There are WAY too many people in internet marketing today that think “great content” is enough.

They say, “if I publish great stuff, people will naturally link to me”.

If only it were that easy…

If you’re serious about generating high quality links, you need to be very systematic with how you create and promote your content.

Otherwise you’re taking the “cooked spaghetti approach” to content marketing: throwing a bunch of stuff against a wall and hoping something sticks.

Well today I’m going to show you a technique that almost guarantees that you get high quality links from every piece of content that you publish.

Keep reading to learn how…

The Skyscraper Technique: (Content Marketing for Link Builders)

On April 18th I published  Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List.

After executing “The Skyscraper Technique“, the number of links to that page shot up like a rocket:

More importantly, organic search traffic to my entire site — not just that post — doubled in just 14 days:

As a nice bonus, that single post has driven more than 1900 referral visitors to my site so far.

The best part?

You can do the same thing for your site…even if you don’t have a Fortune 500 marketing budget or connections with influential bloggers. 

The 3-Steps to Using “The Skyscraper Technique” To Get Quality Links and Targeted Traffic

There are 3 basic steps to The Skyscraper Technique:

Step 1: Find link-worthy content

Step 2: Make something even better

Step 3: Reach out to the right people

Here’s why this technique works so well (and what it has to do with a skyscraper):

Have you ever walked by a really tall building and said to yourself:

“Wow, that’s amazing! I wonder how big the 8th tallest building in the world is.”

Of course not.

It’s human nature to be attracted to the best.

And what you’re doing here is finding the tallest “skyscraper” in your space…and slapping 20 stories to the top of it.

All of a sudden YOU have the content that everyone wants to talk about (and link t0).

Step #1: Find Proven Linkable Assets

A linkable asset is the foundation of any successful link-focused content marketing campaign (including this one).

I’m not sure who coined the phrase “linkable asset”, but it’s the perfect description of what you want to create: a high-value page that you can leverage for links over and over again.

Keep in mind that linkable asset is not “12 Things Spider Man Taught Me About Social Media Marketing” link bait nonsense.

It’s content so awesome, so incredible, and so useful that people can’t help but login to their WordPress dashboard and add a link to your site.

But how can you possibly know if your linkable asset is going to be a rousing success…or a total flop?

That’s easy: find content that’s already generated a ton of links.

Here’s how:

OSE Top Pages

One of the fastest ways to find content with a track record of attracting quality links is to use Open Site Explorer.

1. First, find a site that tends to generate tons of links from their content. Put their site into OSE:

2. Click on the “Top Pages” tab:

3. And look for content with at least 100 linking root domains

Topsy

Topsy is an awesome site that can help you find heavily shared content in your niche.

1. First, enter a keyword related to your niche:

2.  Choose “All Time”:

3. This step is important. Content that gets a lot of tweets and Facebook likes doesn’t always get a lot of links (and vice versa). So make sure to sort by links.

And you’ll have a solid list of proven, link-magnet content:

Google Search

Another strategy is to look for articles that already rank for competitive keywords.

If they’re ranking for tough terms then they probably have a lot of links pointing at them:

Just pop each of these into your link analysis tool of choice and see which ones have links from at least 100 referring domains.

In my case, I stumbled upon a few people that had tried (and failed) to compile all Google’s 200 ranking factors.

These articles earned hundreds of high quality links…even though they fell short of the 200 mark.

For example, here’s the link profile for the page ranking #1 for “Google Ranking Factors”:

When I saw that articles that didn’t even list all 200 ranking factors generated links like this, I realized I that had a golden opportunity sitting in my lap.

Which brings us to step 2…

Step #2: Make Something Even Better

Your next step is to take what’s out there and blow 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’s simply longer or includes more items is enough.

If you find a link magnet with a title like “50 Healthy Snack Ideas”, make 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 a breeze. 50-100 were really hard. 100-150 were really, really hard. And 150-200 were damn near impossible.

It took 10 gallons of coffee and 20-hours of sitting in front of my laptop (don’t worry, I took bathroom breaks).

But in the end, I had something that was clearly better than anything else out there.

More Up-To-Date

If you can take an old, tired, and out of date piece of content and spruce it up, you’ve got yourself a winner.

