Method for evaluating SE competition

Hi,
Do you guys use a particular method for weighing search engine competition? I am not talking about the SEOC value (# of results for a search) but rather the strength of the competition on the first page of Google.
I am using Market Samurai and their training videos say "if there is a lot of green in the SEO competition module for your keyword, that's good, if there's a lot of red, that's bad!" Does anyone have a more precise system to determine if you can compete on the first page for a particular keyword?
I think this is very important because going for the wrong keyword wastes a lot of time! Thanks!

Just be careful with market samurai as it is very insightful but not to be taken literaly. I tested the SEO competition module and had all red with pages older than 3 years and a large dose of backlinking and social media camps have pushed the site to the top.

I second that. I have keywords with SEOC values of more than 85k having pages with less than 100 bl's on the first page.

find out how many backlonkc your comp has and aim to beat that -- as long as your h1 and other basic seo stuff is good you should be good with that

Like stated above, the onsite seo is very important. I use ms personally and then double check the first couple of sites with firefox seo quake. If the answers are legit and I know that i can beat it, then I go for it.

One thing about ms and the competition, don't just look at the colors. Look at the actual numbers. I was doing a little research today and some of the results on ms said that the competition was hard, because there was 98 backlinks. Now if I can't get 98 backlinks to a site, I will quit IM and go work at McDonalds.