Do you know what I hate? I hate doing a ton of work with no result. As well as you do, I bet.

To be honest, executing content marketing strategies often requires doing stuff that doesn’t deliver an expected result. You might blame me for putting forth any effort, but I spent many hours implementing each strategy. The failures were not for lack of efforts. I did everything that the leading content marketing authorities said to do, but results were not anywhere near as successful as they were expected to be.

Back in 2016, SEO expert Brian Dean introduced a content creation strategy he refers to as the Skyscraper Technique. Since then, almost every influential digital marketer out there evangelizes this approach to creating the content that attracts a sea of backlinks. And to be fair, there is a reason for that. The Skyscraper Technique really can work well.

Brian Dean (Image Source)

The idea behind it is geniously simple: analyze what kind of content other people have produced, then do something better. But while that concept is easy in theory, it is not so effortless in execution. So eventually, the Skyscraper Technique divides digital marketers into two camps. Some swear it is a fail-safe method for content marketing success. At the same time, others describe it as another worthless SEO craze.

By the way, it is noteworthy that I’ve been a long-time Brian’s blog reader and fan. When I’ve read his blog post on the Skyscraper Technique, I immediately decided to put the strategy to test and follow Brian’s instructions. Being impressed by the apparent simplicity of this method, I’ve tried to build a ‘skyscraper’ on team communication for Chanty blog. However, I failed to reach Brian’s results.

So, today I want to share my case study of executing a well-known the Skyscraper Technique along with some of my reflections on why super-mega-groovy-guru techniques might not always work for you.

The Skyscraper Technique on paper

In short, you choose content pieces that are already popular in your niche and have a lot of links. After that, you create something better, something undoubtedly awesome (more interesting, more detailed, more useful, etc.). If you succeed, there’d be a good chance that resources which have published the original piece would be interested in your updated article.

Following the Skyscraper Technique, you may find yourself quickly building a lot of links. Why? Because the sites that have already shown interest in your topic by posting the original piece will probably cite your awesome article.

Two important things to remember before starting

First, you do need to provide some unique value in your piece of content. You have to do something that hasn’t been done before. If you think that just making an existing article longer, is going to help you triumph over your rivals, you will probably lose your illusions in the blink of an eye.

Length isn’t equal to depth, comprehensiveness, or value to readers. Being 3,000 word in length, your article doesn’t have to be good and competitive. Can you really offer something valuable that hasn’t been published before? That might be easier said than done in a lot of industries.

Second, the Skyscraper Technique is a time-consuming method of generating backlinks. It takes a lot of time to find, analyze, sort and outreach resources that potentially can be interested in your content.

If these two issues don’t scare you, keep reading to dive deeper into nuances and pitfalls of this legendary link-building technique.

The step-by-step execution of the Skyscraper Technique

Step 1. Find proven linkable assets for your niche.

As brought up before, the aim of this technique is to find the best pieces of content out there and improve on them. Start by using Buzzsumo. It is a cool online tool that lets you track the most shareable pieces of content. Let’s input the phrase ‘team communication’ here.

Image Source

Now you can see the proven linkable assets on team communication. Use your keyword to find articles that are relevant to your industry. Then just copy-paste these articles into a spreadsheet. I will tell you a little bit later what to do with this data.

Tip: You can also google your target phrase, and see what content is dominating the first page of search results.

Step 2: Make something even better than everyone else on the list.

The next step in the Technique is to take your own article and make it even better: longer, more up-to-date, better designed, more thorough. Open up a selection of those top pieces of content. They are doubtless great, but there is bound to be a weakness somewhere. Always look for that gap you can fill. What is rivals’ content missing? There are a few suggestions for improvements.

1. Make your content longer and more in-depth.

One of the simple things you can do is to create longer content than your competitors do. Researches show that longer content performs better on search engines, so adding a few hundred (or thousand) extra words can easily pay off.

2. Add rich content (images, videos, infographics).

Readers love to read, share and cite visual content. This could provide an opportunity for you to leap ahead and make your content more compelling.

3. Dig deeper into the topic.

There are still many pages that rank well on Google, but provide little value. If you notice this happening, never miss the chance to simply do a better job of covering a topic and making things useful for readers. First hand reviews and researches will add extra value to your content.

Step 3: Reach out to the right people.

Improvements are already made, so it is time to put the final part of the Skyscraper Technique into action. I would like to start this part with a surprising question. Do you like small witty crimes? I hope, you do.

Essentially, the next thing you should implement is to unleash your dark nature and ‘steal’ your competitors’ best backlinks. In other words, you need to find resources which will be potentially interested in your awesome article.

Head to your spreadsheet with rivals’ linkable assets (remember I’ve promised that we will turn back to it?). Then collect the most valuable backlinks of each article by using a link analysis tool like Site Explorer by Ahrefs. After this step, my spreadsheet looked like that:

The SEO crime is committed. Personally, I gathered about 230 competitors’ backlinks in total and was ready to move forward to one of the biggest content marketing failures in my life.

