Wil Reynolds Wil Reynolds

November 17, 2008

Ethical SEO & a conflict of interest

Darn, 15 minutes ago I was just referred to a company that competes with a client of ours whose SEO campaign just wrapped up about 3 months ago. They are in maintenance mode, maybe a couple hours a month to keep an eye on things. All of a sudden this new opportunity comes to us, as usual it is referred to us by someone that works at the prospects company, so he’s way vested in picking a good SEO company. For the record, I would never proactively go after an old client’s competitor, but this one was referred in.

This put me in an awkward position, and one that I think most business people wouldn’t worry about, but I do. The minute I found out the industry they were in my jaw dropped, for the first time in our 6 years we were referred into a direct competitor. Something immediately felt bad in my gut, I felt like I was cheating, even though the client and SEER have a very minor relationship on SEO, we are running their SEM. I told the new company that I looked at it as my job to kick their butts, for our existing client. How could I have spent the last 12 months trying to kick a company’s butt to only turn around and try to help them kick my old client’s butt?

Then the business side kicks in and makes me say, wait a second. This might come back to bite us 5-10 years from now if I keep this feeling of dedication to past SEO clients. So I talked about it with one person from our team, and decided I would leave it up to the client.

SEE the beauty of calling our existing client to tell them (which I already did) was:
1- They a REALLY fair people who would not tell us NOT to take it unless they REALLY did want us to
2- We are still working with them on SEM and they are very pleased with our team’s work
3- They have referred us 2 new opportunities and have been a reference on numerous calls for new prospects
4- I would imagine that it displays SEER’s ethics by running this by them FIRST for their feedback before we make a decision

I left the call saying, if you tell us not to take this we wont!

I guess what drives me crazy here is that the business side says, how can you turn down a big job for a new client to just do 2-3 hours a month for maintenance for an existing client? The karma side says, even if the SEO project is small, they’ve been great to us, and deep down I want to see every one of our clients kick their competitors asses, and helping someone whom I wanted to put out of business 15 months ago, just doesn’t feel right.

What are your thoughts? I am about to just call the old client and say, we were with you 15 months ago and we’re with you now, and turn away this new opportunity. Our pipeline is good and deep down it doesn’t feel right. On the flipside, am I not them being fair to our company by not solidifying new business even if it competes with a client we are basically done SEO work for and are still running their SEM?

I know from time to time we talk about ethical SEO as being tactics but I think it also gets into how you treat your clients and how upfront and honest with them you are about campaigns, and yes, even new business with a competitor.

8 COMMENTS

  • wil says:
    November 17, 2008 @ 7:48 pm

    Its done, we’re going to say no to the new project.

  • andrew wee says:
    November 17, 2008 @ 10:22 pm

    Hi Wil,
    Do your contracts have a position about non-competes against former clients?

    It doesn’t sound wise to have moral ‘non competes’ that stretch to perpetuity, but I’d think 6mth – 1year would be fair game.

    If the client terminated the service, it’s an indication that they’re switching ships. As a responsible biz owner, you probably don’t want to go head-to-head on day 2 after the end of the engagement, but you still need to set limits IMO.

  • Kathy says:
    November 17, 2008 @ 11:47 pm

    You made the right decision and it’s nice to see somebody who has high ethics:) Wish more had them.

    You’re doing a good thing for your company cos honesty and having ethics will matter to your current clients and will attract new clients in the future. Although I think most people think you’re the best in the business anyway.:) This just reinforces it more.

    pssst….you’ll sleep better at night now, too.:)

  • Mark Kennedy says:
    November 18, 2008 @ 1:24 am

    Some clients request a non-compete from me. Not all, but some.

    In this case, without a non-compete, you have an interesting dilemma, but I think this statement you made sums it up…deep down it doesn’t feel right.

    Trust your instincts.

  • wil says:
    November 18, 2008 @ 2:00 pm

    @andrew – we do have non competes but only while we are contracted in the 12 months we are working with the client. In theory we should do 1 year afterwards to be fair if the contract ends, if a client jumps ship – then the non compete would be voided. I like that idea.

    @Kathy – I believe so, I believe that doing the right thing here is in the short term a little bit painful, but in the long term I think it will just be a blip on the radar. Sleeping easy at night with the decisions I make about this business is a MAJOR thing for me.

    @Mark – Going with the gut hasn’t gotten me in too much trouble yet, thanks for the support!

  • Seth Goldstein says:
    November 19, 2008 @ 9:40 am

    Wil,

    You did the right thing. Since you’re still “in bed” with your other client, even though it’s only maintenance, ethically you should run it by them first. Now if they jumped ship and didn’t want you to maintain their SEO/SEM then I’d say take the other gig because your former client obviously doesn’t see the need for your services so you owe it to your company to get new business even if it does conflict.

    -Seth

  • Jon Payne says:
    November 19, 2008 @ 5:29 pm

    Very interesting :)

    This is certainly a dilemma, but as others have said if your gut says no than trust that. You can always refer to another company or something… I have a mutual understanding with a few firms that if I refer work to them, or they refer work to me we’ll send the referring company a small thank-you bonus should that prospect turn into a client.

    I’ve also seen a few firms that specialize in SEO for a certain industry. To that extent, most of their clients are competitors. The benefit is they can build a deeper understanding of the industry, and probably own a few web properties in that space that they can leverage for all of their clients. If two clients are competitors and both are ranking #33 and #34 neither is found. If they both work with an SEO company that makes them #1 and #2 than aren’t both better off? So long as this is clearly disclosed ahead of time… That said, we typically avoid direct competition for the same “doesn’t feel right” reason you have here. I do have definite concentrations of clients in various industries but each has their own spin. For example, we have two IT support companies but one does all private businesses and one does all government work. Not really competitors. Same industry though.

    The keys here are 1) trust your gut and 2) be straightforward with your clients.

    Good stuff though Wil.

  • greg says:
    May 5, 2009 @ 11:33 am

    i only promote one company per keyword/s. my clients like this (A LOT!!)

    loyalty counts.

Required *

ADD A COMMENT: