Stay with us in this article to learn about the skyscraper technique in content production.
Do you want more visits to your site? If you follow along with this article, we will explain to you how to get more than 70k page views. Does it seem like it’s getting harder and harder to get your audience’s attention? It seems that their expectations are not met? In today’s marketing landscape, the market is fiercely competitive.
As a result, marketers become more creative, experiment with new content media, and change their approaches to attract new customers in a targeted manner. From listicles to infographics to video content, it’s used to determine what type of content resonates most with their audience. What can you do to stay in the game? Use the skyscraper technique. What is Skyscraper Content and how can your business grow quickly using it?
Content marketing is riding high and as we welcome the new year, we’re pretty sure its popularity won’t be slowing down anytime soon. But like any other marketing tactic in the industry, different content marketing trends emerge, last for a while, and after a while, some of them die.
But what is currently popular among marketers is the skyrocketing content marketing method. This technique is designed to help you create content that gets the most traffic. In this article, we try to explain everything about this tactic to those who are not familiar with it. About what this tactic is and how you can use it for your business in this competitive environment. Also, to help you get started, I’ll show you how to use this technique and provide you with a handy checklist to make sure you don’t miss even the smallest of items.
Table of Contents
What is the content of the skyscraper?
Skyscraper content is an inbound marketing technique that involves finding titles that perform well in search engines as well as social networks. Its users use reverse engineering to create better content than what is currently available. This tactic includes backlinking to existing posts or sharing them with those who have already shown interest in similar content. This is a systematic technique for converting content into a quality backlink created by Brian Dean.
How effective is the skyscraper technique?
Brian Dean published a post on Backlinko explaining that their skyrocketing content marketing technique increased their search traffic by 110% in 14 days. This case study showed how backlinking to a page increased dramatically.
You may be interested in this tactic and want to take action now. But there is a fact, if you think like the end consumer of the content, you will realize that there are many hidden terms and conditions behind the creation of this content. For example, most skyscraper content strategies involve creating content that is longer than what is currently available from competitors. And if you go by SEO rules in search engines like Google, longer content works better.
But as an audience, how much time do you have to read long content so that you can understand the main axis of a popular topic?
How it works: You start by searching for popular trends, topics, and existing content that is already trending and covering your business. Then you look for new and unique ways to produce content that communicates the same message, with a slight twist. This means using a new, more attractive, and influential medium, updating the information, or using a better design.
Once you have produced new and improved content, contact people who have already linked to similar content to include your content in their content and hope you can build a link.
This technique works well for several reasons:
- There is already a request. By finding existing successful content, you can realize that there is a proven demand in the market for content around the topic you are considering. It is important to examine why that content was so successful. Has it solved a problem for readers? Was it particularly fun?
- You are dealing with a target audience. If you can produce better content than the source you’ve been looking for, your content has the potential to excite your current audience if you’ve timed it right. It is recommended that you simultaneously create and communicate with a targeted list of brands, publishers, and influencers who have previously shared links or content.
- There is serious potential for ranking. Google has already indexed the existing source well. By producing better content than before, you have the potential to outrank older content, rank higher, and get more traffic, especially if you can get the quality backlinks you want.
Here is an experience of using the Skyscraper technique:
Earlier this year, a Fast Company article about calculating a new freelancer’s hourly rate was published and received rave reviews in the freelancing community. In just a few weeks, almost every online publication, brand, and influencer related to the topic of freelancing wrote about it or mentioned it.
The Fast Company article was shared thousands of times and was the clear winner in search rankings. Because this particular title aligned with a lot of the commercial content we produce at CreativeLive, it was a huge opportunity to ride on existing content with proven demand and clear success. So it was assumed that offering the same solution to freelancers, that is, helping them to calculate the hourly cost of the services they provide, but in a way that is more visually appealing, could be a great success.
To take advantage of this, a very high-quality infographic about calculating freelance hourly rates was produced, and strategically, many distribution opportunities were created for the infographic design. An effort was made to point out several notable online tools and services useful to freelancers, to ask them to share the infographic as soon as it went live. Also, an e-book about the important steps to start a freelance business was quickly added to the above content. This action was done a week before the release of the infographic so that a call to action related to the topic could be placed at the bottom of the post and get more leads from the desired freelancers.
