TOC #207: What happened on my mattress
(December 10, 2024) My Exact Process For Writing My Own Website Copy
One third of your life is spent sleeping.
That's 26 years.
9,490 days.
227,760 hours.
🤯
That's one of those facts that everyone *knows* but you never really THINK about.
Over two hundred thousand hours are spent asleep. That's WILD.
I guess it's not bullshit when you hear all the ~wellness girlies~ talk about how important getting good sleep is.
According to my scientific research (aka the handy results from Google's “people also ask” section), adequate sleep keeps your heart healthy, reduces stress, keeps blood sugar consistent, prevents inflammation, helps control weight, is necessary for memory function, clear thinking… you get the picture.
Good sleep improves your brain performance, your mood, your health — it's a vital component of every person's overall wellbeing.
If you want to maintain good physical and mental health, you need the appropriate amount of sleep.
And for TWO YEARS STRAIGHT, I didn't get a damn wink of it.
Apparently, we ALSO spend 7 years trying to FALL ASLEEP.
That's 33 years.
12,045 days.
289,800 hours.
And if you're thinking I'm about to credit my lack of sleep to my child, or being a single mother, or being a workaholic, or scrolling too much TikTok before bed… you're wrong.
The cause? My damn wonky mattress.
When I first moved into my old apartment two Novembers ago, I had to buy everything from scratch. I didn't have a single piece of furniture to my name.
So, as someone who — at the time 😒 — had never, ever struggled with sleep, I thought it would be perfectly fine to order one of those cheap mattress-in-a-box moments from Jeff Bezos and a bed frame from IKEA.
I always thought people who cared so much about their mattress choices were being dramatic.
Like, sure, I'd heard the whole “one third of your life is spent in bed!” speech before, but, like I said, that was just one of those facts no one really thinks about, that everyone just knows and goes along with, like “drink 8 glasses of water a day!” and “your appendix doesn't matter!” and “there's nothing wise about wisdom teeth!”
(I actually have no idea if those last two are facts everyone knows or goes along with or if I'm just weird, but you know what I'm tryna say.)
I think you can probably tell that the next thing to come out of my mouth is going to be…
I was wrong.
Up until that particular inflatable mattress and IKEA disaster bed frame combo, I could fall asleep anywhere, any time, on any surface. Didn't matter.
Sara tired, Sara sleep.
When I was in college, pledging for my sorority, the last week of our lovely hazing experience — “Hell Week” — we had to live in the library. Like actually. I slept on the hardwood floor. For 7 days. It transformed by ability to sleep anywhere.
I thought it was my superpower.
Turns out, unfortunately I AM human after all.
And every damn night, for two damn years, I crawled into my bed, and it JIGGLED.
And I settled into the hole in my mattress.
And when I turned, the bed turned with me.
And when I flipped over my pillow, the mattress springs dug into my back.
(And when Fish Boy shared it with me, all I could think about was how awkward I'd feel when it inevitably crashed to the ground and we both fell right through it.)
And, without fail, on the daily, I went to bed angry.
…and, without fail, on the daily, when I woke up, I did nothing about it.
It was something that really freaking bothered me, and impacted my life on the regular, but I just couldn't deal with the potential solution.
Moving a queen mattress out of a second-floor apartment? “Hard.”
Buying a new mattress and bed frame? “Expensive.”
Figuring out which new mattress and bed frame to buy? “Overwhelming.”
Waiting for the new mattress and bed frame to arrive? “Inconvenient."
Sucking it up and being pissed every day? “PERFECT, I'll choose that one.”
I avoided dealing with THE MOST annoying problem in my life for years because I didn't know how to solve it, didn't want to deal with figuring out how to make it work, didn't know if it would be worth the money…
And you know what waiting to fix that solution cost me? SO. MANY. THINGS. THAT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED.
Thousands of hours of sleep lost, for starters.
(And the need for Botox at the ripe young age of 29 from all the fucking furrowing of my brow after being permanently annoyed for 750+ nights straight.)
The second I bit the bullet and bought a comfortable, sensible, plush king-sized mattress, my life improved drastically. I COULD SLEEP AGAIN.
And the best part?
It wasn't expensive.
It wasn't hard.
