Skyscraper is a backlinking technique that consists of getting websites that are pointing to a post of topic X with a link, to link instead to a content of yours of the same topic. It is called Skycraper, because your content must be the best of all. Now we tell you more.
what is the origin of the skycraper technique?
The Skyscraper technique was coined in 2015 by Brian Dean, on whose blog, called Backlinko, he taught White Hat SEO techniques to get backlinks.
In fact, Brian Dean himself conducted the experiment with his own content before coining this technique, which gave him great results, as it doubled the traffic to his website in 14 days.
how to perform the Skyscraper technique to improve SEO?
To carry out the skycraper technique correctly you must follow these steps:
- Analysis: First, search and find a post that has many inbound links. To find relevant content and find out how many inbound links they have, you will have to use professional tools such as SEMrush or Ahrefs, although you also have cheaper options such as Ubersuggest or Monitor Backlinks, which even offer you a 30-day trial to do your research.
- Creation: Next, prepare a post with the same topic that improves the original one. Once you have done your research and you have found a post that has many incoming links, it is time to try to unseat it from its privileged position and try to snatch as many links as possible.
- Contact Finally, write to the most authoritative websites that are linking to the original content to ask them to link to yours. Once you have located the websites you are going to contact, prepare a template text to send by email. In the email we recommend that you follow the following script:
-Introduce yourself properly.
-Tell us why you are getting in touch.
-Explain the reasons why your content is better.
-Share the link to your content.
-Make a specific request for them to use your link.
Tips when asking for a link
- Choose well who you are going to address: it is not the same to write directly to the CEO of a company as to an employee of its Marketing department, for example.
- Offer something of value: add something of value about your post in the body of the email that may attract the attention of the sender and encourage them to go to your post to check the information.
- Don't suck up: there is nothing less credible than exaggerated flattery and compliments when it comes to connecting with someone. Be friendly and cordial, but don't cross that line.
- Show that you know the sender: if you are going to contact a well-known entrepreneur, blogger or business person, make some reference in the email to something original that might surprise them, even about their personal side (a hobby or passion they have). If you do this in the subject line of the email, it will be very strange if they don't at least open it.
Problems of the skycraper
- Lack of authority: If you don't have a brand with a certain authority, they may not take you into account if the original post is from a more reputable and reliable source. It's not that your post is not good and you are not a good person and professional, but if they don't know you, they may ignore you.
- They don't need to change the link. Why would a website bother to change a link in a post just because you ask them to? If the websites you contact don't have the slightest interest in making the change, they won't waste a second doing it.
- Even if they link to you, nobody can guarantee you a position in Google. You already know that backlinking is one of the best techniques for positioning in Google, but you should also know that no matter how many backlinks reach your post, Google's algorithm does not guarantee that you will be number 1. There are positioning factors, such as domain or page authority, which may favour other websites with better rankings than yours.
Finally, remember that when you do the research on a piece of content it is very important that you analyse if the links pointing to it are of quality and relevant. If you don't do this you could be making a mistake, as you wouldn't want your content to have low quality links from disreputable websites. So make sure that the websites linking to that post have a good DA (Domain Authority) and a good PA (Page Authority) and that the quality of their general content is good and related to the same topic.
