Introduction: The Content Nobody Wants to Link To
I remember the first time I spent three weeks writing what I thought was the perfect blog post. I hit publish, shared it on social media, and then… nothing. No links. No traffic. No shares worth celebrating.
Sound familiar?
Most people in SEO and content marketing have been there. You write something, you believe in it, and then the internet ignores it completely. It is not because you did something wrong, exactly. It is because doing something good is no longer enough. You have to do something better than what already exists.
That is the entire idea behind the Skyscraper Technique. And once you understand it, link building starts to feel a lot less like a lottery and a lot more like a process you can actually control.
In this guide, I am going to walk you through everything: what the Skyscraper Technique is, where it came from, why it works so well, and how to use it yourself from start to finish. No fluff. No vague advice. Just a clear, honest walkthrough that anyone can follow.
What Is the Skyscraper Technique?
The Skyscraper Technique is a link building strategy in SEO. The idea is simple: you find content that already has a lot of backlinks, you create something noticeably better than that content, and then you reach out to the people who linked to the original piece and ask them to link to yours instead.
The name comes from a simple analogy. Think about what happens when someone builds a new skyscraper in a city. Everyone goes to look at the tallest building. Nobody cares about the second tallest. If you want attention, you do not build another average building — you build the tallest one on the block.
In content terms, that means you do not just match what is out there. You go taller. You go deeper. You make your content so much more useful, up to date, and comprehensive that anyone who already linked to the original piece would naturally prefer to link to yours.
This technique was developed and popularised by Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko. He first published it around 2013, and it quickly became one of the most talked-about link building strategies in the SEO world.
Why Does the Skyscraper Technique Work?
Before we get into the how, it is worth understanding the why. Because if you understand the logic behind it, the whole strategy makes much more sense.
People naturally link to the best available resource
When someone writes an article and wants to cite a source, they look for the most credible and comprehensive piece they can find. If your content is noticeably better than everything else on a topic, it becomes the natural go-to reference. Links follow authority and quality.
You are not starting from zero
One of the hardest parts of link building is prospecting. Finding people who might link to you is time-consuming and often hit-or-miss. With the Skyscraper Technique, you skip most of that work. You already know who links to the topic because they are linking to the piece you are trying to beat. You have a ready-made list of prospects before you even start writing.
The outreach has a built-in hook
Cold outreach in SEO is notoriously difficult. People get hundreds of emails asking for links. Most of them get deleted. But with the Skyscraper Technique, your outreach message is not just “please link to me.” You are saying, “You linked to this piece, and I have made something much better on the same topic.” That is a genuinely useful message. It gives the person a real reason to care.
It creates long-term value
Because you are focused on building genuinely better content rather than gaming the system, the links you earn tend to stick. You are not relying on tricks that Google might one day penalise. You are building real authority through real content.
The 3 Core Steps of the Skyscraper Technique
Brian Dean originally broke the Skyscraper Technique into three clear steps. Let us go through each one in detail.
Step 1: Find Content That Has Already Earned Lots of Backlinks
The first step is research. You are looking for content in your niche that already has a strong backlink profile. This is your target, your inspiration, and your opportunity all in one.
How to find it:
The most reliable way is to use an SEO tool like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz. These tools let you search by topic or keyword and see which pieces of content have the most backlinks pointing to them. You can also look at what your competitors are writing about and which of their articles attract the most links.
Here is what you are looking for:
- Content with a high number of referring domains (not just total backlinks, as one site can link to you multiple times)
- Content that ranks on page one for a keyword you care about
- Content that is genuinely useful but has clear weaknesses you can improve on
What weaknesses should you look for?
This is where you put on your reader’s hat and think critically. Ask yourself:
- Is this article outdated? Does it use old statistics or reference tools that no longer exist?
- Is it thin? Does it cover a topic briefly when readers clearly want much more depth?
- Is it hard to read? Bad formatting, walls of text, no visuals?
- Is it missing key sections? Are there questions the article clearly does not answer?
- Does it lack practical examples? Is it all theory with no real-world application?
Write down everything you find. You are building a brief for your own, better version.
A practical example:
Say you run a blog about freelance writing. You search for “how to find freelance clients” and find a popular article with 200 backlinks. You read it and notice it was last updated in 2019, it only covers four strategies, it has no screenshots or examples, and it does not mention LinkedIn at all. That is your opportunity. You now know exactly how to build something better.
Step 2: Create Something Significantly Better
This is the most important step and also the most misunderstood one. “Better” does not mean longer. It does not mean more colourful. It does not mean adding a few more bullet points to the same ideas.
Better means genuinely more useful to the reader.
