David Danzig, the Vice President of Charge.com, spent a couple of minutes answering some questions about his business and the premium domain “Charge.com“.
Mike: Can you give a little background on your business? How long you’ve been in business, number of employees, how long you’ve had your business online, etc.
David: Charge.com was founded in 1995 to enable businesses to accept credit cards from their customers online, over the phone, by mail, or in retail stores. We have averaged about 12 employees for the past several years.
Mike: Has has owning the domain Charge.com impacted your business?
Davide: Of course, owning the domain Charge.com has been very helpful. When customers see that domain, they know that we’re big and that we’ve been around a long time, and that this means that we have the resources to negotiate better rates than smaller companies can. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s very memorable, so they can easily find us again.
Mike: Do you have any other online marketing strategies that you follow (google ads, seo, banners on other sites, etc.?) What results have you seen from these?
David: Our main marketing strategy has been our affiliate program. We pay affiliates $100 for each United States merchant they refer. We’ve had thousands of people sign up at our Web site, http://www.charge.com/affiliates/, and our top affiliates earn thousands of dollars a month just for having a link on their Web page, so it works well for everyone involved.
Mike: Do you have other premium keyword domains?
David: My family and I have had a few over the years. The best one, besides Charge.com, was degree.com, which we recently sold.
Mike: Did you purchase the name from someone else that owned it?
David: We are the original owners. We paid $50 for it in 1995.
Mike: Any advice for start ups, small business, or business of any size for that matter on choosing the right domain name?
David: I am continually surprised by how many quality domain names are still unclaimed. Every year that goes by, it takes more and more patience and creativity to find a good one, but they’re still out there.
Mike: What do your competitors think of your domain? What do your customers think?
David: I’d only be speculating, but I’m sure they respect what it represents, in terms of the years we’ve been in this business and our size and place in our industry.
Mike: Have you ever received any unsolicited offers? What were the offers?
David: We’ve received a few 8-figure offers for our company.
Mike: Any other information you’d like to share? Tips for the readers?
David: I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t let your readers know how easy and inexpensive it is for them to accept credit cards from their customers with a merchant account from http://www.charge.com/.