It wasn't overwhelming.
It wasn't inconvenient.
It wasn't a waste of money.
& once I felt the sweet relief of a good night's sleep for the first time in YEARS, I couldn't BELIEVE how much time I wasted not fixing that solution earlier — just because I was too in my head about the logistics of the solution.
…when the freaking solution was SO EASY and SO HELPFUL.
Well, actually, yeah I could.
Let's be real: avoidance is my middle name. I have raging ADHD.
aaaaand I know I'm not the only one.
Chances are you have your own story like my mattress debacle, too.
Say, maybe, with your website copy? 👀👀👀👀👀
🫠 You know it's not working for you.
🫠 You know you're not getting the best inquiries.
🫠 You know you're not making enough sales.
🫠 You know you're not getting found on Google.
🫠 You know the words on your site don't accurately represent you.
🫠 You know you don't feel confident sending your URL to people.
🫠 You know you're losing business because of your subpar site. (If no one can see how awesome you and your brand and your personality and your perspective are, how could you be operating at your full potential?!)
Aaaaand you know you're not doing a damn thing about it right now, because you feel like fixing it is overwhelming, or expensive, or hard, or confusing, or will take forever…
Well, you already know I'm gonna tell you...
And, I promise you, it's not a solution that you need to panic over — it's one that I have spent a ridiculous amount of hours perfecting, refining, and creating to make upgrading your website copy as EASY AS POSSIBLE for you, so you can finally get the results you deserve from your site.
My best-selling website copywriting course is here for you, so you don't have to sleep on your wonky ass mattress anymore.
But don't worry, I won't make it my entire personality.
Or the entire point of this newsletter.
Instead, I want to talk to you about how *I'M* DIYing my own website copy this month, and tell you my exact process for doing it. 😏
My Exact Process For Writing My Own Website Copy
It's HAPPENINGGGGG !!! I'm officially rewriting my own website copy!
(Well, some of it.)
(A lot of it still slaps, so we're keeping her. More on that later.)
I'm low key nervous to admit this to you*gulp* but I've never sat down and written my entire website copy in a wireframed Google doc like I do for my clients.
When I created my first-ever website (on GoDaddy 🤢) I wrote all of the website copy as I went, while DIYing the design.
When I created my second-ever website, shifting to my Squarespace era, I did the same thing.
When, years later, I finally switched to Showit, I basically told Kleist to go wild with a Frankensteined mix of my old Squarespace site and an unfinished Google doc.
(I was a red flag client. She's a saint.)
THIS TIME, THOUGH? I'm not fucking around.
Website Girl's got biiiiig fat daddy plans for 2025 (scroll all the way down to see what they are 👀) and I can't just *wing* my 130-page website.
So, I thought it would be fun to walk you through exactlyyy what I'm planning on doing, as someone revamping their website copy for the new year — as I imagine there's a good chance you might be in the same boat!
Let's kick things off with a great question from a student in my website copywriting course, Anabelle 👇🏻
This was my response to her:
"Great question! I'm actually doing the same thing for my own website right now. What I'm doing is going page by page and taking note of all the things I DO like, AND all the things people have commented on / referenced / mentioned liking, and making sure I include those.
Ex: I rank pretty highly for "website copywriter" on my homepage, so I'm going to keep a lot of the headings that use it (like my headline "the website copywriter your narrative needs").
Another ex: people often reference how they love that I say I'm "a hoe for italics" on my About page, and my comment about being "a chocolate addict with no intent on seeking recovery" so I'm gonna keep those.
I think this will make drafting your new website copy a little easier bc you're not starting from complete scratch!"
& that's my starting point!
To see what I'm doing NEXT — aka everything in my DIY website copywriting process — READ THIS BLOG POST 🤠 I haven't written a blog post in FOREVERRRR so I'm pumped about it. Pls read it.
(I started writing this newsletter and realized the tip I wanted to share was fucking long as shit, so that's how the blog happened. Still proud of myself tho.)
If we haven’t had the chance to *virtually* meet yet, hi! I’m Sara Noel—website copywriter and marketing mentor for creatives, copywriters, and all-around cool people. If you like my content and you want even more BTL in your life, here are a few ways you can connect with me:
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