Playbook: reverse-engineer a competitor's best content in 20 minutes

Playbook: reverse-engineer a competitor's best content in 20 minutes
I ran this against a real competitor in Ahrefs, then repeated it in Semrush. The goal isn't to copy — it's to find their underdefended pages.

The 5 steps:
— Pull their Top Pages by traffic, sort by traffic value, not raw visits.
— For each top page, open its keyword list — find terms where they rank 4-10 (soft spots you can beat).
— Check the page's referring domains. Low links + high traffic = you can outrank with better content alone.
— Note content age/last update. Stale pages (2+ years, no refresh) are the easiest to leapfrog.
— Map their internal links INTO that page — replicate that internal support on yours.

Ahrefs:
➕ Traffic value + 'links to this page' is the killer combo here
➖ Traffic estimates can be off in small niches
Semrush:
➕ Cleaner top-pages-to-keywords drilldown
➖ Backlink data per page is thinner

Best for: link + traffic analysis → Ahrefs. Keyword drilldown → Semrush.
Pick this before writing any 'competitor X alternative' piece. Skip if you haven't picked a target yet.