Battle of the Kevin Leu's and What it Means to You

Alright, I've already been called narcissistic, so what have I got to lose? So at least several times a day, I Google my name - Kevin Leu - it's a good name. And for awhile I was running second in search results to some champion, child-prodigy flutist from San Diego. There were many nights when I hoped that he would give up the flute and do something more practical with his life, like gardening. Or maybe he could be like a normal kid and play video games all day long or other teenage activities like sitting in shopping carts while getting pushed at full speed into bushes.

Since this kid wasn't going anywhere, I started to think to myself, I have got to do something noteworthy so that I don't lose the battle of supremacy for the name, Kevin Leu. For example, can you imagine what it must have been like to be the other Howard Stern, Howard K.? I was not going to go through life as the other Kevin Leu; this was war!

Right off the bat, I had heard that linking to a site helps bring it up higher in search engine results. Linking is what I'm doing here, with my profile from my last job at Newscenter in Columbus, OH. It's when you create this link going from one website to another that apparently helps out these search results. So I did that a few times from this exact blog and waddya know? My Newscenter bio was starting to come up higher than that champion flutist.... I can't remember his name.

Well this wasn't half bad. I decided to create a blog recently off Blogger - an excellent resource (you can see my blog by clicking here), and start a company, Kevin Leu Productions and Public Relations (don't tell my bosses). Of course I used MerchantCircle to start my business presence on the web (you can see my business here), and I use our blog services as well to write about my business methods. One of the cool things that MerchantCircle lets you do is include all the links you have from any other websites. So I started to cross link all of them - my Myspace profile, my Linkedin profile, my Facebook profile, my blog, Silicon Valley Bachelor, and my MerchantCircle page.

One day later, I checked in and I was flabbergasted! I was now the top 4 results after I Googled my name and 5 of the top 10! I couldn't sleep that night for at least an hour (but then afterwards I slept very soundly, thanks for your concern). Man this was cool stuff. But now let me move on to you, (begrudgingly - I am narcissistic afterall). What this means is that by following some of the steps we lay out for you when you sign up on MerchantCircle, you too may be the most famous Kevin Leu....errrr, I mean the most popular business in local search results. Be on all the different sites that we list for you on your dashboard and link them together. Write blogs and fill in the keywords. And keep tabs on where you show up on Google. It's fun. Believe me - I do it several times a day.

Until next time, sincerely,

Kevin Leu
(The More Famous One)

The MerchantCircle Club for Men, Women and Sanjaya

The high-tech, internet field is almost a world upon its own. Filled with three letter acronyms, fancy degrees that seem unfathomable, and dorks galore! MerchantCircle is a part of that world, well, except for me of course - I'm really cool.

For the majority of tech-nerds, they can walk around talking widgets, html (which isn't short for hotmail), or C++ (which I can only relate to because it closely mirrors my letter grades in school - actually if the programming language was D-- that would probably be more accurate). Here at MerchantCircle, while we may be a part of that world, we stay deeply rooted in the world that affects you, our merchants.

Take a look at the picture to your left. That's a picture of our co-founder, Ben Smith's grandmother, in front of the Bar-B-Q restaurant his grandfather founded in Alabama. Over to the right, is a picture of the local pharmacy where Ben had his first job. (The pharmacy has since gone out of business, while Ben's Bar-B-Q continues to thrive.) While Ben has accomplished a lot in high-tech, his soul is rooted in blue-collar work ethic and the plight of small business owners.

The struggles and success of business today go into every feature we add for you on MerchantCircle. Our mindset hasn't changed since we launched last June. And there's good reason, over to the left is a picture of my dad and I in front of his burger joint. It's the place I worked at throughout high school and for weekends as long as I can remember. MerchantCircle not only understands internet, it understand business owners and their customers, because, hey, we've lived it.

I'm not only a MerchantCircle 'Executive', I'm also a client!


Sincerely,
Kevin Leu
Community Relations