How to overtake .GOV sites in Google ranking?

I have a site which for a particular keyword, only .gov and government sites are ranked for about top 20 results and i was wondering is it possible to rank top#3 by overtaking these .gov site.

has somebody overtaken .gov sites in ranking? Is it possible?

 

Simple, get more and better links to your site than they have.
Wait, that's not so simple...

Unless you're an experienced SEO, have a lot of money to invest in it OR have something truly unique to offer on the topic, it could be very tough.

 

Its possible. Where do you rank now?

 

It's definately possible, the chances are that the .gov sites have good links from other .gov and .edu sites, but have very little in the way of on-site or off-site SEO.

Make your site a good resource that people will benefit from linking to, then contact the .gov sites and those that link to them and get them to link to you.

 

I really don't think .gov sites would link to anyone other than other .gov or .edu sites.

 

I have many .gov and .edu links to my customers, the trick is to make them want to link to you. Digitalpoint has 9 .edu links for example and Shawn has never done any active link building.

 

i have very good content site even better than .gov site but my google rankings are nowhere near and pushed to 20+. I dont think any gov sites have good webmasters interested in providing links.

you said it is possible? any ideas?

 

.gov, .edu, amazon, ebay all the same. You can beat em in the serps. Its not too difficult. You really just have to work it page by page.

 

i tried everything, headers, titles, excellent content, seo friendly and nothing works against these .gov sites.

well, i checked the guy who ranked top 5 in the site which is commercial. he is PR 3 and mine is PR2. The only difference he had domain "keyword.com" and mine is "keywordXXX.com". will i top him if i get PR3 or more. Just not sure about that.

It would be very helpful to me indeed, if somebody gets me some tips on how to work on this stuff.

 

If you have a site thats over 2 years old and ranks 20th for the target keyword then its 100% possible. Just make sure the content is good and then set about building trusted links from similar domains to the gov ones.

Also you will need more links than they have to combat the fact that their links will be better than yours.

 

Forget about PR, it's quality and relevant backlinks - with the anchor text of having your keyword.

 

Have you asked? Simple as that sometimes. I always ask, but one time in particular I asked and received 50+ links to interior pages, all with great anchor text. The content was useful for them to link to and the links were useful for me.

 

it's possible, but it's going to take work. LOTS of quality backlinks.

 

PR has NOTHING to do with SERPS as far as I know, besides, your site could be PR10 right now and his PR1 and you'd never know it.