After its release, the infographic became an instant hit with the current audience. BuzzSumo was used to identify and reach out to all other brands and articles published on hourly freelance rates, asking if they would be willing to republish or share a post featuring this infographic. are And the result? This post was shared over 8,200 times and outranked the Fast Company article for the searched keyword “freelance hourly rate”.
This content managed to get a total of over 72,000 page views and 3,648 new emails since publication, not to mention dozens of valuable backlinks and reposts of infographics on freelance-related sites around the web.
Here’s how we get started with skyrocketing content, followed by a checklist for practical guidance.
Getting Started with Skyscraper Content
Similar to what Brian did, you can start the Skyscraper technique in three steps – find a valuable link and popular content, create better content, and get it in the hands of the right audience.
1- Find popular content that is worth linking to
The most important step to start the skyrocketing technique is to find existing content that performs well in search engines and social networks and is fortunately relevant to your business.
The content you choose should be linkable, not clickbait. You want every aspect of your skyscraper content to be useful to your audience. So make sure that the page you are linking to has high value for your target audience. One such good and safe content is content that has already been linked by your competitor or a blogger in your position.
2- Plan everything and create better content
The idea of Skyscraper Content is to make sure your content performs better than existing content that is popular in the market. Granted, this is time-consuming, but try to find out which aspects of your existing content have worked well with your target audience and how you can highlight the same in your content.
One way to make your content better than existing content is to add more value to it, which can include industry statistics, experiences or influencer quotes and tips, graphics, going deeper into a specific topic and situation, or sharing behind-the-scenes of something. that only you know and ensure that your content is produced to stand out from the competition. And definitely, the longer your content is, the better it will perform in search engines.
3- Spread your content and get it to the right people
As with any typical content marketing tactic, your content must be in line with your target market. For starters, you want to get influential people, who can give you links, and most importantly, have already shown interest in the topic. Find the email addresses of shortlisted blog and website owners in your industry and send them a personal message explaining how your content can add value to them. Keep in mind that building your relationship with the recipient is much more important than just getting a backlink.
In this case, we also recommend using social networks to communicate. For example, see who has recently shared a topic similar to the one you’ve covered. Connect with that person by referring to the interest they’ve shown, making them more likely to click and read your content.
6-step checklist for using the skyscraper technique
Ready to try this technique? Here is a quick checklist as your implementation guide.
- Search and discover opportunities
- Create a list of potential distribution partners
- Create better content
- Transfer to your audience
- Finding the right people
- Be up-to-date
1- Searching and discovering opportunities
Enable Google Alerts for keywords related to the topics you want to cover, use BuzzSumo to find the most shared content related to a specific keyword, and find opportunities based on search volume with HubSpot’s Analyze Keyword App or Google’s Keyword Planner.
2- Creating a list of partners
Start with someone you know. Is there a brand, blog, or influencer that you know is interested in this content and finds it interesting? Then go back to BuzzSumo and add other sites and people who have published or shared content similar to yours. Chances are, they have an audience eager to learn about your new content.
3- Better content production
If you come across a blog post from a competitor that you’re interested in covering, maybe you can create an infographic, video, or even a more in-depth guide that conveys more value. Pay attention to which content media your audience interacts with the most and start by relying on the skills and abilities that your organization is best at.
4- Transfer to your audience
Getting the initial buzz generated by your audience is essential to demonstrate consistency and social popularity before engaging with other brands and influencers. Share produced content across all your social networks, with members of your email list, and even with your internal employees.
5- Finding the right people
Now that momentum has been created with your valuable new content, it’s time to spread the word and share it with your list of influencers, brands, and bloggers who publish relevant content. Make sure you show genuine interest in your communication, state your request clearly, and provide them with a sample copy that they can copy/paste.
6- Be up to date
Over time, the usefulness of your engaging content will diminish. Other people will publish new content on that topic, the industry will change, and new options will emerge. Updating content that keeps you engaged with your audience is critical to maintaining the value of the work you’ve worked so hard to produce.