Posted by Fox on July 15, 2007 at 12:53 PM

This is first in a series of articles on taking an existing/established web site and turning it in to a blog. This is based on my own experiences with www.smstoday.co.uk.

Prior to the move, all of my sites were hosted a feature packed server provided by maximumasp.com, with access to lots of dynamic content stuff including ASP, SQL databases, blah, blah, blah. But my technical knowledge of servers and the stuff running on them is very limited.

SMS Today had been established for a few years. It was a directory of SMS text services for business and personal use. It faired well in the search engines, received good traffic and more than paid for itself.

Companies would send me press releases to publish, but being a static site (with no database/dynamic features) I found it a pain in the arse to manage a 'news' section on the site, such as constantly updating the list of stories, the categories and the archives etc.

I had already attempted to create an entirely unrelated blog from scratch using a new domain, so I knew that making SMS Today a blog would make a 'news' section very easy to handle. At the time I had no knowledge of the positive impact it would make on traffic and visitors. Done right, you're in for a nice surpise.

I flirted with the idea of using a Self Hosted Blogging Application, but my technical knowledge of my server led me to opt for a Hosted & Managed Blog Application.

I looked around and found that TypePad offered a free trial. I signed up for the free trial, but within a day or two decided to stop pissing about and went straight for a pro account. It cost me $150 for a year (£75 in real money).

Important Considerations

Prior moving the domain to Typepad I spent a great deal of time worrying about the potential loss of visitors and revenue during the switch.

To be honest, years of generating revenue on the Internet has led me to become unhealthily obsessive about site availability and server downtime. I had many, many bad experiences with Fast Hosts in the beginning, and I still get the urge to puke with worry when I think back to those days. Worth noting that they're still in business, so I guess they sorted their shit out.

Well let me tell you that in hindsight I needn't have worried. With planning it need not be a big upheaval, and there are more important considerations.

Continued : Turning your existing site in to a blog PT2