Would you go after these keywords?

Hey, I'm not new to SEO, but have run into a weird situation with some recent keyword research. I've found keywords that I could possibly get EMDs for, and most of the research almost screams "Go For It!". Here's the issue though, While traffic travis (and some other checks I run kw's against) seem positive, most of the kw's in this niche seem to all have the same thing:

The first page is all high authority sites. Domains that are 10+ years, some with high PR, etc. This seems to be a reoccurring theme in this niche.

Now even though most of them aren't at all optimized for the keyword (in some cases 3 out of 10 have the keyword in the title), I'm hesitant to start working on these because I'm a bit worried about how hard it could be (and how long it might take) to rank for these kw's against such "high powered" sites.

So, my question for you, my dear BHW is... would you go after these keywords? (Any ideas, suggestions and tips appreciated!)

Traffic Travis Screenshots:

Are those authority sites sitting on the first page?

lanbo said:

Are those authority sites sitting on the first page?

Click to expand...

I would sure as hell say so...

I don't get these, "Would you go for these keywords" threads...

No one can give you a real answer. The only way you're going to find out is to go for it and see what happens.

lanbo said:

Are those authority sites sitting on the first page?

Click to expand...

Yes, they're not the homepage of the site or anything, but they are pages of authority sites (with 1000's of pages) on the first page.

Im sure there was someone on here only a few days ago that did exactly what you are talking about. The front page was full of authority sites but they had little to no optimization for the keyword. The person managed to get his keyword onto the front page without a huge effort. I would go for it as there is only one way to find out... Ill try find that persons thread and link to it for you.

Edit - This was the post

boomstix, thanks for the post! And like the name, are you an Evil Dead fan?

Nah, was a nickname I picked up back in the day playing baseball and no problem

beakon said:

No one can give you a real answer. The only way you're going to find out is to go for it and see what happens.

Click to expand...

Not true, someone who has enough SEO knowledge and has experienced this first hand would know how hard it would be to rank in this situation. That was the whole point of starting this thread.