Here are the most effective ways to make content that is truly superior:
Make it more comprehensive
If the original article covers five strategies, cover twelve. If it answers one question, answer every follow-up question a reader might have. Think about what someone would search after reading the original, and include that too.
Make it more current
Outdated content is one of the easiest things to beat. Update all the statistics. Replace old tools with ones that are current. Add new sections that reflect how the industry has changed.
Make it more visual
Most articles are walls of text. If you add clear diagrams, screenshots, custom graphics, comparison tables, and charts, your content immediately becomes more digestible than most of what is out there.
Make it more actionable
A lot of online content explains what something is without ever telling you how to actually do it. Add step-by-step instructions. Include templates people can use. Give specific scripts and examples, not just abstract advice.
Make it more credible
Cite authoritative sources. Include data from studies. Interview experts and include their quotes. When readers see that your content is rigorously researched, they trust it more — and so do the people who might link to it.
Structure it better
Use clear headings. Write short paragraphs. Include a table of contents for long pieces. Make sure someone skimming the article can still understand the key points. Structure is not just a design choice; it affects whether people stay on the page and whether they link to it.
A note on quality vs. quantity:
I have seen people misuse this technique by simply writing longer articles than their competitors. A 5,000-word article that is padded out and repetitive is not better than a sharp, focused 2,000-word piece. Before you add a word, ask: does this genuinely help the reader? If yes, keep it. If not, cut it.
Step 3: Reach Out to the Right People
This is where most people either skip the step entirely or do it poorly. But this is the step that actually earns you the links. Writing great content without doing outreach is like building a brilliant shop in the middle of nowhere and wondering why nobody comes in.
Build your prospect list
Go back to the original piece you found in Step 1. Using Ahrefs or a similar tool, export the list of websites that link to it. These are your prospects. These are people who have already shown they care about this topic enough to link to content about it. They are your warmest possible audience.
Clean your list. Remove low-quality sites, link farms, and irrelevant pages. Focus on genuine websites — blogs, publications, resource pages, and industry sites that would be a good fit for your content.
Write an outreach email that actually works
Bad outreach sounds like this: “Hi, I wrote an article about [topic]. Could you link to it? Thanks.”
Good outreach sounds like this: “Hi [Name], I was reading your article on [topic] and noticed you linked to [original piece]. I wanted to let you know I just published a more up-to-date version that covers [key improvements]. Thought it might be a useful resource for your readers. Here is the link if you want to take a look.”
The difference is clear. One is a request. The other is an offer of value.
Here are the core principles of effective Skyscraper outreach:
- Personalise every email. Use the person’s name. Mention the specific article they wrote or the specific link you are referring to.
- Keep it short. People are busy. Get to the point in three or four sentences.
- Lead with the benefit to them, not the benefit to you.
- Do not beg. Do not use excessive flattery. Be genuine and direct.
- Follow up once, politely, if you do not hear back within a week.
What response rate should you expect?
Realistically, a well-executed Skyscraper outreach campaign will get a response from around 5 to 15 percent of prospects, with many of those responses being positive. That might sound low, but if you are reaching out to 200 prospects, that is still potentially 10 to 30 new backlinks from a single piece of content. That is significant.
Common Mistakes People Make With the Skyscraper Technique
Even people who know the technique well make errors. Here are the ones I see most often.
Choosing the wrong original content to target
Not all popular content is worth targeting. If the original piece is from a major brand with enormous authority, you may struggle to replace it in the eyes of linking sites, even if your content is better. Look for content with strong backlinks but from mid-level authority sites. Also, make sure the topic is actually relevant to your niche and your audience.
Making content that is longer but not better
Adding words is not the same as adding value. If you are stuffing your article with unnecessary examples, redundant sections, or stretched-out explanations just to hit a word count, your content is not skyscraper quality. It is just tall. Go for depth, not just length.
Doing lazy outreach
Template emails that are clearly not personalised almost always fail. People can tell when you have copy-pasted a message to a hundred sites without reading their content. Even basic personalisation — mentioning the name of their site, referencing a specific article — dramatically improves your response rate.
Giving up too quickly
One outreach attempt and no response does not mean failure. One polite follow-up is standard practice and often doubles your response rate. And remember, building links takes time. A campaign you run today might take weeks before the full results show up.
Targeting keywords nobody searches for
The Skyscraper Technique should be combined with keyword research. If the original content you are targeting ranks for keywords with barely any search volume, the effort may not be worth it. Prioritise topics where traffic potential is real.
The Skyscraper Technique in 2024: Is It Still Worth It?
A fair question. The technique is over a decade old now. SEO has changed enormously. Is it still relevant?
Yes, but with some important updates to how you approach it.
