What is Skyscraper Link Building Technique in SEO
We all know, it’s frustrating that you don’t get results even after spending a lot of time in content creation. To increase traffic most of the advice we get is to create a blog with great content, share on social media, leave comments, etc, etc.
So if you are blogging for a while, you would know that this thing won’t work. As the advice is not specific and it is not proven that it will surely bring you results. So what should we do instead of it?
You have to find more creative ways to promote your content and to build high-quality backlinks to increase overall website traffic. Some of the advice you get worked two years ago but this won’t work now.
There are millions of blogs getting published every single day. It’s almost impossible to get exposure to your blog. Until you have a major online reputation. If you don’t promote your content well you won’t get benefit from your content.
One of the SEO strategies you heard about to increase the traffic is the Skyscraper link building technique. You may have heard about this technique but didn’t use it till then it’s time to give it a try. For any new or old content use this technique to increase search traffic.
What is The Skyscraper Technique?
The Skyscraper technique is created by Backlinko’s Brian Dean. It is a technique for turning your content into high-quality backlinks for your website.
The skyscraper technique is all about finding popular content and then creating it in an even better copy. From it get backlinks both naturally and reaching out to the right people.
That’s how the skyscraper technique became popular – just take the highest existing building, add a few more floors and become the tallest skyscraper and there you go! Everyone will start talking and writing about you.
By researching link-worthy content, updating that content with interesting facts and statistics or with better design and then providing an abundance of time to email outreach, Brian Dean grew his website by 110 percent with this approach.
Benefits of Skyscraper Techniques
If you are wondering why the skyscraper technique is so effective then here are few benefits of it. The skyscraper techniques help you in
- Building high-quality content which is very useful for readers
- Increase overall high-quality backlinks which is an important aspect of SEO
- Increase social sharing of your content
- Enhance website authority
- Get blog exposure
- Increase overall website traffic from search engines
- It can build a very strong relationship with bloggers
Overall this skyscraping technique allows you to boost your SERP ranking. And that’s what we all want to build any profitable sites. So get this link building strategy and you will benefit from your desirable results.
Guide to Use the Skyscraper Technique
The skyscraper technique is used in three simple steps to create content that performs exceptionally well.
- Find Link-worthy content in your niche
- Create a better version
- Reach out to the correct people
Step 1 – Find Link-worthy Content in Your Niche
The first step in the Skyscraper technique is to find relevant content with too many backlinks in your particular niche. You can also say that you have to find a linkable asset first. Linkable assets are content which is so awesome, so useful and so incredible that people can’t resist adding a link to your site.
If any article, video or infographics are performing well in your industry then it means it has huge potential to attract thousands of more visitors. Find out those viral content to redesign them for the next step.
So how do you find those sharable and link-worthy content? What you have to do for it? Here is some list of SEO toolbox which will help you with it.
Buzzsumo
After knowing your key phrases, you will have to search those on buzzsumo too. If you are not knowing about your key phrases you can simply find them by searching on Google or with any keyword research tools.
Buzzsumo will help you to analyze the content which performs better for any topic. Add your keyword into buzz sumo and you will get plenty of content results that get more social shares and highly engageable.
Moz
Moz will help you to find top pages with more links to your competitor sites. With Moz open site explorer you can do a link analysis of your competitors. Use link building tools to analyze better content.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs content explorer is a searchable database for millions of pages. Use this for finding link-worthy content for your keyword.
Though we are finding pages with lots of backlinks, we can use referring domain filters for ease. We can also filter language to get only the pages in the targeted language.
Step 2 – Create a Better Version
Now, with having popular topic ideas about your niche the second step in the skyscraper technique is to make the content more creative for better results.
Creating epic content is the key component to get outstanding results. If readers are not completely affected by your content then you are not getting good results with the skyscraper technique.
Having great content readers will be urged to share your content maximum on various mediums. It will also allow other bloggers to add links to your content. Here are some tips to make your content better.
Make It Longer & Detailed
Buzzsumo and Moz had studied and shared links and reported that pages with more than 1000 words receive more shares and tend to rank better on search engines result in pages. Though backlino reported that pages with more than 1890 words rank on Google’s first page.
Make your content as long as possible without any mock stuff. The extra words you are going to add should not be only for the sake of increasing word count. Rather, cover the information which will set your article apart.
Work out and find what is missing. If some portions are not detailed, make them detailed as possible. Include everything which makes sense into your content ideas you have discovered.
Make Its Design Stand Out
Making your content visually appealing and different takes you to stand out from the crowd. To perform well add images, videos, and infographics into your content. Make sure whatever you are going to add must be witty, memorable and original.
Well explained content with lots of visual data attracts more share and more incoming links. So spend some quality time to add unique and attractive images into your content.
Make It Up-to-date
Nowadays content goes out of date quickly. If you find something with old information then update it with cutting edge content. Write something with up-to-date statistics and current trends.
Step 3 – Reach Out to The Correct People
Now with having the most viral content, it’s time to promote it to the right people. It is not worth doing all the work if you failed to promote your content.
Email outreach is the most important in this technique and its most effective revenue generation channel. But instead of emailing random people, target posts or content that already link to something similar to your content.
Focus on only those who have already linked to an article on that topic and are interested in your topic to add a link of yours.
To find those people head over to Buzzsumo and enter your keyword to find out similar content in your niche. Click on the “view backlinks” and you will get unique domains that are linked to your competitor article.
You can also use Ahrefs to find the details of the right people for your content. With Ahrefs, you can easily download the details in CSV or PDF form. Remove all unwanted pages such as forums or directories and target on this who will help you to get a link.
After having a list of targeted people’s email addresses, you can enlighten them about the piece of your content.
Write an effective email that gets a response. Start with a compelling subject line as it is the first thing everyone will see. Keep your emails short and sweet as people don’t have time for long and boring emails.
Here is a sample email example Brian Dean shared and get good results.
Hey [Name],
I was searching for some articles about [Your topic] and I came across this page: [URL]
I noticed that you linked to one of my favorite articles — [Article Title]
I just wanted to give you a heads up that I created a similar. It’s like [Name of the article], but more thorough and up to date: [URL]
It might be worth a mention on your page.
Either way, keep up the awesome work!
Cheers,
[Your name]
And here you go! After getting replies don’t forget to send a thank-you email. If they don’t respond to your first email then it’s your thing to follow them up with another email.
Follow up with another email after 5 to 6 days. This one always gives you good results. Monitor your backlinks, referring domains and keep your eyes on your traffic to check the result.
Conclusion
So now it’s your turn to put this skyscraper technique into practice. Follow the above three simple steps and generate revenue for your website. Implement this latest SEO technique and share your thoughts with us.
Bharat Mamtora is an online marketer, graphic designer, avid tech-savvy blogger. He is associated with the Digital Marketing Company. He loves to write about Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Optimization, New Marketing Tools, WordPress Development, and much more. Apart from writing, he loves reading books & meditation.