Just starting out and trying to boost your website’s visibility? It can feel pretty overwhelming, especially when you see top-ranked pages packed with great content from savvy marketers. How are you supposed to compete?
One effective strategy is the Skyscraper Technique, which focuses on creating content that’s so good it earns backlinks. The key is to get the details right—understand what your audience is searching for, run a solid outreach campaign to get those links, and set realistic goals.
While this method can be hit-or-miss and sometimes seems to fail, there are steps you can take to make sure you’re using it effectively.
What is the Skyscraper Technique?
Though the Skyscraper Technique has been around for a while, Brian Dean gave it its name in a 2016 article. He broke it down into three steps:
- Find content that’s worth linking to.
- Create something even better.
- Reach out to the right people.
These steps are solid, and we use them effectively ourselves. The problem often comes from misinterpreting the steps: sometimes the message gets lost between Dean and the reader, whether they’re a writer, marketer, or SEO specialist.
So, before diving into how to use the Skyscraper Technique to create content that ranks well, it’s useful to understand how not to misinterpret these three steps.
Ways the Skyscraper Technique Can Fail
We’ve put together a list of the top eight mistakes people make when using the Skyscraper Technique. Check this list to see if there’s a step you might be missing. We’ll dive into each one in detail:
- Skipping keyword research
- Expecting every piece of content to go viral
- Treating all search intent as the same
- Assuming that longer content is always better
- Sacrificing user experience for extra content
- Trying to compete in areas beyond your expertise
- Ignoring the advantage of being a well-known authority
- Reaching out only to the people who linked to your competitors
We’ll explore each of these in depth to help you avoid these pitfalls and make the most of the Skyscraper Technique.
Mistake No. 1: Not researching keywords
Brian Dean’s explanation of the Skyscraper Technique leaves out some important details, like the importance of keyword research.
He tells you to find content worth linking to, which is definitely important, but it’s not the whole picture. Without keyword research, you might end up with a lot of links to content that doesn’t actually drive any traffic. Even if the content wasn’t intended to attract tons of visitors, it’s still crucial to make that distinction.
For example, you might come across a page with plenty of backlinks but little traffic and poor search visibility.
The post is obviously helpful to a specific audience, however it is badly optimized and doesn’t target any keywords with a high search volume. It might be significant to a limited number of individuals, but if the webmaster had done some preliminary research to identify relevant keywords, it probably would have attracted more visitors.
Mistake No. 2: Expecting every piece of content to be a runaway hit
Many of Dean’s content items don’t appear on the first pages of search results:
He definitely has a lot of pages with barely any traffic.
But he didn’t give up.
The key to making this work is consistently creating great content. A lot of people try this approach once and expect immediate results, but they don’t realize that SEO is a gradual process. Regularly using smart SEO techniques will slowly improve all your website’s content. Success doesn’t come overnight, so be patient.
Here’s how it works: A top-notch piece of content might get 20 links, which can then help boost another great article that gets five links, and so on. By applying the Skyscraper Technique to your content over the next six months to a year (and then continuing for even longer), all your posts will gradually climb in rankings.
It’s like the saying, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Good SEO practices can help lift all your content over time. So, hang in there and trust the process.
Also Read: Why Skyscraper Content Fails for You
Mistake No. 3: Thinking all search intent is created equal
When creating content, especially for skyscraper projects, it’s crucial to understand what people are really searching for.
Sometimes, in the rush to outdo competitors, we forget to focus on what the searcher actually needs. This can lead to creating great content that misses the mark and ends up wasting time and effort because it’s not answering the right questions or reaching the right audience.
This happens because common search terms can have different meanings. So, it’s important to understand whether searches are looking for something to buy (transactional) or just looking for information (informational).
For example, if you search for “accounting services,” you might get different results depending on your needs. You could see informational results if you’re looking to learn what an accountant does, or transactional results if you’re trying to find an accountant to handle your taxes. So, it’s important to understand your audience and check what pages are already ranking before you dive in.
It’s often a good idea to use the Skyscraper Technique on a more specific, detailed topic related to what your audience is looking for. Instead of competing for a broad, competitive term, focus on creating content about that narrower subtopic.
