Eric Siu explains the Skyscraper Technique: find content that ranks well, make it better, then contact people who linked to the original and ask them to link to yours instead. It worked better in 2013 when there was less competition, but naming the tactic helped it spread.
Yeah, the Skyscraper Technique was a strategy that I developed where basically instead of creating content from scratch, so you have a topic in mind, you're like, should I create a guide? Should I create a list? Should I do a case study? Takes a lot of the guesswork out because you just look at what's already working and then you improve on that. Back then when I started to like talk about the technique in 2013, it was a lot easier because the content bar is a lot lower. Like it was easy to level up over somebody else. It's still very possible, but it was a lot easier. And then what you do is you reach out to the people that shared or linked to the first post and just let them know you have this Other one in a non-pushy way. And a lot of times they'll be receptive to your outreach because they already shared that thing, they already liked that thing, and you have something that's better, more up to date, has more visuals, it's just improved in some way. And the strategy itself with that name ended up taking off. Like, I just gave it— slapped a name on it thinking it sounded pretty cool, and next thing I knew, it was being covered in like media sites, industry blogs, and people still talk about it today. Every time I go on a podcast, someone asks me about the Skyscraper Technique.
