How to legally steal your competitor's content strategy using AI
How to reverse-engineer any competitor's content strategy using AI in one afternoon
Your competitors have already done the hard work. They’ve tested headlines, figured out which topics their audience cares about, built an SEO presence over years, and worked out what gets shared. You could spend six months doing that yourself, or you could spend an afternoon with AI and shortcut the whole thing.
This isn’t about copying. It’s about intelligence. Every piece of content your competitors publish is a public data point, and AI is very good at finding patterns in data points.
Here are 10 prompts that turn competitor research into a full content plan in a few hours.
Prompt 1: The full content audit
What it does: Builds a structured breakdown of a competitor’s content strategy from their public-facing output.
When to use it: At the start of any competitive research project, before anything else.
The prompt:
You are a content strategist. I’m going to give you a list of URLs from a competitor’s blog or content hub. Analyse these URLs and identify: the main topics they cover, the content formats they favour, the approximate publishing frequency based on URL patterns or dates, any content gaps you can spot, and the likely audience they’re writing for. Then summarise the overall strategy in 3-4 sentences. Here are the URLs: [PASTE 10-20 COMPETITOR BLOG URLS]
How to use it:
Go to your competitor’s blog and copy 15-20 URLs from their most recent posts.
Paste them into the prompt as a list.
Ask a follow-up: “What would you add to this strategy if you were targeting [YOUR AUDIENCE]?”
Example input: URLs from a SaaS productivity tool’s blog: posts on remote work, async communication, meeting culture, team management, Notion tutorials, time-blocking guides...
What you’ll get: A clear map of their content priorities, plus an honest read on what they’re missing.
Advanced note: Run this on 3 competitors at once and ask AI to compare them. The overlaps show you the table-stakes topics. The gaps show you where there’s actual room.
Prompt 2: The headline reverse-engineer
What it does: Figures out the headline formulas a competitor uses most, so you can write better versions of them.
When to use it: When you want to write content on the same topics but need angles that don’t feel like copies.
The prompt:
Here are 20 headlines from [COMPETITOR NAME]’s blog. Identify the headline formulas they use most (e.g. “How to X without Y”, “X things that Z”, listicles, question-led, problem-led). Then rewrite 5 of these headlines for my brand. My audience is [YOUR AUDIENCE] and my brand voice is [DESCRIBE YOUR VOICE, e.g. “direct, slightly sarcastic, no corporate speak”]. Don’t copy the topic. Give me a better angle on the same subject. Headlines: [PASTE HEADLINES]
How to use it:
Copy 20 headlines from a competitor’s blog or newsletter archive.
Fill in your audience and voice description honestly. “Friendly and helpful” is useless. Be specific.
Take the rewrites and stress-test them against your own best-performing headlines.
Example input: Competitor: a B2B marketing newsletter. Headlines like “Why your email open rates are dropping”, “The 5-minute social media audit”, “How top marketers plan their content calendar”...
What you’ll get: 5 headline rewrites you can use straight away, plus a clear picture of the formulas that work in your space.
Advanced note: Ask AI to score each original headline on clarity, curiosity and specificity (1-10 each). This tells you which of their posts are likely their weakest performers. Those are the ones worth targeting with something better.
Prompt 3: The keyword gap finder
What it does: Identifies topics your competitor ranks for that you haven’t written about yet.
When to use it: When you want a fast list of SEO-ready content ideas that already have proven demand.
The prompt:
I’m going to give you two lists. List A is topics I’ve already covered on my blog. List B is topics my competitor [COMPETITOR NAME] covers based on their content. Identify everything in List B that isn’t in List A. Then rank the gaps by likely search volume (high/medium/low based on your knowledge) and flag any that look like quick wins. List A: [YOUR TOPICS]. List B: [COMPETITOR TOPICS]
How to use it:
Spend 10 minutes listing your own content topics from memory or a quick scroll of your archive.
Do the same for your competitor.
Ask a follow-up: “Which 5 of these gaps would you prioritise for a newsletter audience rather than pure SEO?”
Example input: List A: AI writing tools, prompt engineering basics, ChatGPT for email, AI for social media. List B: also includes AI for sales outreach, AI SEO tools, competitor analysis with AI, AI podcast production...
What you’ll get: A prioritised list of content gaps, with quick wins flagged. Good for 2-3 months of content ideas in one go.
Advanced note: If you have access to a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, pull your competitor’s top 20 organic pages by traffic and paste those URLs into this prompt instead of manually listing topics. The accuracy goes up considerably.
You’ve seen three prompts. The next seven cover social strategy, email dissection, SEO angle mining, audience pain point extraction, content repurposing gaps, paid ad angle analysis, and how to build a full 90-day content calendar from everything you’ve gathered.
Paid members get all 10 prompts, the implementation guide, the bonus 90-day content planning template, and the advanced notes section.
Prompt 4: The social content decoder
What it does: Breaks down which social posts from a competitor get the most engagement and why.
When to use it: Before you plan your own social content calendar for any platform.