Every website redesign starts the same way: you get excited, you start looking at colors and fonts and templates, and in that excitement, you think you're finally ready to hire someone. 

But here's the thing—if you skip the prep work, you're setting yourself (and whoever you hire) up for a project that's unclear on scope, potentially not very strategic, and basically...a site you'll want to redo again in a year.

Today I'm talking with Carolyn Leasure, a website redesign expert, about what actually needs to happen before you bring in a designer or a copywriter. We get into the five foundational things every business owner needs to nail down first, why "what do I want my site to look like" is the wrong starting question, and how the prep you do now saves you money, time, and a whole lot of back-and-forth later.

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EPISODE 191.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/how-to-prepare-for-a-website-update-carolyn-leasure/

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Get to know our guest expert, Carolyn Leasure

Carolyn Leasure, Website Redesign Expert, turns frustrating starter sites into sexy systems that work better for everyone. At Maypop Creative Studio, she creates beautiful, seamless sites that do the heavy lifting. Because she believes that your brand, design + tech should work for you – not the other way around.

Carolyn calls the mountain town of Charlottesville, VA home. When not constructing website automations or copy-driven design for clients, she can be found playing Himalayan Sound Bowls for a meditation shortcut, or splashing and whooping down the Rivanna River in an inner tube alongside her husband and two kids.

Click here to join Get Your Site Together, Carolyn's free 5-day website challenge that starts on August 3, 2026.

Learn more about Carolyn's DWY program, Website Wayfinder. The next cohort starts in August 2026!

Learn more about Carolyn and Maypop Creative on her website

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 working with Erin or just book a strategy session to get started
• Visit Erin's website to learn more about her business, services, and products

You know that feeling when you finally get clarity on something you've been struggling with or ruminating on for a long time? It feels amazing for about five minutes.

And then you realize clarity doesn't actually end the hard part. It just starts a new one: figuring out what comes next—specifically what changes, what stays, and what gets cut.

This week, I'm working through what my rethought business actually looks like in practice (listen to episode 189 first if you want to hear the origin story!). 

This episode picks up where last week left off, digging into my done-for-you services and my DIY products. I'm covering a what's getting an overhaul, what I'm ready to let go of, and how just a simple reframe changes my offers. 

I'm also briefly talking about where AI fits into all of this (though I think there's a longer episode coming out on this topic!), and why the thing my clients are really paying for was never the words on the page.

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EPISODE 190.
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 intensive options or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit my website to learn more about my business, services, and products

At some point in your business, you hit a moment where the project you thought you were doing turns out to be something much, much bigger. For me, that moment happened this year. I committed to doing a website rewrite after not touching my own website for years. What it actually turned into was  analyzing and tearing apart almost 10 years of offers, sitting with some pretty vulnerable business questions, and figuring out what I actually want the next chapter of my business to look like.

Today I'm sharing all of it on Talk Copy to Me: Why the podcast went quiet for a bit, what an offer audit really looks like when you're doing it for yourself, and two new ways to work with me this summer if your website is the project you've been putting off.

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EPISODE 189.
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 intensive options or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit my website to learn more about my business, services, and products

Can I let AI write my website copy? 

There's a really good chance that you've thought that. Heck, maybe you already tried to let AI write your website copy...but something felt off. It might have ended up being professional enough, but at the same time if felt very "meh". 

Or maybe you're AI-hesitant and worrying that everyone else is using it and you're falling behind. But yet, you're just not sure your comfortable letting AI help you with creative output—especially for something as important as your website.

Either way, this episode is for you.

I'll discuss why so many service provider websites are starting to sound uncannily similar, what AI actually cannot do no matter how good the prompt is, and where it can genuinely help you in the copywriting process. This isn't an anti-AI rant. It's a pro-specificity argument, and I truly believe you can decide whether to invite AI in and determine how much you'll use it.

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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 188.
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

Most program sales pages give you a topic list. This episode gives you something more useful: what it actually feels like to be inside Rewrite Your Site, my group copywriting program, from the moment you join to the moment your site goes live.

I'm walking through every phase—the pre-work, the week-by-week curriculum, the support structure, the bonuses, and the outcomes that don't fit neatly on a sales page (but might be the most valuable part of all). 