For example, most of the other ranking factor lists were sorely outdated and lacked important ranking factors, like social signals:

If you find something with old or inaccurate information, create something that covers many of the same points, but update it with cutting-edge information.

Better Designed

Sometimes, a visually stunning piece of content can generate a lot more links and social shares than something similar on an ugly page.

Just check out Help Scout’s Customer Acquisition Strategies for Entrepreneurs:

This guide is a curated list of links to other internet marketing sites.

But the page has generated a lot of buzz because it’s beautifully designed.

More Thorough

Most lists posts are just a bland list of bullet points without any meaty content that people can actually use.

But if you add a bit of depth for each item on your list, you have yourself a list post that’s MUCH more valuable.

For example, in my case, I noticed that the other ranking factor lists lacked references and detail:

So I made sure each and every point on my list had a brief description (with a reference).

Important Note: I recommend that you beat the existing content on every level: length, design, current information etc.

This will make it objectively clear that YOU have the better piece of content.

Which is really important when you start getting the word out…

Step #3: Reach Out to The Right People

Email outreach is the linchpin of the Skyscraper Technique.

It’s similar to straight up link begging, but with a VERY important twist.

Instead of emailing random people, you’re reaching out to site owners that have already linked out to similar content.

When you qualify prospects like this, you know that:

1. They run a site in your niche.

2. They’re interested in your topic.

3. They’ve already linked to an article on that topic.

Now it’s just a matter of giving them a friendly heads up about your clearly superior content.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Use ahrefs (or your link analysis tool of choice) to export all of the links pointing to your competitor’s content into a spreadsheet:

2. Weed out referring pages that don’t make sense to contact (forums, article directories etc.).  In my case, after cleaning up the list, I had 160 very solid prospects from a single article.

3. I emailed all 160 of them using this template:

Even I was shocked at the overwhelmingly positive response:

Out of 160 emails I landed 17 links: an 11% success rate.

Considering that these were cold emails that asked for a link in the first email, an 11% success rate is pretty amazing.

You may be thinking, “17 links, that’s it?”.

But remember it’s about quality, not quantity.

There were a lot of gems in that group of 17 links, including a link from a DMOZ listed site on a PR5 page.

Besides, just look at the meteoric rise in organic traffic that those 17 links got me (in a very short time period, no less).

Obviously there were a few links to that page that I got organically, but some of the best were from The Skyscraper Technique.

Now You Try It

I hope you enjoyed reading my case study and can see the potential of The Skyscraper Technique for your site and your business.

Yes, it takes hard work to create something great.

But with this strategy you already know ahead of time that your hard work is going to pay off (unlike pumping out content hoping that it goes viral).

I want you to give the technique a try and let me know how it works for you.

If you have a question or thought, leave a comment below and I’ll get right to it.

If you’re looking for some advanced SEO strategies that you can use on your site today, then you’ll love this infographic. Here I reveal 12 tested strategies that will bring in more search engine traffic for every piece of content that you publish:

Here I’ll provide some insights for each strategy from my personal experience:

1. Goal=Start Title With Keyword

Your title tag is the most important on-page SEO factor. An SEOMoz study found that pages that started their title with a keyword ranked higher than pages with the keyword in the middle or end of the title:

Basically this chart shows that the closer the keyword is to the beginning of the title tag, the more weight it has with search engines.

Brian’s Take:

2. Wrap Your Title in an H1 Tag

The H1 tag is your “headline tag”. Most CMS’s (like WordPress) automatically add the H1 tag to your post title. But some themes override this setting. Check your site’s code to make sure your title gets the H1 love it deserves.

Brian’s Take:

3. Add Modifiers To Your Title

Adding modifiers like “2013″, “best”, “guide”,  and “review” can help you rank for long tail versions of your target keyword.

Brian’s Take:

4. Leverage SEO-Friendly Permalink URLs

You want your page’s URL to be short and keyword rich. Avoid ugly URLs, like backlinko.com/p=123 or long URLs like: backlinko.com/on-page-seo-is-so-amazing-omg-its-the-best.

Matt Cutts has stated that the first 3-5 words in a URL are given more weight. 

