I work for a company who specialise in SEO whilst running my own business. It is possible to appear in the top pages but nobody can really hit top spot everytime. For the UK market I aim for top 10 results in specific keywords/phrases but out of my target list I expect 50% in top 10 (page1), 25% in top 2 pages and 25% below top 3 pages and requiring further work after 3 months of a 6 month campaign. Within a 6month campaign I would expect 60% page1 30% top 3 pages and 10% failure (below top 3 pages) for my target keywords/phrases.
BUT a lot does depend on the selection of keyword/phrases and competition and popularity of keyword/phrases.
After all that rubbish I have just uttered in my humble opinion it is possible but not always.