If you've been on the fence, this is the episode I want you to hear before you decide. Doors to Rewrite Your Site are open now and close end of day on April 9th.

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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 187.
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

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

Most people sit down to write their website and end up rewriting the same headline over and over—not because they can't write, but because they skipped the step that makes the writing actually work.

What step, you ask?

Research. Skipping research will do that to you. 

In this Talk Copy to Me episode, I'm walking through the five types of research I do before writing any website copy, and why skipping even one shows up in your copy in ways that are hard to name but easy to feel. 

When your website sounds like it could belong to anyone, it's almost always a research problem. In this episode, I'll help you understand how to fix it.

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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 185.
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

You've been told that if your business isn't scaling, you're falling behind. But what if that message was never meant for you—or most of us online business owners—in the first place? 

This Talk Copy to Me episode is for anyone who's built a business around their actual life and wondered why all the marketing out there seems to assume you want something completely different.

Jess Freeman, of Jess Creatives, joins me to talk about what it really means to run an ordinary, sustainable, and profitable business on your terms. 

We also dig into the 2026 State of Online Business Survey results that Jess just released, and the data is both validating and a little eye-opening. From referrals to AI to why 27% of respondents are struggling with getting clients, this one's full of real talk about what's actually happening behind the scenes of online businesses right now.

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EPISODE 184.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/state-of-online-business-jess-freeman/

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Get to know our guest expert, Jess Freeman

Jess Freeman is the award-winning founder of Jess Creatives, where she helps nutrition and fitness pros get found, trusted, and booked with websites that actually match their expertise. 

With over a decade of experience in web design and SEO, Jess is all about no-fluff strategies that highlight what makes her clients stand out—so their websites finally reflect the level of excellence they bring to their work. Based in the Atlanta suburbs with her husband and daughter, Jess can often be found sipping Diet Dr. Pepper, reading a murder mystery, or at the gym.

After listening to this episode, grab your tickets to the 2026 Ordinary Business Summit (or get on the waitlist!)

Then, check out the 2026 State of Online Business Survey results here. And don't forget to listen to The Ordinary Business podcast when you're done.

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 ADHD-ish, Mindful Marketing, The Power in Purpose, and Business-First Creatives.

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

What if you could write a book without the crushing weight of actually having to sit down and..write the book? 

See, many people freeze at the idea of writing a business book because it feels like a massive undertaking. But it doesn't have to be. You can build a book by writing smaller pieces of content—like blog posts. And those blog posts can serve your business right now while you're working toward building something bigger.

In this solo Talk Copy to Me episode, I'm walking you through two methods I've personally used to create books from smaller pieces of content. Both work. And better yet, both let you publish useful content that attracts your audience today while building toward a finished book tomorrow.

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EPISODE 183.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/writing-a-book-one-blog-post-at-a-time/

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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 working with me or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit Erin's website to learn more about her business, services, and products

Here's something nobody tells you when you publish your first book: you're probably going to need to update it. Maybe not right away, but at some point, your industry will change, your expertise will evolve, or technology will make entire chapters obsolete—and you'll have a choice to make.

Jodi Brandon from Write Publish Market is back on the podcast today, and this time we're talking about something most authors don't plan for: revising a book after it's already published. 

Jodi just released the third edition of her book (also titled Write Publish Market!), and she's getting honest about what prompted each revision, how to decide between updating your existing book versus writing a new one, and why treating your book like a "working document" is actually the smartest business move you can make.

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EPISODE 182.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/revise-a-published-book-jodi-brandon/

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Get to know our guest expert, Jodi Brandon

Jodi Brandon is a book publishing strategist and coach for business owners and leaders, and the founder of Jodi Brandon Editorial. Jodi has used her 20+ years experience in book publishing to partner with 850+ business owners, leaders, and CEOs to write, publish, and market a book to use as a marketing asset within their business ecosystem. She is the author of Write.Publish.Market., 3rd Edition and the host of the Write Publish Market podcast.

Want more of this great publishing info we've been talking about? Then buy Jodi's updated book here.

To learn more about working with Jodi, visit her website and listen to her podcast. Then, connect with her on LinkedIn and Instagram. 

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 working with me or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit Erin's website to learn more about her business, services, and products