7 SEO Reasons The Skyscraper Technique Will Fail To Help Boost Your Traffic

If you've been in the internet marketing world for a long time and you're also current, chances are you already know what the skyscraper technique by Brian Dean is.

And you probably know that it can increase your traffic and increase the quality of your blog entirely.

But if you know about this technique already, here's a brief story about it:

The skyscraper technique was invented and officially announced by a creative link builder and SEO expert - Backlinko's Brian Dean.

This technique demands that you look for a content in your niche that did well, but doesn't really deserve to do well - but did well.


For this technique to work, you have to do a lot of work, like create a much more better content than the already existing and successful one on the web, reach out to people who's linked to that existing one and ask them to give your masterpiece a link and lastly, get out to crazily promote your masterpiece. That's it.

To know more about it, checkout the whole skyscraper technique package.

Today, I'm gonna tell you why you won't succeed with this technique or, why this technique won't work for you.

Don't take it personal.

And don't be surprised, most of these possible reasons are what you won't be able to do for the sake of one article.

But when you do, the benefits are endless.

Let's get rolling:

#1: Finding a weak viral content (bait)

This is supposedly the first step you should take to start working with this technique. And when this step is out, you have nothing.

Finding a weak but viral content (bait) is pretty simple.

First, the content doesn't have to be obviously weak (like having lower than 500 words and no images), the bait content can be 5000 words and incomplete.

You just have to know know what's missing.

Secondly, it has to be very popular and have lots of social shares and comments.

Keep in mind that it has to be what people want and what they are going nuts for.

It's all about making a better version of a successful, yet, demanding content.

#2: Doing a little keyword research

This is a must-do when it comes to using this technique.

Sometimes, the keywords your bait ranks for might not be the keywords you'll want to rank for.

And without researching proper rank-able keywords, your masterpiece content will flop.

Targeting a super competitive or even a moderately competitive keyword will definitely reduce the chances for your piece of content to go viral, and you don't want that.

#3: Having a more shallow content

Okay, let's assume that by doing a little keyword research, you were able to find the perfect keywords which you can possibly rank for by doing a little link building.

Okay? That's not enough.

Having an even more shallow content will stand as a major hindrance to succeed with this skyscraper technique.

I prefer calling it a masterpiece, because it's a more juicy and upgraded plus updated version of content piece that's already existing (and successful).

What you should do?.

Obviously, you've got to produce a better content, take your time to do so because that's what this skyscraper technique is about - producing a better quality and qualified content

#4: You've got no target keywords

These days, keywords are more important than ever.

And without them your content is bound to get lost in the search engine results pages.

Having a target keyword will set you on the right part.

Don't just start writing a masterpiece without first having specific terms to rank for.

#5: You've got no real content aim

Finding a bait (i.e an explorable content or weak viral content) and having a content aim are two different things entirely.

In fact, is the most important aspect of this technique after promotion.

Most webmasters using this technique often ignore to better outline and structure their content and because of this, they end up producing a much more shallow content than the already existing and successful bait.

Here's a few questions for you: Assuming you already have a bait content, how are you going to further improve on it? what's gonna be be the word count of your masterpiece? how can your masterpiece content further help the craving chunk of information lovers on the web? what are you adding to your own content to make it unique?.

When you're able to perfectly answer those questions, you'll have more odds to succeeding with the skyscraper technique.

#6: You have no graphics

Let's face it, including images and other forms of graphics after composing your article is way too stressful.

And without graphics your post will die. Yes, it'll die. People love images, and staring or pretending to read blocks of plain text over and over with no graphic to entice the eyes just doesn't cut it.

Research also found that the human mind processes visual data 60,000 times faster than plain texts.

How fast is that? why aren't you using graphics? 

Composing an article without at least including an image or chart will scare readers away from reading.

Moreover, images tend send relevancy signals to the search engines when properly optimized and makes it also makes your post look more pleasant and colourful to the eyes of your readers.

That's why you can process them 60,000 times faster than texts.

#7: No promotion like crazy!

The skyscraper technique demands that you produce high quality content, right? but do you know that promotion of that content is also part of the deal?.

Ordinarily, writing blog posts without taking the time to promote them will result in total waste of time, except you're a big-time pro blogger who already has a ton of loyal visitors and raving fans like Copyblogger.

But if you're not such blogger, taking out time to promote your stuff should be a very important process for both the skyscraper technique and your normal blogging or content creation process.

The skyscraper technique includes promotion of the masterpiece content you have created, especially in places where the predeceasing content did well.

Your job here is content promotion, especially in places where the bait or predeceasing content drove people nuts and went viral easily.

Richard Marriott of Clambr is one marketer that actually blew it with this technique.

He didn't stop with producing a masterpiece expert roundup post, he further promoted it in places where link builders and SEOs normally stick around.

And that's exactly how he got a ton of people to visit his brand new blog.

And today? clambr is popular.

Think about it, what if he just composed a masterpiece and left it on his blog without promoting it? no one but him and a few buddies would ever get to read that quality piece sitted within his blog.

Key takeaways

1. Seek out to find a piece of successful content that you can further improve on before you make a next move.


2. Be sure that what you're writing will be and is of great interest to a large mass on the Internet.


3. Have a content aim. You've gotta know what's not in the already existing content, and you've gotta know how to include those things in your masterpiece to fill that gap.


4. Know your keywords. Don't choose to write your content based on super-competitive keywords with crazy search volumes. You won't rank for those keywords, except you have a first-class blog like Forbes. So, know what keywords you can easily rank for.


5. People love images, so use them in your post. And besides, your post will look odd without them. Your approach to using the skyscraper technique will fail without appropriate media files inclusion. Even Google loves images too.


6. The last and inevitable deal is promotion. Create the best content and let it be 156,800 words long, then leave it on your site without promotion. It's gonna be there alone in 10 years to come if you don't tell the world about it. You agree, right?

Summing up

Don't be startled, these reasons can easily be taken care of when you are chanced to do so.

And besides, this is only when you insist on using the skyscraper technique to drive more traffic to your blog.

This doesn't mean that without the skyscraper technique your blog is bound to fail or without the technique you can't create content that will easily go viral No.

If you have in mind to use this technique, avoid these hindrances to your skyscraper success.

They're often too obvious to focus on, but when you leave them out of the big picture, you'll definitely have no real picture to show for your efforts because they (the reasons i outlined already) are the building blocks.