Sure did it a couple of times. not with kw that have thousands of searches, but when you then start ranking for them, then dozens of other combos with that kw you also start rank for and thus can hit well over 300-500 clicks per month to the page. So it depends on what you mean with competitive keywords.

And of course when you rank you start getting links organically and that power you can drive into new articles which makes it easier to rank new them. Especially if they are somewhat topical related.