Do you have a blog? Or just a pretty website? Here are five reasons why you owe it to yourself and to your business to have a blog in addition to or instead of a regular website.

1) Your website may be invisible

Oh sure, you can find it -- by typing in the URL. But can Google find it too?

The dirty little secret of web designers is this: Flash websites, gorgeous as they may be, are largely invisible to search engines.  And they are oh so common in small business website promotion. So where does that leave you?

2) Google loves blogs

When it comes to blogs, you'll discover the exact opposite: Google loves blogs. Set up a blog for the right keyword and optimize it properly, and the next thing you know, you might be topping the charts.

3) You're in complete control

Ever waited for a webmaster to make changes to your website? And paid through the nose for his or her services?

There won't be any need for that anymore when you have a blog. You can make all the adjustments yourself in a matter of minutes. Even if you know your HTML and you can take care of promoting your own small business website yourself, making changes on a blog is just plain faster.

4) Easily customizable

You can change the look and the parts of your blog practically at will. Load up a number of themes, and you can change them with the click of a button. Have someone create a custom theme, and you can STILL make changes fairly easily.

5) You can score for new keywords quickly

Sure, you should probably not fluctuate too wildly when it comes to topics for your blog posts, but you can optimize them for new keywords any time you like.

If you're a financial advisor for example, and you've decided to get into Forex, you can simply add a new category on forex and start blogging on the subject. Chances are good that Google will find them, and so will your readers.

And that doesn't even get into the reason why blogs are visitor magnets, which they are. No matter what kind of business you have, when it comes to small business website promotion, a blog is the kind of website you need.