Brian’s Take:

5. Drop Keyword in First 100 Words

Your keyword should appear in the first 100-150 words of the article. Putting the keyword early in the content complements the title tag by emphasizing the page’s topic.

Brian’s Take:

6. Nail Loading Speed

Google has stated on the record that page loading speed is an important SEO ranking signal. You can boost your site speed by using a CDN, compressing images, and switching to faster hosting. Make sure it doesn’t take more than 4 seconds for your page to load: a study by MunchWeb that 75% of users wouldn’t re-visit a site that took longer than 4 seconds to load.

Brian’s Take:

7. Slash Bounce Rate

A bounce — when a visitor quickly leaves your site — might be used by search engines to gauge a page’s quality. Google can use the Google toolbar, Chrome browser, and Google Analytics data to determine a page’s bounce rate. To lower your bounce rate add internal links to your content, write compelling copy, and add multimedia (like videos and diagrams) to your content.

Brian’s Take:

8. Use Social Sharing Buttons

Social signals are becoming a larger part of search engine algorithms. A study by BrightEdge found that prominent social sharing buttons can increase social sharing by 700%.

Brian’s Take:

9. Use Outbound Links

Outbound links to related pages is a relevancy signal that helps Google zero-in on your page’s topic. An industry study found that adding outbound links to authority sites — to sites like Wikipedia –  boosted the page’s rank in Google.

Brian’s Take:

10. Sprinkle LSI Keywords

LSI keywords are synonyms that Google uses to determine a page’s relevancy (and possibly quality). Find LSI keywords using “Searches Related to…” at the bottom of Google search results or the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Brian’s Take:

11. Dazzle with Multimedia

Text can only take your content so far. Engaging images, videos and diagrams can reduce bounce rate and increase time on site: two user interaction-based Google ranking factors.

Brian’s Take:

12. Post Long Content

The SEO adage “length is strength” was supported by a SERPIQ.com industry study which found that longer content ranked significantly higher in Google. Aim for at least 1500 words when targeting competitive keywords.

Brian’s Take:

What Did I Forget?

I know I didn’t cover every meaningful on-page SEO metric under the sun.

I want to hear about some cool on-page SEO trick that you use on your site.

Don’t be shy: drop a comment below and share the love!

I started with Adsense…but was let down by the horribly low CPCs.

Then I promoted Clickbank products…but I couldn’t get the traffic to convert.

Finally, I built a list…but I didn’t know how to pitch products without losing subscribers.

Then I tried CPA…and quickly realized that it was the best way for affiliates to monetize their sites.

Today I’m going to show you everything there is to know about CPA marketing.

CPA 101

CPA stands for “Cost Per Action“.

CPA is very simple: you get paid when someone clicks on your affiliate link and completes an action.

The “action” can be just about anything, but usually consists of:

• Filling out a form
• Getting an estimate or quote
• Signing up for a free trial
• Buying something

Why CPA?

There are two reasons that I prefer CPA over banner advertising, Adsense, and most other affiliate marketing strategies.

1. Higher on the Value Chain

To make the most money from your site, you want to get as high up on the value chain as you can.

Here is what the value chain looks like for digital products (using a $40 ebook as an example):

As you can see, Adsense, banner ads, and CPC/CPM models put you at the bottom of the value chain.

On the other hand, selling your own product, promoting targeted affiliate products (ie. web hosting), and CPA offers tend to put you higher up on the chain.

(FYI: the values in the diagram don’t add up to $40 because there are clicks and leads that don’t convert).

Keep in mind that physical products have 2-10x more hands in the pot (distributors, warehouses, suppliers etc.). That’s why Amazon Associates only make $100 when someone buys a $2500 laptop.

2. Integrated Advertising

The other nice thing about CPA is that you don’t need to disfigure your site with ugly ads to make money, like this nasty site:

As you’ll see later, you can seamlessly integrate CPA offers into your site. This means you run a clean, professional, branded site…while benefiting from out-of-this-world CTR, CPCs, and RPMs.

Step #1: Find an Offer

Your first step with CPA is to find an offer that aligns with your site’s existing traffic.

But with dozens of CPA networks — with hundreds of offers each — how can find the perfect offer for your site?

