Custom Post Types, slug, archive and SEO plugins

I made a custom post type called “friends”.

I am able to correctly list my friends using this urls:

http://mysite/friends/friend1/

http://mysite/friends/friend2/

http://mysite/friends/friend3/

But I have a “logic” problem with the “archive page”

My problem is:

If I use the “has_archive” option of my custom field I am able to see my page but I am not able to use SEO plugins to improve my page in term of searchability and I am not able to put some content inside the page before the while ( have_posts() ) statement using “the_content” statement I would normally use in a page template.

If I try to use a Page with the slug /slugfriends/ I am able to use SEO plugins, I can even write some content and I can then use query_posts to cycle through my friends but it seems that there is no possibility to have the same slug reserved for my custom post type. So i seems that I can have:

http://mysite/slugfriends/ (served by my page)

http://mysite/friends/friend1/ (served buy custom post type)

http://mysite/friends/friend2/

but I can’t have:

http://mysite/friends/ (served by my page)

http://mysite/friends/friend1/ (served buy custom post type)

http://mysite/friends/friend2/

Is there anyone that has reached the goal to have such configuration running? Maybe using some hooks or similar? I tried in many ways but no one seems to work.

Regards,
Marcello