An Honest Review of the First Round of Rewrite Your Site

A course built around writing the copy for your small business website seems like it has one goal: to produce a website in the end. 

What nobody tells you is that it also produces a reckoning of sorts— about your offers, your messaging, your whole business. And this realization is just one thing I noticed about running Rewrite Your Site for the first time.

In this episode of Talk Copy to Me, I'm reviewing what happened during the January cohort, specifically what worked, what I'm changing, and what caught me by surprise. Because the doors to round two open TOMORROW, and you deserve the real story of what happens in the program before you decide if it's right for you.

Listen in, and let me know what you think.

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YOU CAN STILL JOIN REWRITE YOUR SITE!
Interested in improving your website before the summer kicks off? (Think about how cool it would be sitting by the pool and getting new leads that found you via search and need your offer!)

Learn more about Rewrite Your Site and listen to the recent episodes to see if it's a good fit for you and your business! https://erinollila.com/rewrite-your-site/

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EPISODE 186.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: Coming soon!

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Here's the info on your host, Erin Ollila
Erin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform – and even transform – its intended audience. She graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and went on to co-found Spry, an award-winning online literary journal.

When Erin’s not helping her clients understand their website data or improve their website copy, you can catch her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast and guesting on shows such as Profit is a Choice, Mindful Marketing, The Power in Purpose, and Business-First Creatives.

Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter:
• Learn more about my VIP intensive options or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit Erin's website to learn more about her business, services, and products

Transcript

0:00

I wanna talk about something that I think that people who run programs and courses should do, but I don't see done often enough, and that is, I wanna tell you exactly what happened the first time I ran, Rewrite Your Site, and I'm talking about what worked, what I do differently and what I was genuinely surprised by. Running a program for the first time is honestly pretty humbling. You spend months preparing and building it out course curriculums, technology, all of that jazz. You think you know what people need, then you actually have to do the selling. And the selling may or may not go how you hoped it would. Once everything is sold and you're ready to begin, it's time to meet your actual students. And I think that's where you realize the work is more nuanced, more personal, and more powerful than you might have anticipated. And I honestly think that's what happened to me. And I think, or I hope it's what happens to other course builders. So as I mentioned earlier in this episode of Talk Copy to Me, I'm gonna talk about the first cohort of Rewrite Your site, what I observed from my students, what I'm changing about the actual program. Also why I am more confident than ever that this program is exactly what service providers and other small businesses need when it comes to marketing their business Also. Cards on the table. This is a pre-launch episode. The doors for the next round of rewrite your site are opening in just a couple days. Actually, tomorrow, what day is this? Yes. Tomorrow the doors for the next round of rewrite your site will open. So I want you to hear the whole story, the very real story before you decide if joining me next time is right for you. Now we all know that transparency is a huge brand value of mine, so this is not gonna be a polished sales version. This is the actual version. From my perspective, I don't think I can cover everything because I have notes. I want you to get a high level overview of what worked, what didn't, what I change, what surprises me, where I'm definitely gonna double down in the next round. And yeah, just what I think that this course and this cohort really brought out in me as a teacher and what it could, what my teaching could offer you if you join me next. So let's start with the easy stuff. What worked. I mentioned that this round of rewrite your site that started in January was the first cohort, but what I didn't tell you is that I actually created, rewrite your site over a year before. This round started, my goal was actually to start the first cohort of rewrite your site in the beginning of January, 2025. Um, but I didn't, I chose not to, and that's because I am extremely critical. Of course, curriculums. That comes from being a former teacher myself, and it comes from being a perfectionist, if you'd like me to be honest with you. But I knew that when it was time, my own timeline, I should say, in the end of 2024, which feels like forever ago, I feel like 2024, I was like 10. How is it? Possibly just a year and a half ago. But anyway, back on track at the end of 2024, when I was thinking of selling this program, I knew the curriculum was not. Exactly what I wanted. I also knew I could have launched and it could have been fine, but I'm not a, could have been or just okay. Teacher. My gut told me that I needed to keep ruminating and adjusting my approach to teaching as well as what I wanted my students to gain. So I did. I did not launch and. While I was unsure about that a lot, last a lot last year, I'm actually really glad that I gave myself the extra time because it allowed me to scrutinize how I had set up the program and develop things out a little bit more so. If we're gonna stay focused, I'm getting off track. But if we're gonna stay focused to the what worked, I would say the course itself worked really well. That's not to say that I did not find gaps or things I had adjust, but the prerecorded learning modules I think were very comprehensive and I think that they were helpful to get the full teaching. So that when people joined me in office hours, they could ask good questions, when they wrote their copy, they could also ask good questions because they already had a chance to, , receive the material and work through it in their own time so they could utilize the one-on-one time as best as possible. But there's another thing that think stands out about what worked, and that's the feedback model that I developed into the program. The core of Rewrite Your site is that the students who are in it get a chance to submit their copy to me every single week and every single week I will review their copy and respond to it. And this isn't just me sending notes back or a narrated video of me saying what I think. I will literally go into the copy and adjust words or move things around. I will explain why I am making a suggestion and not just what they need to change. So they learn about copywriting while they're doing it, and by the end of the program, I think that the students feel. Really good about their writing skills and their own self editing skills. One of the students this round told me that she felt herself editing in real time and mid draft because she'd actually just internalized the thinking behind the feedback that I had been giving throughout the process. And I think that's such a beautiful thing. That's the whole point of what I'm doing here. I'm not writing your website for you. I am teaching you to think like both a writer and an editor. And in that, of course, the end result of this program is the website copy. But in doing that, you're gonna be more skilled at. All of your marketing efforts. All right, let's move on to another thing that I think worked really well. One thing I said over and over again in the program was to overwrite first and to edit later. This I think, landed differently for some of the different people in the program, but by the end, every single student had a moment where they, I think they truly. Understood that someone can say, oh, just get all the words on the page, get it all out and you can fix it later. But I think that. When you do it, when you get everything out and you can start to determine, what is excess, what is overwritten, what you can steal from one area and move to another. It's really that aha moment of like, oh, this is why we overwrite so we're not, struggling later to come up with things or so that we can use it for this reason., One of the students in this round told me that writing more than she needed to, triggered a clarity about what was. Actually missing in the writing, and that's something that she couldn't have told you before she started writing because you cannot edit a blank page and you can't find out what's wrong with something that doesn't actually exist yet. Writing too much is never the problem, but not writing at all is. Let's talk through something else, and that is live. Page walkthroughs. I mentioned that we had office hours, and that's one of our two weekly meetings in the program, but during office hours, when we pulled up an actual student's work on the screen, we could go through it together, and I think that helped everything get really concrete fast for the students in the program. It allowed them to ask better questions. And make decisions faster because there's something about seeing your words on the screen. Let's just say, you know, the student whose work we're looking at in context, while someone else is reading them out loud, that makes the editing feel possible. Instead of impossible. And it makes like, it gives them clarity that they might not have had when they were writing it, because they might have known, they need to say it, but not really sure the why. Like why do we say this in this area of our website? How does this help with conversion? Does it even belong there? So I. Wouldn't have told you when this started, that I thought live editing, like during office hours would've been like a, a significant thing. Maybe that's because I come from the creative writing world where, writing and work shopping, your writing in a group is expected and, and normal., But I think that that was very helpful. But for the people who don't come from