.govs And Seo, can i rank higher than goverment websites? Options

[tambre]

i've got a client that is trying to rank for some keywords and they're doing great everywhere but google. when i do a site:url in google, they've got listings.

when i search for their terms in google the first four pages are government websites, i didn't even bother to go deeper... can i rank higher than government websites? they seem to have taken over google for the search terms i need and i'm concerned.

any help is greatly appreciated.

thanks,
tambre

[bragadocchio]

Hi tambre,

There's one set of keywords that I've been ranking at either at number 1 or number 2 (plus an additional indented page) for since Google first came online, and we've been switching positions back and forth with a government site for the top position that whole time.

Traffic doesn't really seem that much different for that phrase whether we are 1 or 2, and I suspect that we get more conversions when we are ranked at 2, and people visit the government site first.

The government site changed their domain name last month, and has been sending out notices to people who link to them about the new address. They've dropped down to ranking at 10 with people changing links to the site.

I have a number of other terms that are just below a number 1 ranked government site. Haven't put any effort into outranking those government pages. It is likely possible with a little effort though.

It is something that you can do.

[tambre]

thanks for the reply. while my clients site hasn't been on the internet as long as your clients it is comforting to know that they can beat those government domains.

this client has been struggling in google since january and i'm afraid to go in and redo/tinker with their optimization when it's working so well everywhere else.

thank you for the help, i'll get back to the drawing board and see what i can come up with

[EGOL]

You can beat .gov sites... but check their backlinks to get some idea what you are up against.

[bragadocchio]

thank you for the help, i'll get back to the drawing board and see what i can come up with

You may want to avoid a head-to-head confrontation on some of the more competitive keywords, and look for opportunities to rank for keywords that they missed. While that may mean targeting some less competitive keywords, if it brings you the audience that you are looking for, that should be fine.

EGOL is right that many .gov sites have a frightening amount of backlinks. Focusing upon terms that they may be less relevant for can be helpful. And if you can develop some traffic and some links while doing that, you may find yourself in a much better position to take them on for some of those more competitive terms.

[tambre]

thank you both so much for the help, i have a much better idea on how to help my client now. i appreciate it very, very much.

[backgammonnn1234]

You can beat .gov sites but it will take more than just doing a backlink check on them. Make sure u learn about true link analysis. Try to find an seo that has created a search engine from scratch then pick his mind if he allows u to do this lol

[tambre]

what do you mean, backgammonnn1234, by true link analysis?