Graphic designer David Airey, from across the pond, put out a great post today on elements your blog should contain/display to welcome first time readers and obviously turn them into long time readers. David points out that while you have been blogging for weeks, months or years; the visitor might be reading your blog for the first time ever.

Since my niche in blogging is more focused to business blogging I thought I would outline David’s points (originally from Problogger) and also add some small business blogging angles to it.

• Why did you start your blog? The story of how, when and why you started the blog can help readers connect with you.
• How is it designed to be used? An increasing number of people understand what a blog is and how it operates, but some readers may not, particularly non-tech savvy audiences. Explain concepts like comments and any features you’ve installed that might take a little describing.
• How can users connect / subscribe? Explain how to use RSS or how to subscribe via email. It’s amazing how many people don’t understand this.
• How can readers get more involved? If you have forums or a community area to get readers more involved, highlight them.
• Where should readers start? Point new readers to some starting points to read.

My additions based on business blogging:

• How can a reader work with you? While I’m not a fan of having a blatant post asking for business (ex: we are the greatest, we are the best, must use us!), I think having an easy to find “contact us” link or even using a soft sell is OK in the closing. Having a finishing sentence of “If you are looking for specific service here help, then contact us today” or “Need our expertise? Holler at us.”.
• Do you list your affiliations, qualifications or partners? If you’re using your blog to build trust and credibility then show some of the credible partners you have or associations you are a part of. Industry associations, civic groups and chambers are all examples of this.

With any business blog, new or old, there is always room for improvement. I need to implement some of these items myself for the five spot blog, especially as my amount of content grows.

I read a USA Today article this week about small businesses using sandwich board signs to attract more business and the issues some city governments/councils had with them “cluttering up” the streets. More businesses are looking to increase the ways that they attract customers past their existing signage in these economic times and the sandwich board is one of the cheap basics. I’ll stay out of the politics of the article, but it got me thinking about the online equivilant of a sandwich board.

So what is the Online Marketing Sandwich Board?
I don’t have the exact answer … but I do have the following to consider.

A Single Page Website
I do believe that small business can get away with just one very informative page for a website. There are obvious drawbacks, but simple done the right way can go a long way. You can have an easy to use layout covering who you are, what you do, specialties, hours/availability, map and how to contact you. This web firm has a great one page website. I know there are other services for one page websites out there for small businesses.

Small Business Blog
Many businesses today skip a website and go straight to business blogging. This St. Paul cookie company is one example and there are many others. With free sub domains through Wordpress and Blogger you can have a free site up and running in minutes.

Online Directories
In some industries like restaurants, some small business are utilizing the abilities of a profile page on Yelp, Dex or another web directory as a home page/website. With the ability to add text, photos, logo, hours and more and built-in maps, directions and reviews, these sites can have everything a business wants. Most of these offer a pretty clean URL to advertise offline, an example is: http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-belle-vie-minneapolis

Social or Networking Websites
Depending on your style or type of business maybe you can get buy with a LinkedIn profile, Facebook or one of the many other flavors of web 2.0. Many bands and music peeps have used MySpace for quite some time as their home on the web.

Do you have anymore to add? There are more and will certainly be more basic and entry level web tools coming online this year and it will be interesting to see what grabs hold. My opinion is to develop a great website and then utilize some of the basics outlined as landing pages to drive more traffic to your website.

If you are considering adding a blog to your small business website here are 3 reasons to start a blog today. Business blogging is a growing strategy of many small businesses for a number of reasons, but here are three with visuals I built to accompany them (I’m a visual guy).

Start a Business Blog Reason #1 - Build Content
Many small business websites consist of basic page structure. You’ll find many a four or five page site covering information about the company, the services, the products and how to contact or visit their location. By adding a blog and posting just once a week, you’ll have 52 more pages of content (each post becomes it’s own page). That additional content will be search engine friendly, contain keywords and industry terms and valuable information to clients and potential customers. Just one year of blogging can grow your site’s content by 1,000%!

Start A Business Blog Reason #2 - Provide Answers & Examples
A business blog is an excellent opportunity to get more specific with your experience, product or service. Posting on details, processes and possibilities in depth often answer visitors questions and build trust. You can also post on examples of how your service works or benefits a client and recap examples of this success or use. This can increase even further when readers of your blog ask questions in the post comments and you respond.

Start A Business Blog Reason #3 - Link Building
Link building is the most difficult part of search engine optimization, but many will argue it holds the most weight. Links are like human referrals, just online. Websites or blogs that link to you are saying you are a trusted source for this information, service or product. Blog posts with tips, in-depth information, industry news and examples become great resources and other bloggers and websites love to link to great resources. It’s tough to get someone to link to your company overview page, but a good blog post can attract many links.

There you have my three reasons. If you are in the Minneapolis area and are interested or just starting in blogging, there is a local business blogger meetup on April 28th. I’ll be there.

Combine veteran business bloggers, business blogging newbies and those considering blogging with good pizza and an open forum and you have the recipe for some great sharing and blogging tips. Tonight was the 2nd meeting of the Biz Bloggers Meetup group started by blogging pro Caroline Melberg and about 16 great business people attended.

(photos taken with my Treo)

The mix of online experience and industries represented made for good conversation as we focused on blog content development and where to get blog post topics and ideas from. New bloggers talked about some of their early success stories and how some of their “fears” were easily overcome while blogging veterans gave pointers on strategies and creative angles to develop content. We also dipped into how to make time and properly plan your blogging.

I wanted to give some link love and attention to those in attendance. It was cool to see so many taking notes and soaking up knowledge while sharing their questions, fears or challenges. Below are some of the groups members currently business blogging, so check them out:

• Mitch Rossow who is a web designer and has a cool Minneapolis photo blog
• Caroline Melberg who is a small business marketing maverick (group organizer)
• Chris Mitchell has a small business marketing blog.
• Toni Haselfeldt who blogs for her client Belladerm Med Spa (I helped Toni and Belladerm set-up their website and blog at my former agency)
• Janet Roper who is an animal communicator and even can blog about rats as pets!
• Chad Sharp owns a Minneapolis record label and blogs on independent music

In addition to those blogging was the following companies there to learn more as they consider or start blogging for business including Bebe Bella Designs, Nextstep, Still Pond Shiatsu, Image In Nation, Porte-Kim Agency and Sundberg Chiropractic. Hopefully we’ll see these local businesses blogging soon. I hope I didn’t miss anyone!

If you’re interested, sign-up for the group and learn of the next meeting. One of the things I love about most experts in Internet marketing is their willingness to share. I also value the networking, the different viewpoints and questions of new bloggers as they are always sharing new ways to look at things.