that world and they are coming to writing their own website, from a practitioner of their own field or service to actually have the group support and the, the live opportunity to ping back and forth, let's say with a copy mentor. And I think that really helped them see a lot, not just the immediate edit that was happening.. Something else that I found a was normalizing being behind. Because at some point in the program, every student fell behind, not necessarily just in the course, let's say, but in the writing or coming to the office hours to ask questions, in the clarity that they had or the confidence about what it. Was that they were even supposed to say on their website, and I know that this I'm behind thing is almost never about the website. It's about the fact that your writing. Like the writing of your website forces you to get clear on your entire business. I mentioned this in yesterday's episode quickly. When we look at things like offers as an example, we really need to evaluate what offers are successful, what offers get prioritized, how our customers are describing offers in comparison to how we describe them, features and benefits and all those things, right? So. Going through this, I think there's a clarity reckoning and it can feel like quicksand if you, if it's your business and if you are the one doing the writing. But what helped in the program was just naming it directly every week and not dismissing it either. You know, the students weren't behind because they were bad at this, they were behind because writing website copy is genuinely hard, period. I think that's something we all understand, but it's often not acknowledged. It's really hard to write about your own business, which is why people love paying copywriters to do it for them. But in a program like Rewrite your site, you have a copywriter who is your mentor, your strategist, your editor, your co-writer, and it helps make it easier. But it's still okay if you're just not where you want to be in the program. You don't have to be like caught up at every moment because there's always a moment of momentum that happens. Let's say someone fell behind and then once they got to a different week, they were like, oh. Okay. I have clarity on whatever thing it was. Now you could see them just speed right up. And I think, again, talking about the curriculum and how it was designed, I have very specific catch up weeks built in at. Times that I know people will get to the point where they're almost at overwhelm. So one thing I heard constantly from my students is, I'm really glad it was a catch up week, or I really needed extra time this week, so I'm glad I could go through and finish these things. Um, so I was pleased to know that, one, having the space built into the program was helpful, but two, it was good for me to know that. Just that level of encouraging and being supportive of someone going at their own speed is something that really I think makes rewrite your site stand out. I am going to pressure you enough to show up and do the work, but I am not going to hold you to an imaginary timeline to do it. Sometimes you have to do a little bit more ruminating than writing. Other times you can sit down and all of the words flow out, but. We all go at our own speed, and as the mentor in this group, as the person guiding you, I know when to push and encourage, and I also know when to give you a little more time so that you can come at the writing and the work fresh prepared, and when you are ready. All right. I, I didn't realize this would take so long. All the good stuff. I should have done this after. I should have done the this at the end of the episode, but we are still in the what worked section of this episode, and one of the things I think that worked really well were the co-working sessions. Now, I've already told you about office hours, which is the first of the times that we met every single week, but the second time we met every week was for coworking. Quieter of course, than office hours. There was less talking and a lot more writing, and I think that students who attended made more progress during the coworking calls than. Other times are just relying to do it on their own. There's something really powerful about just showing up and doing the work, or showing up and doing the work along some alongside someone else. It lowers the threshold and it makes it. Feel like you're doing something together. Instead of just having to do something you are supposed to do or something, you have to figure it out alone because I'd say probably most of the coworking calls, there was always a quick question and answer time that went along with it. So it was just another level of support and a container that was. Where you had to force yourself to do the work. And because these were consistent and happening every week, there was really no chance to ignore them either. You knew if you didn't show up, you weren't giving yourself the time that you needed. And because we are only meeting for one hour of co-working a week, which again, everyone, this is not required, it's just a benefit or a perk of the program. But because it's just that one hour a week, it doesn't feel heavy and overwhelming. It doesn't take a huge amount of time away from your clients and customers. So coworking and office hours worked really well. All right, I'm ready to move into the what I'm changing section. One of the things that I loved going into this program that did work, was again, that feedback where every week people could submit their work and I would, respond with my feedback. But I think I need to change my expectations or make them more clear for the students because the feedback model only works if people actually submit their work. And I don't think I made my expectations clear enough or consistent enough, let's say from the beginning of the program. Some people I don't think realized the value of the submitting until that they started to, and they were like, oh goodness, I wish I did this earlier and I have a ton more clarity, or I know exactly what to work on. And I don't think everyone needs a consistent weekly check-in, but I think that when the expectation isn't to there to turn something in regularly, it's easy to avoid turning things in at all. When students are submitting, I can meet them exactly where they're at when they don't, I'm just guessing. So in the next cohort, my plan is to make that a lot more clear from day one. Not like a punishment or not because I'm gonna be a task ma, like master to them, but because submitting their work, submitting your work, if you join me is the engine of the program. You get the most out of leaning on me and my experience and expertise. To improve your own writing. So my goal is to have everyone understand that once the writing part of the program starts, they should, should submit their first assignment, like mandatory, so they can just get used to seeing what feedback is like. And then I have a check. Check in point that is also mandatory halfway through the program. Um, and that is what's gonna release the second half of the lessons, the videos. So it's a really good initiative to keep up with the program and to actually get feedback on your writing. Another thing I think I'm going to adjust is the research part of the program., When I launched last time, I did some, pre parties, where the month of December I would do a training, whether it was live or just something that I filmed and shared with the group. But I want to be a little bit more strategic about how I add a researching and messaging. Training options before people start writing. Students in the first cohort did have some of that available to them, but when we really got going in January, it was time for them to really shift their focus into the writing. So this coming round, I have added onboarding trainings before the program even begins, where people can, do this on their own quickly. They're not long assignments. This is not me asking you to spend a ton of time. And. Some that are live. For example, next week I am hosting the customer research training so that if you don't attend will just be a prerecorded training that you can watch to learn about