Mistake No. 4: Thinking longer is always better
Dean and Neil Patel have long promoted the idea that longer posts rank better, and we’ve seen success with this approach for our clients. But here’s the thing: longer doesn’t always mean better.
“Bigger DOES NOT equal better,” as we learned the hard way last year.
We tried to beat Backlinko’s article on the top 200 SEO tools by creating a list with around 100 additional tools, each with a brief summary. It sounded great in theory—a one-stop shop for SEO tools that would dominate the web. But in practice, the content became a confusing mess, and readers quickly lost interest. The huge blocks of text made them click away, which hurt our engagement metrics.
A smarter approach would have been to break the list into smaller, more manageable posts. For example, we could have focused on the top 10 tools for different user groups or ranked the top 50 tools and updated the list regularly. Sharing these updates on social media could also help keep the content fresh and engaging.
The key takeaway is this: copying what works for others doesn’t guarantee your post will rank well. You might miss out on factors that made their content successful, like:
- Their long history of user engagement
- Their domain’s established authority
- Your own domain authority might not be on par with theirs.
Mistake No. 5: Sacrificing user experience for extra content
It’s a common belief that posting more content—whether it’s extra words, images, or boxes—will boost your rankings. But the truth is, focusing on usability and user experience is far more important. Your main goal should always be to make things easy and enjoyable for your readers.
Think about how users will interact with your content and aim to create an engaging experience. Google values user experience factors, like how long people stay on your page. So, instead of just piling on content, make sure it’s well-organized and user-friendly.
A shorter, well-crafted article that offers a valuable free resource can be just as effective as a lengthy, keyword-stuffed Wikipedia page. If you make it easy for users to find what they need and engage with your content—whether it’s by sharing, linking, or taking other actions—you’ll naturally boost its visibility.
Mistake No. 6: Punching outside your weight class
“If you’re targeting highly competitive keywords and going up against the top sites on the web, your site might not be ready, no matter how great your content is.”
This doesn’t mean you should give up on ranking for popular keywords, but it might not be worth your time and money to compete head-to-head right away. Instead of focusing on a tough term like “CRM,” you might have better luck with less competitive phrases like “HubSpot vs. Salesforce.”
In short, pick your battles wisely. It’s often more effective to rank well for several less competitive but relevant terms than to struggle with a single, highly competitive keyword.
So, invest a lot of time in smart keyword research. This will give you the confidence to gradually tackle more competitive terms. Even with top-notch content, jumping into high-stakes keywords too soon could lead to disappointing results.
Mistake No. 7: Failing to account for the lift that comes from being a recognized authority
“Building a strong reputation as an industry authority has huge benefits. If you’re someone like Neil Patel or Brian Dean, their extensive experience and countless blog posts give them a major edge. They can easily rank high for almost any keyword because of their established authority.
It might seem like the game is already won for them, but if you’re just starting out, you’ll need to work hard to build up your own authority.
An online resource linked to a well-known expert’s site gets a boost from their years of experience and a strong personal brand. Search engines trust these sites because they’ve consistently delivered great content and held users’ attention over time.
At first, it might feel like an uphill battle, especially when competing against such big names. But whether you’re using the Skyscraper Technique or not, the key is to focus on creating top-notch content and making sure as many people as possible see it.”
Mistake No. 8: Extending outreach only toward the folks who linked to the pages you’re trying to beat
“If you’re reaching out to 300 of your competitors’ pages, which have a total of 300 links, and you get 30 links in return, that’s actually a great result. A 10% success rate is impressive. But, it might not be enough to knock the top-ranking page off its pedestal.
Here’s where the 80/20 rule comes in handy: Spend about 20% of your time creating great content and the other 80% on building a detailed list of potential sites to contact.
So, if you start with 6,000 potential sites to reach out to, aim for a conservative 5% success rate. That means you’ll need to get creative with your outreach and target as many relevant sites as you can. Make a list of everyone who might be interested and reach out to each one individually.
Think of it like sales—having a success rate in the mid-to-high single digits is actually pretty good. Learning the best outreach techniques can really pay off, just like in sales. You can find lots of email templates online, but be sure to tweak them to match your style.
With ongoing testing and optimization, you could improve your conversion rate to closer to 10%. Just imagine the impact of a post with 600 backlinks! Ready to dive in? Let’s go!”
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