity.
Experience documenting methodologies, creating SOPs, and managing a knowledge base or research repository.
Familiarity with citation and reference tools (Zotero, Mendeley) and standards for documenting sources and provenance.
Basic scripting or automation skills (Python, JavaScript, or Google Apps Script) to automate repetitive research tasks is a plus.

Soft Skills

Exceptional attention to detail and accuracy when validating and synthesizing online information.
Strong written communication skills to produce clear, concise, and well-structured research reports for technical and non-technical audiences.
Critical thinking and analytical judgment to assess source credibility, identify information gaps, and make recommendations under uncertainty.
Project management and prioritization skills to manage multiple requests, deadlines, and stakeholder expectations.
Proactive curiosity and intellectual curiosity for continuous learning and adapting to new tools and domains.
Collaborative mindset and stakeholder management skills to translate business needs into research outputs and incorporate feedback.
High ethical standards and respect for privacy, data protection, and legal constraints when conducting web research.
Adaptability and problem-solving orientation to iterate on research approaches when initial sources are insufficient.
Time management and self-organization, with the ability to work independently and escalate issues when needed.
Mentoring and training capability to onboard and upskill junior researchers and interns.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline such as Information Science, Library Science, Business, Marketing, Economics, Political Science, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Market Research, Information Management, Business Analytics, Library & Information Science (MLIS), or equivalent advanced study.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Information Science / Library & Information Studies
Market Research / Marketing / Digital Marketing
Business Administration / Economics
Data Analytics / Statistics
Political Science / International Relations (for intelligence-focused roles)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2 to 5+ years of professional experience in web research, market research, competitive intelligence, or related roles.

Preferred:

3+ years of hands-on web research experience with a proven track record delivering insights to product, sales, or strategy teams.
Demonstrated experience using research platforms (e.g., SEMrush, SimilarWeb, Factiva) and basic scripting or automation to scale research processes.
Experience managing or contributing to knowledge bases, SOPs, or research playbooks; experience supervising or mentoring junior researchers is a plus.