That’s easy: use oDigger and OfferVault.com.

They’re like the Google of CPA: they aggregate offers from reputable CPA networks.

And you can search based on keyword, price, category or network.

Let’s say that you ran a site in the education niche.

Head over to Offer Vault and type in “Education” or “Degrees” into the search bar:

And you’ll get a list of results, like this:

Here are the common terms you’ll come across during your search:

___ Only: You can only use a certain traffic source, like email or organic search.

Display: This includes text links and banner ads.

Lead: The most common “action” in the CPA marketing world. Usually submitting their name, email, phone, address etc.

Email/Zip Submit: The most simple CPA offer. Good for untargeted traffic. User gives their email and zip code only.

Incent: Short for “incentivized”. Incent means that you can bribe users with a free product or download.

Pay Per Call: You’re paid when someone makes a call after clicking on your affiliate link.

Download/Install: You get paid when someone downloads and/or installs a piece of software.

Publisher: The person that promotes the offer (you).

“Pixel Fires”: This is  when your lead actually counts as a lead.

US/FR/CA: Offer only valid in that country.

AM: Stands for “Affiliate Manager”. Your AM is your go-to person in the network

Sale or Rev Share: You get a cut of every sale.

When you see one that looks good, click on the offer’s listing:

Then read the details of the offer. The listing will usually give you basic information on the offer, like what the user needs to do and what type of traffic is allowed:

If it looks good, hit the “landing page preview” button. This will show you the page that users will see when they click on your link.

What should you look for in a landing page?

First, you want a landing page that looks clean and professional.

If it looks shady to you, it’ll look shady to your traffic too…and it won’t convert.

Also, the more forms and menus a page has, the lower your conversion rate is going to be.

Fortunately, more forms also mean higher CPA…

…so don’t be automatically turned off by a page with a million forms:

If the traffic is motivated enough (for example, they just searched Google for “best online degrees”), I’ve found that they’ll fill out just about anything.

“What If I Can’t Find an Offer?”

Depending on your niche, you may not be able to find a solid offer. If that’s the case, you might want to look for CPA offers that appeal to your traffic’s demographic.

For example, I used to run a site in the “dating” niche that was getting 2,000 visitors per day. I say “dating” because it was comprised mostly of 7th and 8th graders wondering how to talk to Sally that sits in the back. Not the PUA type of stuff that’s easy to monetize.

Despite the fact that I tested about 20 different themes and ad placements, I wasn’t making jack with Adsense:

When I looked at the ads Adsense was generating, I realized that they weren’t dating related at all…they were targeted based on demographics.

That’s when I decided to switch out Adsense for an email/zip submit offer for a free Xbox.

It honestly didn’t make a huge difference as the traffic wasn’t very targeted to begin with…but it was significantly more profitable than Adsense.

The moral of the story is that you should at least try CPA. If it doesn’t work out, you can always switch back to Adsense or another monetization strategy.

Step #2: Join a Network

If the offer looks good, it’s time to join the network that runs the offer. You can usually apply by clicking on a link on the offer page:

When you do, you’ll see an application like this:

You’ll be asked to give them a phone number…which they will call.

This is a huge stumbling block for most people. As affiliate marketers we’re accustomed to making money without having to talk to another human being.

The fact is you’ll have to talk to someone on the phone to join a CPA network. You may have to even fill out some actual paperwork. It’s no big deal, it’s just Real Company Stuff.

How to Get Accepted By Any Network

Remember that CPA networks aren’t trying to make things difficult. They just want to make sure that you’re a legit business that will send them real leads (which you are).

So it’s just a matter of being transparent with them.

Here are some tips that will help you get in:

• Call Them Before They Call You: Shady affiliates try to fly under the radar screen. Give the network a call right after you apply. This shows you’re the real deal. I’ve been accepted into networks literally 10-minutes after applying just by picking up the phone.
• Check Your Whois: If your site uses fake whois make sure to change it to real info before you apply. Some networks check this to see if the site’s whois address matches the mailing address.
• Be Honest: Most CPA applications have a section that asks about your internet marketing experience:

Remember: you don’t need to be an affiliate marketing rockstar to get accepted.