Google’s algorithm has become much better at evaluating content quality. Thin, padded content that might have worked years ago will not cut it today. This actually makes the Skyscraper Technique more relevant, not less, because it is fundamentally built around creating genuinely good content.
What has changed is the bar. In 2013, “better” might have meant a slightly longer article with a few more tips. In 2024, “better” means comprehensive research, expert input, strong visuals, solid user experience on mobile, fast page load times, and genuinely actionable advice. The concept is the same. The execution needs to be sharper.
There has also been an evolution of the technique. Some SEOs now talk about “Skyscraper 2.0,” which emphasises matching search intent more carefully and not just producing longer content. The idea is that you should study why people are searching for a topic — what they actually want to learn or accomplish — and make sure your content serves that intent better than the original.
How to Combine the Skyscraper Technique With Other SEO Strategies
The Skyscraper Technique works best as part of a broader SEO strategy, not in isolation.
Pair it with keyword research. Before you choose a topic to target, make sure there is genuine search volume behind it. Tools like Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Google Keyword Planner, or Ubersuggest can help you identify topics where winning could actually drive meaningful traffic.
Pair it with internal linking. Once your Skyscraper content is live, link to it from other pages on your site. This tells Google it is an important page and helps it rank faster.
Pair it with social promotion. Share your content on LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit communities, and anywhere your target audience spends time online. Early engagement signals can help your content gain momentum before the links start coming in.
Pair it with repurposing. Turn your in-depth article into a YouTube video, a SlideShare presentation, or an infographic. Each format can attract different kinds of links and different audiences.
A Real-World Example Walkthrough
Let me walk you through a fictional but realistic example to make this concrete.
Imagine you run a blog about personal finance in the UK. You search for “how to start investing with little money” and find a popular article on a mid-sized finance blog. It was written in 2020, it covers ISAs and index funds briefly, it has no visuals, and it does not mention any UK-specific platforms or rules. It has 150 referring domains.
Here is how you would apply the technique:
- You write a comprehensive guide covering ISAs, LISAs, Stocks and Shares ISAs, index funds, ETFs, and fractional shares. You include up-to-date 2024 contribution limits, a comparison table of popular UK investing apps, a step-by-step beginner walkthrough, and quotes from a certified financial planner.
- You publish it, optimise it for the primary keyword, and make sure it loads quickly on mobile.
- You export the 150 linking sites from the original article and clean the list down to around 90 quality prospects.
- You write a personalised outreach email for each one, mentioning the specific article that linked to the original and explaining what your piece covers that the original does not.
- Over the next three weeks, you receive 18 positive responses and earn 14 new backlinks.
- Over the following months, as your backlink profile grows, your page climbs from position 12 to position 3 for your target keyword, and your organic traffic on that topic increases significantly.
That is the Skyscraper Technique working exactly as intended.
Tools You Will Need
You do not need a huge budget, but a few tools make this much easier:
- Ahrefs or SEMrush — For finding content with strong backlinks and exporting prospect lists
- Google Search — For understanding search intent and reviewing SERPs
- BuzzSumo — For finding widely shared content in your niche
- Hunter.io or Voila Norbert — For finding email addresses for outreach
- Google Docs or Notion — For organising your research and tracking outreach
- Canva or Figma — For creating diagrams and visuals to make your content stand out
Quick Summary: The Skyscraper Technique in 5 Steps
- Research — Find a piece of content in your niche with lots of backlinks and clear weaknesses.
- Analyse — Identify exactly why it falls short: outdated, thin, unformatted, missing sections.
- Create — Build a genuinely superior version that is more comprehensive, current, visual, and actionable.
- Prospect — Export the list of sites linking to the original. Clean and qualify your list.
- Outreach — Send personalised, value-first emails pointing people to your better resource.
Final Thoughts
The Skyscraper Technique works because it is based on a simple truth: people want to link to the best content available on a topic. If you build the best content, links become much easier to earn.
What I appreciate most about this strategy is that it does not ask you to trick anyone. There are no shady link schemes, no grey-hat shortcuts, no hoping Google does not notice what you did. You are simply making something genuinely better and telling the people most likely to care about it.
Will it require real effort? Absolutely. Creating Skyscraper-quality content takes research, writing, design, and patience. The outreach phase takes persistence. But the results — real backlinks, real rankings, real traffic — are worth it in a way that shortcuts rarely are.
If you have never tried this technique before, I would encourage you to start with one piece. Pick a topic you know well, find a strong but beatable existing article, make yours definitively better, and send 50 personalised outreach emails. See what happens. Most people who do this are surprised by how well it works when you actually follow through properly.
That is the Skyscraper Technique. Now go build something taller.