Brian Dean of Backlinko and His Crazy Effective Skyscraper SEO Strategy

When it comes to ranking a website or blog in the search results, it’s all about understanding the basics of SEO and what’s working today. While researching such topics, you will likely end up on some of the most authoritative SEO and marketing blogs on the internet today. No only are these blogs experts at online marketing, they are also posting any recent changed in Google’s algorithm, Updates, and what’s working with basic SEO strategies today.

Backlinko is one of the top SEO training blogs. The site was founded by Brian Dean in 2002 and has added tons of amazing resources over the past 16 years.

The backstory about the website is covered on the About Page. Brian launched several failed online businesses before creating a very successful personal finance website. Ryan learned a lot about SEO during his career as an online entrepreneur, so he decided to start Backlinko to share his wisdom with others. His site has been very successful, because his advice is based on tangible experience and empirical results, rather than rehashing the same cliché tips that most other sites offer.

What Brian Offers on his blog

Brian pledges to offer exclusive SEO resources that his readers won’t find anywhere else. He makes good on his promise by offering:

• Regularly updated posts covering the best SEO practices. These resources are updated every year, because the principles of SEO are frequently changing.
• Extensive case studies showing the results of different SEO strategies. The evidence-based findings help readers realize why they should prioritize certain strategies over others.
• Detailed advice on building backlinks, conducting SEO audits and other approaches that are frequently overlooked by many other SEO blogs.

Brian uses content locking on some of his pillar posts. You need to subscribe to his email list to be able to access them. However, most of his posts are not locked. The posts that are available to the general public are still filled with valuable information, but they don’t have all of the gold nuggets that you will find in the locked posts. Although you may need to join his email list to see some content, you don’t need to pay to access any of it.

Brian’s newsletter and other exclusive content

Brian‘s blog is full of quality content. However, he also shares some valuable information with newsletter subscribers that isn’t available in any of his posts.

Brian also has a detailed case study that he shares with every new subscriber. This case study provides an overview on how he was able to increase his traffic by 110% in just 14 days. The case study is merged with a step-by-step guide on boosting traffic. Brian says that this case study includes a real-life application of his Skyscraper Technique.

Again, this information doesn’t cost a penny. You simply need to join his newsletter to get his case study and other valuable content.

About Brian‘s blog

At first glance, Backlinko is just an SEO Blog with exceptional content. To the casual observer, it would be difficult to see how authoritative Brian is or how effective his strategies are. When you dig deeper, you will see that Brian is truly a genius at SEO and is recognized as a leading authority by his colleagues.

Backlinko is ranking for 35,400 keywords, according to SEMRush. SEMRush shows that his website is in the top 31,700 ranking websites in the world. This is incredibly impressive, when you consider that there are over 1 billion websites, according to NetCraft.

Some of the keywords that the Backlinko website is ranking for are extremely competitive. The site is on the front page of Google for the keywords:

• Google search console
• Google keyword planner
• Search console
• Keyword planner

The most impressive part is that he holds the 12th spot on Google for the keyword “SEO.” This one word keyword is one of the most competitive in the entire world. The fact that Brian is ranking at the top of the second page of Google for it is nothing short of spectacular.

Brian also has a very impressive social following and is cited by numerous other experts. He has published content in or been referenced in articles on Entrepreneur, Inc., Forbes and QuickSprout.

Brian also has over 72,000 Twitter followers and 166,000 YouTube subscribers. Compared to most other SEO experts, this is a remarkable number of social media followers. SEO is not a very exciting niche, so most experts don’t earn more than 1,000 followers. Brian is clearly an exception, because he is such a distinguished expert in the field.

Brian is just as committed to sharing exceptional content on Twitter and YouTube as he is on his blog. Most other experts simply tweet links to their blogs with brief titles. Brian offers more detailed content in his tweets. He lists several important points from each blog post, so readers know what to expect when they visit his article. This seems to explain why most of his tweets have around 100 retweets and nearly 200 likes.

Brian also has one of the most expensive collections of YouTube videos of any SEO professional. Over the past four years, he has posted 23 videos and is adding more over time. Most of his videos are between five and 13 minutes long. However, some of them are closer to 20 minutes.

Brian has done an excellent job at repurposing his content for YouTube. Most of his videos appear to be similar to the content that he shares on his blog. However, they are presented in a more visual and engaging format, which allows him to reach a wider audience and appeal to people that learn better from videos than written content.

Overall Opinion of the Blog

Backlinko is one of the most authoritative SEO blogs on the Internet. It has very detailed case studies and step-by-step tutorials, which will be invaluable to anybody trying to boost their rankings in Google. You can unlock even more valuable content by joining the email newsletter.

It was started by Brian Dean, one of the foremost experts on SEO. Due to the sheer depth of information, this blog stands head and shoulders over most other SEO advice websites.

Why Start an SEO Blog?

Organic search traffic from Google is very important to almost every website. Entrepreneurs realize that once a website is optimized, they can earn a steady stream of quality traffic. However, optimizing their site takes time.

Since so many people are interested in learning more about SEO, you can potentially earn a huge base of readers by building an SEO blog. Your site can also be very lucrative. Whether you are monetizing your site through Adsense, selling leads to SEO agencies or offering your own SEO services, people will be happy to pay.

How to Start an SEO Blog

While running an SEO blog can be very profitable, the niche is also very competitive. You need to take a leaf from Brian’s book if you want to be successful.

Your site won’t gain traction if you are just rewriting content from other sources. You are going to need to provide very detailed, evidence based content to earn quality backlinks and gain loyal readers. Some of the best ways to do this are by:

• Conducting your own case studies
• Running SEO experiments
• Interviewing other experts in the field

You need an original strategy and put in a lot of hard work to succeed in this niche. However, the payoff will be huge if you get traction.

Ready to Get Started with a Blog of Your Own?

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If you are planning on starting an SEO blog like Backlinko, then you should follow the following approach:

• Come up with a catchy domain name
• Think about the most common questions people have about SEO
• Brainstorm some ways to come up with unique, extremely high quality content
• Build relationships with other marketing, business and SEO blogs that will be interested in linking to your content
• Consider using Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms to reach audience (this has clearly worked well for Brian)

You need to be realistic about the amount of work involved. The SEO niche is very competitive. You are going to need to invest a lot of time and resources generating quality content, reaching out to other publishers and earning backlinks. Make sure that you are willing to put your investment to good use.