Evaluating competition for keywords - help

Hello Warrior Forum

I recently got interested in affiliate sales and niche sites as a way to earn a little pocket money. I have researched quite a bit and already picked a niche and found what seems to be some good keywords to try and rank for.

I'm at the point where I'm ready to register for a domain, but I need your help deciding between three options for my main keyword. Each of them have their advantages, and I simply don't have the experience to be able to tell which would be the best.

I'm using Longtail Pro to help in my keyword research for those of you familiar with the program.

Option 1)
This keyword is "[product] [noun] products".

Local searches (US): 6600
Global searches: 8100
Keyword competition avg.: 27 out of 100 (longtail pro recommends below 35)



Pros:
#2 ranking site is relatively new at 1.3 years. 4, 5 and 9 are also younger than 2 years.
All except one competitor ranks below 35.
Keyword is great for domain name
Has the largest search volume of the three options by far.

Cons:
Most of the top 10 ranking pages for this keyword comes from small E-commercers that sell brand specific products. Something I've read to be a disadvantage.
The top 3 ranked sites are among the hardest competition of the top 10 with high page authority, high domain authority and lots of backlinks.

My conclusion:
I would have a difficult time reaching top 3 in the rankings, but if I do this would be the most ideal of the three options.
I'm not sure on the e-commercers as a majority being a bad thing in this case. Seeing as they are all brand specific and my page would contain reviews and a more general approach. My own habbits when shopping online tells me that a potential buyer would rather check out reviews from an "objective" site than going blindly to a branded site. I might be wrong here.





Option 2)
This keyword is "[product] [noun] [product]"

Local searches (US): 1000
Global searches: 3600
Keyword competition avg.: 17 out of 100



Pros:
Keyword competition is only 17.
Three pages in the top 10 are keyword specific affiliate blogs and one is a general how to blog.
2 out of 10 are less than a year old. 6 out of 10 of the pages are less than 2 years old, including #1 ranked.
Top 10 doesn't contain a lot of exact keyword matches.

Cons:
Keyword is a bit awkward and forced
I have found a program giving 20% commision, but they only ship to the US, limiting the search volume to 1000 a month almost 1/7 of option 1's search volume.
Top 3 ranked is competitive with either high page authority or domain authority and keyword competitiveness equal to the first option despite having 10 points difference in KC.
Amazon is ranking #2

My conclusion:
Ranking #10-#4 should not be a problem as more than half have 10 or less in KC. Ranking in top 3 is going to be difficult.



Option 3)
This keyword is "Where to buy [product]".

Local searches (US): 2900
Global searches: 2900
Keyword competition avg.: 22 out of 100



Pros:
Buyer minded keyword.
Top 3 are all similar styled blogs with very low keyword competition, highest being 12. In general weak top 3.
2 of 3 in top 3 are less than a year old.
#3 seem to be begging to be outranked.


Cons:
#3 has an exact keyword domain name and title.
Amazon is present, although in the bottom of results.

My conclusion
Writing it all up like this seems like this option would be the best one, as out of the three it's the easiest one to rank top 3 with, I just don't know if I should go for an almosy exact matching domain name or for a more brandable domain name.



This leaves me with a few questions I hope you can answer:
* Which of the three keywords would you pick as a main keyword and why?

* Is it a bad idea to chose an exact match keyword as domain name or should I go with a more brandable name and beat the competition otherwise?
If a competitor, as in option 3, has an exact match domain name and is getting ranked high beacuse of this, is it a good idea to buy a similar sounding name? Say the competitors domain name is WhereToBuyShoes, is it advisable to go for WhereToBuyShoesHQ? To me a domain name like that sounds a little scam-ish.

* How easy would it be to rank above a weak root site WhereToBuy[Product].com with something like DomainName.com/Where-to-buy-[product]?


Any help and thoughts is appreciated.