Understanding the Skyscraper Technique
The Skyscraper Technique is a content marketing strategy that was developed to help digital marketers gain high-quality backlinks and improve their SEO ranking. The strategy was developed by digital marketer Brian Dean in 2016 and has since been lauded for its effectiveness in helping businesses increase their online visibility. In short, the Skyscraper Technique is about finding popular content within an industry, creating a piece of content that is better, and then promoting that content to the right people.
The Process of the Skyscraper Technique
The Skyscraper Technique consists of three main components: research, creation, and outreach.
In the research phase, the objective is to find popular content or articles with high numbers of backlinks within your industry. There are various tools available online to help you with this, including Ahrefs and Buzzsumo. By first identifying what content is already out there and performing well, you can base your content creation efforts on proven topics.
Next, the creation phase involves using the information you found in your research to create an even better piece of content. This could mean creating a more detailed guide, expanding on certain points, including infographics or videos, or even updating outdated information. The key here is to improve on what is already out there. You want your content to offer something more, something valuable that people would want to link back to.
Finally, in the outreach phase, you promote your supercharged content to relevant people and websites who might find it interesting or useful. This includes reaching out to people and websites that linked to the original content you based your piece off of. The goal is to get them to switch their link to your higher-value, more informative piece, or to add a link on their own website.
Furthermore, promoting your content on social media platforms can increase its visibility and reach, making it more likely to earn backlinks and climb the SEO ranks.
Why the Skyscraper Technique Works
The beauty of the Skyscraper Technique is that it is based on tried-and-true content that has already proven successful, meaning you have a higher chance of producing content that resonates with your audience.
But even more than that, the Skyscraper Technique is about providing value. It’s about focusing on the needs and questions of your audience and delivering content that answers their questions and provides solutions to their problems.
High quality content naturally attracts backlinks, a critical component in SEO. The more backlinks a piece of content has from high-authority sites, the higher it will rank in search engine results.
The Skyscraper Technique is a clear demonstration that in content marketing, quality trumps quantity. Instead of producing multiple lower-value pieces, the Skyscraper Technique is about creating one superior piece of content with the aim of earning valuable backlinks.
It’s important to note that the Skyscraper Technique isn’t a quick win strategy. It requires significant effort and time to find suitable content to improve, craft your superior version and conduct your outreach campaign. There’s no guarantee of success, but when executed properly, the Skyscraper Technique can lead to significant improvements in SEO ranking, website traffic, and online visibility.
So the next time you’re planning out your content strategy, consider the Skyscraper Technique. While it does involve a good amount of effort and patience, the results you might achieve could very well be worth the initial investment.