Yesterday, I received a call from Jon Lechter, President of Call Center Products in Toronto, Canada. Jon’s company uses the name HeadSet.com as the main URL for the company. We talked about the domain name and how it has influenced his business.
Mike: Jon, can you tell me a little bit about your company?
Jon: Call Center Products distributes all major brands of headsets. We’ve been in business. Oh, I don’t know, maybe 19 years now. We have 18 employees an tens of thousands of customers. We know headset technology better than anyone and that’s what we focus on. We have a major focus on customer service, which is what differentiates us from our competitors. We actually call a decent percentage of our customers after they place an order and make sure that they have ordered what they need.
Mike: Has owning Headset.com impacted your success?
Jon: Absolutely. There is no doubt that people look at Headset.com. While I don’t know exactly what impact it has had, I know it’s a good name and easy to remember. We also own CallCenterProducts.com, which is the company name. One of our suppliers actually owned the name. We had such a great business relationship that he handed it over without any problem. We also registered some of our supplier’s names years ago. Their lawyers eventually contacted me and asked for the names. I handed them over willingly. I don’t think it helped or hurt our relationship in anyway. It was kind of a neutral move. I could have put up a fight but I chose not to.
Mike: Any idea what your competitors think of your domain?
Jon: Actually, one of my competitors owns the plural, HeadSets.com. I know him, he’s a good guy. He’s done a nice job developing his website and promoting it as well. I’m sure I have benefited from that… people looking at Headset.com instead of Headsets.com. But I think it works both ways. I’m sure he has benefited from what I have done too.
Mike: Can you share the volume of traffic that your site receives?
Jon: We get a lot of traffic. I don’t really know the numbers, you can look that up online somewhere.
Note: After the interview, I looked up the site on Compete.com. It showed average monthly unique visitors at 1,374 which seems quite low for a keyword domain such as this. The plural, Headsets.com on the other hand, shows over 26,000 monthly unique visitors. Compete.com is based on a sample population of internet users to estimate results, so these results may not be accurate.
Mike: Did you purchase the name from someone else that owned it?
Jon: No, we registered the name back in 1995. It was given us a great deal of credibility. Credibility is priceless.
Mike: Would you consider selling the name:
Jon: No, I would only sell the name as part of the business. We’re talking a million plus. It’s not for sale unless the business goes with it. I have received a few inquires for the name, but I tell them all the same thing. It’ll be sold with the business.
Mike: Do you have any additional online marketing strategies?
Jon: Our plan for this year is to focus heavily on SEO. That is where we are going to invest our time to grow the business.
A keyword domain name is a great asset to any company, but it needs to be backed up by a good product or service and additional marking strategies. I want to thank Jon for giving his perspective as a business owner on the value of a good domain name.
