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Mastering the Skyscraper SEO Technique

By the Rhino Rank team
25th Dec 2023

Imagine being able to dominate the search engine results and attract high-quality backlinks by simply improving existing content. The Skyscraper SEO Technique, introduced by Brian Dean of Backlinko, is an innovative link building strategy that has revolutionized the world of SEO.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the development and benefits of the SEO Skyscraper Technique, and how to implement this link building method into your existing marketing strategy. Get ready to watch your organic traffic soar!

Key Takeaways

  • The Skyscraper SEO Technique is a three-step content marketing strategy that involves analyzing and enhancing existing high-performing content to increase online visibility and authority.
  • Select the right target keywords, optimize your outreach efforts, and be consistent with your approach when implementing the Skyscraper Technique for successful SEO campaigns.
  • When implemented correctly, the Skyscraper Technique has the potential to attract quality backlinks, increase organic traffic, and improve search engine rankings.

Understanding The Skyscraper SEO Technique?

What is the skyscraper technique

Invented by Brian Dean in 2016, the Skyscraper Technique is a method of link building that takes advantage of human nature and content marketing in order to secure high quality backlinks. The technique capitalizes on the concept that people are more likely to be attracted to, and subsequently promote, content that consistently ranks higher than the competition.

What is the Skyscraper Technique?

The Skyscraper Technique is a three-step approach to link building that begins with uncovering successful content in your niche. This content will typically rank at the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) and will already have gained a substantial amount of authoritative inbound links. Examining these high ranking content pieces can provide insights into your target audiences’ online preferences.

Once the initial keyword research and content review are complete, it’s time to update your existing blog post or create content that is longer and more detailed than the initial piece. By making sure your content is relevant, up-to-date, visually appealing, and offers the reader even more value than the original piece, you can improve your chances of gaining quality backlinks, all while boosting your website’s current rankings with search engines.

Why Use the Skyscraper Technique?

The Skyscraper Technique rose in popularity due to being extremely easy to implement. In addition, the initial results were undeniable. With Google continuously favoring content that benefits the reader and their online journey, by creating content that is more informative and engaging, website owners can boost their site’s domain authority and ultimately outrank the original piece of content.

In addition, this technique also allows businesses to target industry-specific keywords that have large search volumes and low keyword difficulty scores. This enables them to easily draw more website visitors by creating content that is appealing across multiple platforms for better rankings on SERPs.

On top of this competitive advantage, this technique can create new networking opportunities and improve online credibility by obtaining endorsements and inbound links from industry influencers.

 

Implementing the Skyscraper SEO Technique: A Step-by-Step Approach

The Skyscraper Technique is a viable strategy for improving search engine rankings and boosting organic traffic. The three-step approach listed below involves finding high-quality content, optimizing it so it surpasses competitors, and actively promoting the new content to secure valuable backlinks. While it demands effort and persistence, the long-term rewards make it an attractive option for any link builder or content marketer.

Step 1: Discover High-Performing Content

The initial phase of the Skyscraper Technique involves finding the right keyword that you want to center your content around. The trick here is to identify a niche-specific keyword that has a high search volume, as that indicates that there is high traffic potential.

Now that the target keyword has been chosen, it’s time to analyze what content is already ranking for that keyword. Tools such as Majestic, Ahrefs and Semrush can be used to quickly identify top ranking pages. By analyzing these pages’ search volume, competition, and related keywords, you can gain valuable insights into why these pages attract both searchers and search engines. This information can then be used to create relevant content that offers more value to the end user, increasing the likelihood of earning quality links which improves the website’s rank on various search results pages.

Keep in mind that there are no shortcuts with this technique. Proper competitor research needs to be done before implementation begins.

Step 2: Enhance and Optimize the Content

Once you’ve identified the content that performs best, the next step is to optimize and improve it. For this, it’s important to focus on:

  • Length: Content of greater length often attracts more backlinks, as it provides more detail and greater value to the target audience.
  • Depth: Content should be as detailed and informative as possible, as this will ultimately benefit user experience and better match the initial search intent.
  • Design: Create appealing visuals and infographics that capture the reader’s attention and are easy to read and navigate quickly.
  • Keeping Updated: Regularly update content to include the latest information and current trends, as this ensures accuracy and boosts credibility.

Improving these features in the existing content can lead to increased engagement, such as the content being liked and re-shared on social media channels. Staying current and discussing trending topics is also crucial; outdated content and broken links can harm credibility, damage online reputation, and negatively impact ranking positions via search engines like Google and Bing.

