Doing guest post updates is where you ask editors if you can update one of their existing blog posts.
They trump regular guest posts because you can cherry-pick a post that already has backlinks, meaning you end up with a stronger backlink to your site.
You can sometimes use them to build links directly to product pages, but they’re most useful for getting links to blog posts and other informational content.
How to do it
You can find guest post update prospects in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer, a searchable database containing billions of pages of content with SEO metrics. Just search for non-competing, outdated posts mentioning a topic you already have content about.
Here’s how to search for matching pages in Content Explorer:
"topic" -title:"topic" title:(2020 OR 2019 OR 2018 OR 2017 OR 2016 OR 2015)
For example, if you sell smart home products and want to build links to a beginner’s guide to HomeKit, you may search for this:
Searching for outdated pages that mentioned HomeKit in Content Explorer
This looks for pages that mention “HomeKit” somewhere on the page but not in the title. In other words, non-competing pages that talk about the topic but aren’t directly about it. It also looks for pages with years 2015 through 2020 in the title, which is a sign of an outdated page.
You can then narrow down the list to focus on what you need by setting a couple of filters:
Referring domains filter to a minimum of 50 to find pages with backlinks
Domain Rating (DR) filter to a minimum of 40 to exclude pages from new and low-authority sites
Here’s one of the results that pops up for our search:
Example of a page about home automation with traffic and backlinks
It’s a list of open-source home automation platforms published in October 2019 with 89 referring domains. However, according to Content Explorer, its search traffic has started to drop in recent months.
Content Explorer shows this page's organic traffic is starting to drop
This is good for two reasons:
It means the page’s backlinks are probably high-quality, so a link from this post will be a strong one. (It’s always worth double-checking this in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer before pitching.)
It gives us added value for our pitch, which is that having us update the post may help improve its organic rankings and traffic.
Here’s an example pitch we can send to the whatsapp number list person in charge of this blog:
Hey [Name],
Josh here from [site]. 👋 LinkedIn tells me you’re in charge of the Ubidots blog?
Thought I’ll reach out because I see you haven’t updated your list of open-source home automation platforms since 2019. Some of the listed platforms no longer work, and Ahrefs tells me the post’s organic search traffic is starting to drop.
I think a quick refresh can help improve both of these things. Would you be open to me updating it for you? I sell smart home products, and I’m a big supporter of open-source platforms, so I think I can give the list a pretty nice revamp.