What is the Skyscraper Technique?The Skyscraper Technique is a three-step link building framework developed by Brian Dean of Backlinko: (1) Find a piece of content in your niche that has earned many high-quality backlinks, (2) Create a significantly better version of that content (more comprehensive, more current, better structured, more visually engaging, with additional
What is the Skyscraper Technique?
The Skyscraper Technique is a three-step link building framework developed by Brian Dean of Backlinko: (1) Find a piece of content in your niche that has earned many high-quality backlinks, (2) Create a significantly better version of that content (more comprehensive, more current, better structured, more visually engaging, with additional data or tools), and (3) Reach out to the websites linking to the original piece and suggest they update their link to your improved version. The premise: if they were willing to link to the original, they should be interested in linking to a better resource on the same topic.
Skyscraper Technique for SaaS Link Building
Implementation steps for SaaS companies: (1) Identify target: use Ahrefs Content Explorer to find high-DR pages in your topic area with many referring domains; the Ahrefs site:yoursite.com OR site:competitor.com filter on your target topic shows the most-linked resources. (2) Create: build a genuinely superior version – more up-to-date statistics, more actionable depth, better organization, interactive elements, or comprehensive coverage the original lacks. (3) Outreach: export the referring domains from the original via Ahrefs, find contact information for each site, and send a personalized email explaining your improved version exists and offering it as a replacement for their outdated link.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a realistic Skyscraper Technique conversion rate?
Typical response rates for Skyscraper outreach: 5-15% of contacts respond, with 2-8% agreeing to update their link. This means for 100 outreach emails, expect 2-8 new links. While this sounds low, the quality of Skyscraper-earned links is typically high (linking sites already chose to link to quality content in your topic area, meaning they are relevant and editorially selective). Focus Skyscraper efforts on topics where the target content has 50+ high-quality referring domains: the outreach list is large enough to generate meaningful link volume even at modest response rates.
How is the Skyscraper Technique different from broken link building?
Skyscraper Technique targets functional links to existing content and asks sites to upgrade to a better resource (replacing an old link with a newer, better one). Broken link building targets existing dead links (pages that no longer exist, returning 404 errors) and offers your content as a replacement for the broken link. Broken link building often achieves higher outreach response rates (site owners are motivated to fix broken links for UX reasons) but requires first finding sites with broken links in your topic area. Both are legitimate editorial outreach tactics with low spam risk when executed with genuine high-quality content.