Step 3: Promote and Build Links

For the final step of the Skyscraper Technique, link builders must promote their upgraded content in order to build links and attract their target audience. By using SEO tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, you can quickly identify which websites are linking to the original content you are trying to surpass.

When sending outreach emails, it is essential to personalize them. This will not only increase the open and response rate, but it will also allow you to highlight the value your content has and explain how linking their site to yours would be mutually beneficial. Keep emails short and to the point, while also maintaining a friendly and professional tone.

High quality backlinks achieved through successful email campaigns will ultimately boost your search engine ranking and result in increased organic traffic flow on your site.

Overcoming Common Challenges in the Skyscraper SEO Technique

When utilizing a link building strategy like the Skyscraper Technique, it’s crucial to acknowledge and address specific challenges that could hinder success. From selecting the best keywords to target to correctly personalizing outreach emails, these challenges can derail even the most well-thought-out link building plans.

However, with determination and knowledge of how to handle such challenges, you can execute a powerful Skyscraper link building strategy that can significantly increase your chances of growing your website’s search engine rankings and organic traffic numbers.

Selecting the Right Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is essential to making sure you reach your intended demographic and create content that is relevant and valuable. When choosing terms for your Skyscraper Method, it’s important to consider variables like search volume, keyword difficulty, and related search phrases. Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush and Rank Tracker can be used to determine which words will generate the best results within your chosen niche.

Equally important is selecting the right competitor website. If you find that the website that ranks number one on Google for your target keyword has a much higher domain authority and well-established backlink portfolio, it will make it much more difficult to outrank them – even if your content is better. Therefore, it’s essential to conduct thorough keyword and competitor research to ensure your link building efforts are successful.

Personalizing Outreach Emails

To maximize your success with the Skyscraper Technique, it is vital to personalize every one of your outreach emails. Generic messages are less likely to produce a response compared to individualized communications that demonstrate a genuine understanding of who the webmaster is and the type of content they produce and promote.

When sending out inquiries, make sure each email is individually addressed to the person you are sending it to. Where appropriate, it can also be a good idea to include relevant details about their website, such as URLs to blog posts you’ve read and information about what they post on social media platforms. Also, when reaching out, explain how your piece of work stands out from any existing content and the benefits this could bring to their website if they were to link to it.

Maintaining Consistent Effort

For successful long-term results with the Skyscraper Technique, maintaining constant effort is essential. This means ongoing dedication to generating quality content and accumulating backlinks – it’s not just a matter of doing it once.

To make sure you reach your goals, here are some steps you can follow:

  1. Regularly revise and update your content to ensure it is accurate, remains up-to-date with recent trends, and that people find relevance in what they read.
  2. Proactively seek connections within your industry, reaching out to influencers and website owners who promote e that is similar to your own.
  3. Using an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics, track the organic traffic generated by your updated content and make the necessary SEO adjustments as needed.
  4. Maintain your outreach efforts in order to strengthen your existing relationships and develop new connections with leaders in your industry.

By following these steps, you can ensure your link building efforts stand the test of time and deliver long-lasting results. Achieve stable placements near the top of the search results and watch your website’s organic traffic skyrocket!

Tools and Resources for the Skyscraper SEO Technique

In order to effectively utilize the Skyscraper Technique, website owners should utilize a variety of SEO tools and resources. These tools enable you to quickly identify effective content, enhance existing website content, and find new promotion opportunities for the purpose of obtaining high-grade inbound links.

Below, we have listed three types of SEO tools that you can use to significantly improve your Skyscraper link building efforts. These tools not only make creating content and attracting high quality links a breeze but they can also be used to improve and streamline your other SEO campaigns.

Keyword Research Tools

When using the Skyscraper Technique, target keyword research tools are invaluable in helping you identify effective content and keywords to target. Ahrefs, Semrush and Rank Tracker can all be used to identify high-performing keywords by checking a term’s search volume, competition levels as well as related keywords pertaining to your chosen niche.

These SEO tools allow website owners to identify key terms with a high value, allowing them to boost their site’s search engine rankings, organic traffic numbers, and overall domain authority. By utilizing varied and broad keyword matches, they can ensure their content matches their audience’s original search phrases.

Content Creation Tools

Content creation tools are an essential way of elevating and optimizing your content to ensure it ranks higher and delivers tangible SEO results. Applications like Moz, BuzzSumo, and Content At Scale can help you research, draft, and optimize website content so that it not only stands out from the competition but is also captivating for readers.

