What do you do if you have two SEO clients in the same niche?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Jennifer Antoun: It`s a conflict of interest
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  Jacob Punton: Adam Gallegos
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  Jacob Punton: Thanks guys! Much appreciated
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  Steve Gerencser: It`s only a conflict if you let it be. Each client has their own budget, their own website, their own way of supporting your efforts. Plus, we don`t sell rankings, we sell marketing. Google sets rankings. Saying it is a conflict of interest would be like saying a radio or tv station can only have 1 car dealer as a client because marketing for more than one is a conflict of interest. If you sell and promise specific rankings, which you shouldn`t, then you may have an issue.
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  Peter Mead: I doubt they pay you enough to have exclusivity on the whole vertical. The client probably thinks it`s a conflict of interest but as long as you do all the things they agreed to pay you for... of course we want good rankings but on which divice and which personalization. Yes we report broadly on rankings across the full range of keywords, but they are not paying for rankings. If the client wants keyword positions then use Adwords. Need to explain to the client.
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  Jody Nesbitt: agree, SEO is more than your effort, there is their content, their budget for offline marketing, social presence and everything else that goes with it, the only conflict i can see is if client 1 finds out about client 2, they could then say you are favouring one over the other, but if you have your explanation ready, there should be no issue, you could also use it to say, its actually better for both, because what you are doing is benefiting both sides because you are learning as you go, we all are
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  Jennifer Antoun: This is a great article: http://sakasandcompany.com/client-conflicts/
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  Steve Wiideman: Not sure there is too much more to add here beyond challenging both clients to come up with content and media THEY feel is more helpful, therby leaving the burden of ranking on them. Basically, "you provide me with the web copy, custom illustration, and professional video, and I`ll optimize them all with SEO best practices. This way the users decide long term who should rank when both satisfy the "search engine friendliness" criteria. I love these answers above: 1. We sell marketing, not rankings 2. Offline and social presence play a role 3. Rank varies by device and personalization 4. No exclusivity agreement in place Answer 4 might be your opportunity to get your favorite of the two clients to double their budget and sign a 3-year agreement. Just saying. This is an awesome thread!
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  Jeremy L. Knauff: You`re also looking too broadly at the topic. Look at it like this: let`s say I work with three home builders in my city. Seems like a conflict, right? Not really, since one builder offers inexpensive cookie cutter homes, another offers mid-range homes with some options for customization, and the third offers individually designed homes for each customer. They all build homes in the same city but each are in a completely different markets because of how they differentiate their product.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: As a site auditor, I run into similar challenges from time to time. I`m in the "only a conflict if you make it one" camp. My experience may be somewhat different since I don`t do implementation, though. I have a policy where I don`t fixate on specific phrase rankings. Instead, I focus on strategic areas of weakness, and for keyword phrases, I leave it up to my clients and their team or their implementation vendors to evaluate different phrase variations, and guide them on evaluating data properly, across multiple data points, to determine what they choose to focus on. It`s my responsibility to provide overall guidance. And it`s helpful to explain that their fixating on a single phrase can be a trap of large scale missed opportunity.
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  David Ogletree: I would never work with competitors
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  Neil Cheesman: Personally, I don`t think YOU can do the `best you can` for TWO clients ie... "What do you do if you have two SEO clients in the same niche and are competitors for the same keyword? For example, they both want to rank for `electrical contractor in kent`" Same niche, same keyword and same area - for me (and it isn`t) I wouldn`t do it - something about etiquette, ethics etc it just doesn`t seem `right` But that`s just me. It seems that YOU could also learn/benefit from what makes each site rank better and pass that knowledge on to the other business. There should be exclusivity and IF I were a potential customer of yours I would remain a potential customer, as I wouldn`t trust you to do the best for ME. If it means paying more then have clients pay for exclusivity. A quote from the link above is a good example of this... "When only one client can “win” in an industry, you can’t ethically provide services to other clients in the same market. For example, you don’t want two clients both targeting “coffee shop Sacramento, ” but you could serve one coffee shop in Sacramento and others in other cities—they aren’t competitors."
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  Neil Cheesman: Do`h! My advice would be, to have the guidelines/contracts (call it what you will) in place to start with so you don`t end up putting yourself in a situation where you don`t have your back covered - and you can sleep at night.
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  Jacob Punton: This was just an example. I don`t have anything along the lines of this yet. Just curious and for future experience.