Skyscraper Technique

The Skyscraper Technique is a link-building strategy popularized by Brian Dean of Backlinko. It’s based on the idea of finding the best-performing content for a specific keyword, creating something even better, and then reaching out to relevant websites and bloggers to promote your superior content.

In essence, the Skyscraper Technique involves three key steps:

1. Find: Identify content that is already ranking well and attracting backlinks for your target keyword.
2. Create: Create a piece of content that surpasses the existing content in terms of quality, depth, design, and overall value.
3. Promote: Reach out to websites and individuals who have linked to the original content and suggest that they link to your improved version instead.

How the Skyscraper Technique Works

1. Content Identification & Analysis

• Keyword Research: Start by identifying relevant keywords related to your industry and target audience. Use keyword research tools to find keywords with a high search volume and a reasonable level of competition.
• Content Exploration: Use search engines to find the top-ranking content for your chosen keywords. Look for blog posts, articles, infographics, videos, or any other type of content that has earned a significant number of backlinks.
• Competitor Analysis: Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the existing content. Consider factors such as content length, depth of information, readability, design, and visual appeal.

2. Content Creation & Optimization

• Create a Better Version: Your goal is to create a piece of content that is demonstrably superior to the existing content. This could involve expanding on the topic, adding more in-depth information, creating better visuals, improving readability, or offering a unique perspective.
• Optimize for User Experience: Ensure your content is well-structured, easy to navigate, and visually appealing. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and images to break up large chunks of text and make it more digestible.
• Optimize for Search Engines: Implement on-page SEO best practices to ensure your content ranks well in search results. This includes optimizing your title tag, meta description, headings, and content for your target keywords.

3. Content Promotion & Outreach

• Identify Backlink Opportunities: Find websites and individuals who have linked to the original content you analyzed in step one. These are potential targets for your outreach efforts.
• Craft Personalized Outreach Messages: Reach out to these websites and individuals via email or social media. Explain why your content is better than the original and suggest that they link to it.
• Build Relationships: Focus on building genuine relationships with webmasters and bloggers. Offer them value, engage with their content, and participate in their communities.

Benefits of the Skyscraper Technique

• High-Quality Backlinks: The Skyscraper Technique can help you earn high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in your niche.
• Increased Organic Traffic: These backlinks can boost your website’s domain authority and improve your search engine rankings, leading to increased organic traffic.
• Brand Awareness & Exposure: By promoting your content to relevant websites and individuals, you can raise awareness of your brand and gain exposure to a wider audience.
• Content Improvement & Optimization: The process of analyzing and surpassing existing content can help you improve your own content creation and optimization skills.

Challenges & Considerations

• Content Creation Costs: Creating high-quality, comprehensive content can be time-consuming and expensive.
• Outreach Effectiveness: Not all outreach efforts will be successful. Some websites may not be interested in linking to your content, even if it is superior.
• Content Uniqueness: It’s important to ensure your content is truly unique and offers something new. Simply rehashing existing content will not be effective.
• Ethical Considerations: Avoid plagiarizing or copying existing content. Focus on creating original, high-quality content that adds value to your audience.

Measuring Results

It’s crucial to track the results of your Skyscraper Technique campaigns to assess their effectiveness. Monitor your website’s website analytics and reporting to track changes in:

• Backlinks: Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to track the number and quality of backlinks your content earns.
• Organic Traffic: Monitor your website’s organic traffic using Google Analytics.
• Search Engine Rankings: Track your website’s rankings for your target keywords.
• Referral Traffic: See how much traffic you’re getting from the websites you’ve reached out to.
• Social Media Shares: Track how many times your content is shared on social media platforms.

Related Glossary Terms

• Link Building
• Content Marketing
• Domain Authority

By understanding and implementing the Skyscraper Technique effectively, you can significantly boost your website’s link profile, improve its search engine visibility, and drive more organic traffic to your site.