These SEO tools make creating fresh content and optimizing existing content quick and easy. Allowing site owners to publish and promote high-quality content that attracts valuable backlinks and improves search engine rankings.

Outreach and Promotion Tools

In order to maximize the potential of link building and acquire high quality backlinks, outreach tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, BuzzStream, and Mailshake can be utilized. By utilizing an email outreach tool, website owners can effortlessly identify relevant prospects, manage contact information, and track outreach campaigns.

These are helpful for finding relevant prospects with their contact information as well as tracking campaigns for continuous improvements in your strategy over time. By using these marketing resources carefully tailored emails along with content promotion should contribute greatly towards achieving successful outcomes from Skyscraper Technique endeavors.

By incorporating these three types of SEO tools into your Skyscraper link building strategy, you can enhance the efficiency of your digital marketing campaigns, acquire top-tier backlinks from authoritative websites, and improve your site’s overall SEO performance.

Skyscraper SEO Technique Success Stories

Two companies have managed to capitalize on the Skyscraper Technique for successful link building strategies. Through this approach, they were able to gain high-quality backlinks which led to a boost in organic traffic and their rankings in search engine results. To demonstrate how effective this tactic can be, let’s explore their success stories and get a better understanding of how the Skyscraper Technique and improve both SEO performance as well as achieve better link building outcomes.

Case Study 1: Backlinko’s 652% Traffic Boost

 Backlinko - skyscraper technique case study

Founded by SEO expert Brian Dean, Backlinko applied the Skyscraper Technique and achieved a remarkable 652% growth in organic traffic within just seven days! The key to their success was identifying and understanding user intent and making the new content as user friendly as possible.

The success Backlinko achieved by using the Skyscraper Technique illustrates how valuable its implementation can be in improving SERP visibility, increasing website visits through enhanced traffic metrics, and creating engaging content that attracts good quality backlinks,

Case Study 2: AuthorityHacker’s 4,306 Backlink Growth

AuthorityHacker - skyscraper technique case study

AuthorityHacker was able to gain an impressive number of backlinks over a three-year period thanks to implementing the Skyscraper Technique. Their strategy involved targeting websites with high domain authority and traffic levels, creating content that surpassed existing materials, and sending out a large number of semi-personalized cold emails in order to secure backlinks to their website. This approach resulted in over 4,000 high-quality links from authoritative sources and significant organic traffic growth.

This success story proves just how effective the Skyscraper Technique can be when it comes to generating relevant connections and boosting online visibility on a large-scale basis.

Summary

Brian Dean’s introduction of the Skyscraper Technique has changed SEO and link building strategies forever. Taking top-performing content, optimizing it to enhance its quality, and using effective promotion tactics to gain high-caliber backlinks can benefit your business by increasing organic traffic as well as improving search engine rankings in the long run. With adequate tools coupled with a diligent work ethic, you will be able to leverage this technique for a dominating presence on SERPs while achieving desired outcomes such as high quality backlinks and more potential customers landing on your website.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the SEO skyscraper technique?

The SEO Skyscraper Technique is a link building strategy that involves identifying content that ranks well for your target keywords and has a lot of backlinks, creating a better version of the content for your website, and incentivizing third-party websites to link to your content instead.

How do you make skyscraper content?

Once you have identified content that sits at the top of the search results pages for your target keywords and has a strong backlink profile, you will want to create an improved version of that content. Make sure the content is in-depth, relevant and provides greater benefit to the end reader. This content should then be published on your websites, promoted on your social media accounts, and linked to other authoritative websites.

Does the skyscraper link building strategy work?

Yes, when executed correctly, the Skyscraper Technique is an effective link building strategy that improves the SEO rankings of a website by boosting its credibility and increasing referral traffic through new backlinks.

What is the reverse skyscraper technique?

The reverse Skyscraper Technique is a content marketing strategy that involves optimizing existing content that has failed to rank well on Google, generate backlinks and attract organic search traffic. Unlike the traditional Skyscraper Technique, which focuses on creating superior content from scratch, the reverse approach revolves around enhancing content that already exists and is underperforming.

Are there any specific tools recommended for implementing the Skyscraper Technique?

We recommend using SEO tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush to execute the Skyscraper Technique. Both of these tools can be used to carry out target keyword research, create high quality content and perform outreach activities.