A 16 Year Old Keyword Domain

Dan Ruminski purchased Martinson-Nicholls 27 years ago from Dave Martinson, founder and owner for over 25 years. Dan owns an excellent keyword domain name for the business, FloorMat.com.

Mike:  Can you give me a little information about yourself and your business?

Dan:  Martinson-Nicholls is a key 3M distributor of anti-slip pressure sensitive tapes called Safety-Walk and all types of floor matting products.

We found a niche in custom sizing of these products for our customers. We also are very inventive in our field developing many heated matting products for different uses.

Mike:  How did you come to own the domain FloorMat.com?

Dan:  I recorded our domain name some 16 years ago. I have always been a fan of using a name that tells the customer exactly what you do. Floormat.com was available so I wasted no time acquiring it. The process was not difficult. I was working with an ad agency in the design of my site so they made life easy in terms of getting floormat.com. Back then, I believe the fee was as little as $10.00 per year.

Mike:  What type of traffic volume does FloorMat.com see on a monthly basis?

Dan:  Our volume is measured every month. We have done this for some time now. Average month is about 5,000 reads while off month is about 3,000 reads. We constantly track even the various sections of our site and the reads for each. This tells us which of our many products we should concentrate on.

Mike:  How import has the domain name been to your business?

Dan:  The domain for me is extremely important. It not only gives us great recognition, it can easily be remembered by the customer unlike an 800 number or a name that does not reflect what you actually do.

Mike:  I see there is also a FloorMats.com (plural) that isn’t developed, but is a parked page with advertising.  Do you ever hear about customers navigating there in error?

Dan:  To my knowledge, floormats.com has not presented us with any concerns.

Mike:  How do you go about promoting and marketing the site?

Dan:  Promoting our site revolves around search engine optimization. My internet fellow constantly stays on top of the changing criteria so that our position is not only page one, but always in the top ten on page one.

We promote through press releases by our changing or developing products. We do this through PR Web. With every release, we have done over 50 in 5 years; we get a spike in business. We try to do 1 per month. These releases also create great linkage to our site, a major factor for search engines.

Mike:  What have been the largest challenges you have faced while running an online business?

Dan:  Running an online business, I was always concerned about getting paid. We solved this by accepting most major credit cards. Today, both individuals and businesses are comfortable with this form of payment.

Mike:  Would you consider selling the name if an offer came in?  Have any offers been made?

Dan:  Selling our name is not something I think about. Offers are always looked at to see if such would make sense.

Mike:  What advice do you have for other businesses seeking domain names for their online presence?

Dan:  Businesses seeking domain names, it seems to me, should consider a name that gives their customers at least an idea of what you do. The name does not have to be cute; it needs to be informative. Don’t make your customer guess on any front. Business today to a large extent has forgotten the importance of the customer. Making the customer jump through hoops on the phone in order to make contact with customer service is no good. Prompt return of calls and emails, treating each as your life blood, is not often done. Treat one as you would expect to be treated still seems to be the best advice.