Tip: You can work through the list and update each item with contact details. Mind that it might take a few hours.

The next step is actually reaching out to influencers with friendly emails. Unfortunately, getting a response is not easy. Anyone and everyone are extremely busy and they don’t get a chance to even read your emails sometimes. That’s the reason why you need to spend some time on crafting perfect emails.

Here are a few useful hints to write emails that gets a response:

• The first thing everyone will see is a subject line. If it’s not compelling, your email will go to trash.
• Always keep your emails short, sweet and concise.
• Never send automated emails. Personalization is the key to get your emails opened.
• Follow up instead of expecting a reply instantly.

Check out an example of my email pitches which varied depending on the resource:

Overall, I prepared about 5 pitches and mixed them on a hunch in every sent email. There is another pattern of my pitches:

Hi [Name],

I’ve been reading your blog from some time and I’m really impressed. Especially I love the articles on [your topic].

I recently wrote a piece that is highly relevant to your most popular post [link].

Hope you’ll like it. Either way, keep up the awesome work!

Regards,

[Your name].

Let’s see what happened next.

My poor results, or The reasons why your backlink profile won’t shine as it ‘should’

After a few days of depression, finally I am ready to share with you my alternatively successful results of using the Skyscraper Technique:

1. Total number of answers: 24 (let me remind you that I have sent more than 200 emails).
2. A promise to cite my article: 3 (promises were not kept, however).
3. An offer to buy an opportunity to be cited: 15 (the desired amount of money varied from $45 to $200).
4. Unexpectable bonus: 5 signups to a beta test of the Chanty messenger.
5. Backlinks: 0. Tada!

What? No backlinks? You must be joking. Why? I have seen a ton of successful case studies and thoroughly followed all necessary steps. I mean I’m not afraid of hard work, and I doubt that you are either. But would you put in 20–30 hours creating a piece of content and sending emails if you don’t get any result?

The reason why you’re not getting backlinks you work hard for is not because you are creating low quality content. I personally tend to think that the cause lies in a combination of two factors.

1. You only see dazzling success stories, not failures.

You read a ton of shining case studies on the Skyscraper Technique and other guru marketing methods. Personally, I came across many of them. The post about super amazing and totally secret SEO technique which will bring you on the first page of Google search, will get attention by readers. But getting those good results all the time is not common. They are rather the exception. On the other hand, the post about a total failure, poor results and fifth page ranking will sink into oblivion. But such result is quite normal.

2. You are not a brand yet.

Frankly speaking, I think Brian’s post Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List could have been ranked and backlinked pretty well even without the Skyscraper Technique. His blog called Backlinko is a clickable and shareable brand due to Brain’s talent and awesome content. Would you reject personal Brian’s proposal to add his link to your article? I definitely wouldn’t.

But consider getting an email from John Doe who introduces his noname blog article. Would you open his email? Would you read it? Would you look through his article? Login into your WordPress dashboard? Change the link? I guess, you wouldn’t.

Even the most amazing article ever won’t help you in this situation. It’s likely that you should build your brand elsewhere and come back to fight another day. And this doesn’t mean that email receivers are wrong. Reputation does matter. It just takes years (and sometimes millions of dollars) to build it. Maybe, you’re not on the same playing field yet as the experts behind all those fascinating case studies you see out there.

While two factors mentioned above might sound discouraging at first, I don’t think they have to be. Instead of spending 30 hours on creating a piece of great content, then promoting it, and feeling down when you don’t get great results, now you know that it’s not your fault.

Takeaways

Broadly speaking, if you are starting from scratch, you can’t expect to have the same results you read about on blogs of marketing gurus. Almost all impressive case studies using the Skyscraper and other well-known techniques, are published with an established site in mind.

My advice to curious marketers would be to give the Skyscraper Technique a test and see if it works for your business. If it works, you will gain dozens or hundreds of links. If it doesn’t, you will still got your content and you’ve made contact with hundreds of potential future influencers.

But keep in mind that implementing the Skyscraper Technique is a time-consuming activity. If you are ready to throw about twenty hours to the winds and get no backlinks, give it a try. If you aren’t, consider allocating your time and efforts somehow differently.

So what is the solution? One word: consistency. You need to get domain authority in order to achieve the results you read about, and the only way to do that is to consistently apply effective SEO strategies.

Let me know about your experiences in implementing case studies on your own in the comments below.

About the Author: Julia Samoilenko is a Marketing Manager at Chanty – a simple AI powered business messenger and a single notification center. This powerful and free Slack alternative is aimed to increase team productivity and improve communication at work. Having a 5-year experience in digital marketing field, Julia is responsible for Chanty’s online social media  presence and public relations. Follow Julia on Twitter @juliasam111 or feel free to connect on LinkedIn.