Here's the hard truth about creating links :
Today, there are too many people in Internet marketing who think that "good content" is enough.
They say, " If I publish great material, people will naturally refer to me."
If only it were that simple ...
If you are serious about getting high-quality links , you need to be very systematic in how you create and promote your content.
Otherwise, you choose the "cooked spaghetti approach": throw a bunch of things at the wall and hope something gets stuck.
I'm going to show you a technique that almost guarantees that you get high-quality links from every piece of content that you post.
Keep reading to find out how ...
Skyscraper technique: (content marketing for link linkers)
On April 18, I published Google's 200 "ranking Factors": a complete list .
After performing the "skyscraper Technique" , the number of backlinks to this page soared like a rocket:
More importantly, organic search traffic to my entire site - not just this post-doubled in just 14 days:
As a nice bonus, this single post has so far attracted more than 300,000 referral visitors to my site.
The best part?
You can do the same for your site ... even if you don't have a Fortune 500 marketing budget or connections to influential bloggers.
3 steps to using the "skyscraper Technique" to get high-quality links and targeted traffic
There are 3 steps to the skyscraper technique.
As I mentioned in the video above, here are three steps that make up the Skyscraper Technique:
Step 1: Find link-worthy content
Step 2: do something even better
Step 3: Reach out to the right people
This is why this method works so well (and that it has to do with a skyscraper):
Have you ever walked past a really tall building and said to yourself:
"Wow, this is amazing! I wonder how big the eighth tallest building in the world is?
Of course not.
It's human nature that attracts the best .
And what you do here is find the tallest "skyscraper" in your space... and throw 20 stories up to the top.
Suddenly, you have content that everyone wants to talk about (and link to).
Now: the Skyscraper technique Is just one of the many strategies I use to get a Google rating on the first page. I talk about others in my premium SEO business training course that Works .
Step # 1: Find verified linked assets
A linked resource is the Foundation of any successful link-oriented content marketing campaign (including this one).
I'm not sure who came up with the phrase "Linkable Asset", but it's the perfect description of what you want to create: a high-value page that you can use for links over and over again.
Keep in mind that the linked resource is not the nonsense of the "12 things that taught me to tell about social media marketing" link.
This content is so awesome, incredible, and useful that people can't help but log in to their WordPress dashboard and add a link to their site.
But how do you know if your link asset will be a huge success ?.. or a complete failure?
It's easy: find content that has already generated a bunch of links.
Really:
Now it's time for step 2 ...
Step # 2: do something even better
Your next step is to take what you have and throw it out of the water .
Here's how you can take existing content to the next level:
Make it longer
In some cases, publishing an article that is simply longer or contains more elements will work.
If you find a link magnet with the name "50 healthy snacks", publish a list of 150 (or even 500).
In my case, I decided to list all 200 ranking factors ... or die trying.
The first 50 were in one go. 50-100 were really heavy. 100-150 was really, really hard. And 150-200 was damn near impossible.
It took 10 gallons of coffee and 20 hours of sitting in front of my laptop (don't worry, I was taking bathroom breaks)…
... but in the end I had something that was clearly better than anything else out there.
More relevant
If you can take outdated content and put it in order, you will get yourself a winner.
For example, most other lists of rating factors were extremely outdated and lacked important rating factors, such as social signals:
If you find something with old information, create something that covers many of the same points ... but I will update it with the latest content
Better designed
Sometimes a visually stunning piece of content can generate a lot more links and social links than something similar on an ugly page.
Just check out Scout's customer acquisition strategies for entrepreneurs :
This guide is a list of links to other Internet marketing sites.
And the page caused a lot of noise because it is beautifully designed.
For guidance, I added a nice banner at the top:
Most posts in lists are a simple list of items without any meaningful content that people can actually use.
But if you add a bit of depth to each item in your list, you have a list that is MUCH more valuable.
In my case, I noticed that other lists of rating factors lack links and details:
In this way, I made sure that each item in my list had a short description (with a link):
Important note: I recommend that you beat the existing content at each level : length, design, current information, etc.
This will objectively make it clear that YOU have the best content.
What really matters is when you start spreading information ...
Step # 3: reach out to the right people
Working with e-mail is the basis of Skyscraper Technology.
This is similar to straight-forward link-asking, but with a VERY important twist.
Instead of sending emails to random people, you apply to the owners of websites which have been contacted with similar content .
When you evaluate such prospects, you know that:
1. They manage the site in your niche.
2. They are interested in your topic.
3. They have already contacted an article on this topic.
Now it's just a matter of being friendly with your obviously excellent content.
Here's how to do it:
1. Use ahrefs.com to export all links that point to your competitor's content to a spreadsheet. Tools such as Majestic SEO and Open Site Explorer will also work.
2. Remove links from pages that don't make sense to link to (forums, article directories, etc.). In my case, after clearing the list, I had 160 very serious prospects to turn to.
3. I sent an email to all 160 of them, using this template:
Poster for a skyscraper
(I've obviously personalized and customized this template for everyone I've reached out to.)
Even I was shocked by the positive response:
Response via email
Out of 160 emails, I received 17 links: 11% success rate.
Considering that these were cold emails that asked for a link in the first email, the 11% success rate is quite surprising.
You might think, " 17 links, that's all?".
But remember that this is quality, not quantity.
There were many gems in this group of 17 links.
Also, just look at the rapid growth of organic traffic that these 17 links gave me (in a very short period of time, no less).
Obviously, there were a few links to this page that came organically, but some of the best were from "skyscraper Tech".
Now try
I hope you can see the potential of skyscraper technology for your site and your business.
Yes, it takes hard work to create something great.
But with this strategy, you already know in advance that your hard work will pay off (as opposed to pumping out a lot of content in the hope that something will go wrong).