customer research. And you'll see some of my suggestions on how to complete it early. And then some will be in the course platform. Very quick videos that give you a overview of research and tools on how to consider things like messaging, brand values, and any type of research that needs to be done before the writing gets started because this foundation changes everything. It helps you go from really struggling with writing to being able to get those words out and get it done. Another thing that I struggled with during this round of rewrite your site was technical issues. The student learning platform had problems. I had uploaded a couple videos without audio without realizing it., and all of those things will be completely resolved before the next cohort opens., Tech issues can happen to the best of us. I think that the start of this was very frustrating to know that I had built out, a developed program that just kept having tech issues, but I have adjusted already, and I have tested multiple times so I can ensure that those tech issues aren't gonna happen again. All right. Let's talk about what surprised me because there were things that I don't think I could have predicted or things that I didn't necessarily anticipate. And the first, I think, was how different the students stuck points were. One student, I think, needed permission to overwrite. Um, another student really needed permission to lean into her personality and not what I think she expected, like how she expected to show up. Another, really needed to get clear on her offers before she could even write about them at all, because her business was in flux. And those were all fine with me as the mentor. Like I'm, I had no problem with any of those things. The program is designed to be personalized, but. It was interesting to see where people got stuck or where they needed the most help. And this isn't like the generic, like stuck what you might expect, but it was specific nuanced, " this is what I can't move forward because I'm trying so hard and I just can't push past this" kind of a stuck. And it kept me on my toes to, to consciously be thinking, look, what are these individuals experiencing? Like why, why are they feeling held back? What are they having difficulty pushing through? How can I support them as best as possible through this? And I think that's kind of like the next surprise.. I should have known this 'cause people say this all the time to me when I do done for you copywriting, but it is that business coaching happens almost at the exact same time as the copywriting. You know, students would come to office hours to talk about copy, but end up realizing something about their positioning or their offers or their audience that they hadn't seen before or considered before. Because writing your website doesn't just produce a website. It produces clarity and that clarity compounds, for example, one student's writing triggered an insight about her business that she told me she wasn't expecting. And that insight I think, was helpful to move forward in a few ways, not just getting words on the page. So that's something I'm trying to figure out how I can design more into, in round two, how I can show up to address business related things that, occur for the students while they're working through marketing challenges or while they're figuring out what messaging that they're going to use in their website copywriting program. And I think the third thing that surprised me is how much my own transparency mattered for the students. It's natural to me to overshare. You know that when you listen to this podcast, and again, one of my big values is honesty and transparency, but the times where I was able to mention where I struggled, like I always struggle with the homepage, hero section, or. Just being honest and sharing that my own website really needs a rewrite or telling them that, yeah, I'm also avoiding the copywriting work, the same copywriting work that you are avoiding. I'm avoiding too for these reasons, but we need to give ourself a kick in a pants to move forward, everyone. Those kind of moments and that honesty I think helped the students visibly relax and also. It didn't let them hold themself to this impossible standard because even their teacher, their person who developed this program is leading this program, is correcting their work, is strategizing with even, she struggles and even she needs to push through things to get to the other side. So I do. That's just something I think I can't change about myself. So I do plan to keep doing that, but I hope that it is helpful for future students and I think it will be, also everyone now, you know, I need to update my website copy. You can all hold me to it. And that's it. I talked way longer than I expected to Running, rewrite Your site really truly made me a better teacher, and that's not because everything went perfectly, it didn't. I have a list of notes of things that I do still need to tweak or adjust, but it is because I got to actually see what helps people and how what helping them bananas. And how that support can help them move forward versus just what sounds good. In theory, there's a difference, and I think that you can only learn it by doing it, which is why I really wanted to make sure that the first round of rewrite your site was small and cozy. I wanted to see where the mistakes were gonna be made. I wanted to see where there were moments of miscommunication or where people started to lag behind because witnessing that and being open to. Knowing that I need to make few changes, um, allows me to improve on it allows me to have a better experience for anyone who joins in the future. So if you have been, you know, watching along as this round of rewrite, your site unfolded, if you've wondered if this is the right time for you, I. Want you to know that what is coming in round two is built on weeks of real feedback from real students who are honest and open, from their real struggles and their real breakthroughs. It's not the same program I originally designed. It's also not that far from what I had originally planned, but I do think it's better and I do think it can really help you. Get the clarity that you need and move forward with your marketing so that you can really, stand out to attract the right audience and most importantly. That audience that you attract, you convert them into paying clients, customers, or just leads that join your email list, come to your workshop, things like that. So you know it's the door's on open, yet I mentioned tomorrow the doors will open to rewrite your site and I would love to have you join me. Make sure to come back tomorrow 'cause there's another episode shorter than this, I promise about what this new round of rewrite your site looks like and it would be really not great if I didn't remind you that next week I'm doing a free training and I'd love for you to come to that. Next week we're covering customer research, which I think is the most skipped step in the,, website writing like process. And I planned the launch of this program to not have it be the kickoff for sales, but instead to be part of the onboarding process. My sales period. How it works is the cart will be open for a little bit more than a week, and then there's about two weeks of onboarding time. That's when I will meet individually with all the new students to, to custom plan their website with them, and students will have some time to review those short videos to help with their messaging and things like that. But I want you to come because this customer research is what my students do. So come and join the program for an hour so you can see the, my teaching style, so you can get some knowledge even if you don't join me. I want your customer research to be less painless and more fruitful for you. So. I should tell you, sign up now while the signup is open for the April 7th customer research training, whether or not you join the program. But if you are considering joining the program, the car opens tomorrow and there will be another episode all about what the second cohort of rewrite your site looks like. Alright. I'll see you tomorrow where we'll keep talking. Copy.