I joined my first network when I was making about $20/day from Adsense. They just want people that put honest answers into these fields.

So if you’re new to affiliate marketing, it’s OK to tell them that.

Step #3: Design your site around CPA

Once you’ve joined a network and have an offer ready to go, it’s time to integrate it into your site.

One of the things I love about CPA is that you can make your site look Fortune 500…even as you promote $1.25 email/zip submits.

In other words, don’t waste the opportunity to make your site look legit by slapping up a nasty banner:

Believe it or not, but you don’t need in-your-face-advertising to make money from your site.

In fact, I’ve found that the more you integrate advertising, the more people will click and convert. 

For example, I own a site that’s 100% monetized with CPA.  Most of the affiliate links are either contextual links or integrated into the site’s design.

It has very little banner advertising.

Despite the lack of obvious advertising, the site has a 26.4% CTR.

If I had that kind of CTR with Adsense I’d probably get my account banned!

Here are two examples of big brand sites that have done such an amazing job with ad integration that you can hardly tell they’re promoting CPA offers:

Big Brand CPA #1: MoneySupermarket.com

This is a big brand financial site that focuses on a UK audience. The screenshot is a credit card comparison tool that they’ve built. They get a fat commission for every credit card lead they send to Visa and the other big credit card companies.

Big Brand CPA #2: NerdWallet.com

NerdWallet.com is a growing personal finance site. Like MoneySupermarket.com, they integrate their CPA offers into useful tools. This seamless ad integration blows away the CTR and conversion rate that they’d get from a banner ad.

Just to be clear: you can do well with traditional banner ads and contextual links.

But I recommend shelling out the cash to get a custom design that makes your site look legit. This will make you more money in the long run and makes link building significantly easier.

Pro Tips

Here are a few tricks that I’ve picked up from my experience running CPA offers as an affiliate.

Be Tight With Your Affiliate Manager: Your AM is your inside source at the network. Every now and again they’ll call you or email you to get you to run some of their new offers. I personally don’t like being pitched to, but I’m always nice and professional when they reach out:

After all, most AMs are cool guys (or gals) just doing their job.  And it’s a relationship that you can leverage for exclusive deals (as you’ll see next).

How to Get Commission Bumps: One of the perks of having a good relationship with your AM is the ability to get commission bumps. In fact, I have a 100% success rate so far. And it’s because I do two things: a) maintain a good relationship with my AM and b) play one network against another.

Every now and again you should check to see if one of your offers is running at a competing network.

When I see that a network has an offer that I’m already running — but at a higher rate — I ask my AM if they can match it:

They don’t want you to bolt for another network and will usually hook you up:

You may have noticed that this is a $.30 bump from what the network was publicly offering.

That may not seem like a lot, but let’s do the math:

Let’s say you’re getting 50 conversions per day.

50 conversions x $.30=$15 extra per day

$15/day x 30 days=$450 extra per month

$450/month x 12 months=$5400 extra per year

Not bad!

Avoid Shady Networks: The dark side of CPA is that there are a lot of fly by night operations that rip people off. That’s why you need to be VERY careful about joining shady networks. Before joining any network, check the reviews at Odigger.

Click on the Network Reviews tab.

And find the network that you want to join.

Avoid any network that has reviews of people saying that they never got paid or getting paid was a hassle:

However, keep in mind that networks can have legitimate reasons to withhold payment (like if the person sent them phony leads). So if you see a few complainers in an otherwise stellar list of reviews, it’s probably OK to join.

But if you see a sea of negative reviews, you should go with another network (even if the commission is a bit higher with the shady network).

Recommended Networks:  I’ve joined a bunch, but I’m active at two networks: MaxBounty and Panthera Network. They both have a ton of offers, competitive payouts, and great AMs. They’re both incredible — but if I had to choose one — I’d probably go with MaxBounty.

The only difference between them is that MaxBounty offers weekly payments. There are lots of other reputable networks out there, but I can’t recommend them because I haven’t personally used them.

Are You Ready To Rock?

There you have it: a complete blueprint to CPA marketing success…

Don’t just click away. Check out some offers right now.

If you have any questions — or have some personal experience to share from CPA — please leave a comment below.