What is the skyscraper technique?
The skyscraper technique is a three-step link-building method. First, find a piece of content on your subject that has already attracted a lot of backlinks. Second, make something clearly better: more complete, more current, better designed, more useful. Third, contact the people who link to the original and show them your version, in the hope that they will link to it instead, or as well. The name comes from the image of looking at the tallest building on the block and putting up a taller one.
The term was popularized by the SEO writer Brian Dean of Backlinko in the mid-2010s and became one of the most copied tactics in content marketing. Its appeal is that it replaces guesswork with evidence: the links already pointing at the original prove that people care about the subject.
Why it matters
Why the skyscraper technique matters
Links remain one of the signals search engines use to judge authority, and earning them is hard. The technique's insight is practical: instead of guessing what people will link to, look at what they have already linked to, and offer them an upgrade. It forces a team to study the best existing work on a subject and to set the bar above it, which tends to produce better content regardless of whether the links arrive.
It also shows the limits of outreach. The technique became so popular that many site owners now receive a stream of near-identical requests, and only genuinely superior content, offered politely, gets a reply.
In practice
How the skyscraper technique works in practice
- 01
Research comes first. Using an SEO tool, the team identifies pages in its field with strong backlink profiles, then studies them: what they cover, what they miss, what has gone out of date, what is hard to use. The new piece is planned to beat the original on the things that matter to the people linking to it, whether that is fresher data, original research, better visuals, a tool or a clearer structure. It helps to read the comments and questions on the original too, because they show exactly where readers were left wanting more.
- 02
After publishing, the team exports the list of sites linking to the original, filters it for relevance and quality, finds the right person at each and writes short, personal emails explaining why the new piece is worth linking to. Responses are tracked, follow-ups are sent sparingly, and the piece is kept updated so it stays the best on its subject long after the outreach ends.
Watch out
What people get wrong about the skyscraper technique
Thinking longer means taller. Adding words to a competitor's outline is not an improvement, and nobody updates a link for it. The other mistake is mass outreach: templated emails to hundreds of unrelated sites burn a brand's reputation and earn almost nothing. A small list of relevant sites, contacted personally, works far better. A third is stopping at the links. The page still has to serve the reader who arrives, or the rankings it earns will not last.
