One of our best pieces of advice for any writing project—website or otherwise—is to spend some time thinking before you actually sit down to write. Trust me, this is a very valuable step because when it does come time to write, you’re going to want to have some ideas ready to go.

Every person’s process is different. Maybe you sit in a quiet place with a notepad and start jotting down words or phrases. Maybe you skip the music or audiobooks on a walk and spend some mindful time developing concepts. Maybe you record voice messages for yourself with your best ideas.

You’ll be amazed at what you come up with when you allow yourself to just think for a while. At first, it might take some discipline, but once the inspiration starts flowing you’ll notice yourself doing it naturally, going back and refining your ideas until they’re perfect.

So what are you thinking about, you ask? Great question. Your website is going to be how you introduce yourself and get people to connect with you. So your visitors will have the same questions anyone would have on a first introduction:

Who are you and what do you do?
What can you do for me?
Why you and not someone else?
How can we connect?

Now, remember, you’re just thinking, not writing yet. So imagine yourself meeting a potential customer and introducing yourself or your business for the first time. Think about how you would answer these questions, in your own voice.

This is so important because your voice is exactly what you’re going to want to capture on your website. We’re so used to talking in our own voices, but sometimes that gets lost in writing. So practice in your head, try it out on friends or partners, even record yourself and play it back.

After you do this a few times, your answers to the questions will start to gel. You’ll say to yourself: Oh, that sounded good! Certain words or phrases will just sing. Now open up a blank document and start typing them out. Don’t worry about complete sentences; these are just notes for you.

Seeing them in black and white is part of the process, but you’re not done thinking yet. Keep mulling it over, asking yourself these questions, and adding to your notes. Don’t stop until you have clear and succinct answers to those four questions and a rough version of them in your document.

OK, so you have all your ideas worked out in your head and you’ve even got a jump-start on the actual writing with your notes document. When you think about it, you’ve already gotten past the blank page! That’s the first big hurdle, so be very proud!

But despite all this momentum, it can be dangerously easy to stall at this crucial point. How to turn those rough notes into a smooth and shiny website? The blank page can still be daunting.

That’s why our best advice is to use a template to organize your ideas into a coherent structure. And you’re in luck because we’ve created an interactive Milanote template to get you started.

What’s so amazing about this template is that instead of presenting you with a blank page, it divides the website up into smaller sections, each one requiring just a few sentences. We’ve even added helpful prompts in each section to spark your inspiration.

You can add or delete sections, move them around, and fill them in one by one. It’s like making a profile on a social media site—you just go through and complete the sections one by one. And guess what? You already have a document full of notes and phrases ready to go, so these will practically write themselves.

Now you’ve filled in the template using all the great ideas you’ve brainstormed. You’re so close to the finish line! But there’s still one more step—and you don’t want to skip this one, because doing so could make or break the final product.

It’s called proofreading, and you need to do it. Any spelling or grammatical error, over-repeated word, or awkwardly reading sentence will stick out like a sore thumb, and change how website visitors perceive your business.

We recommend first walking away from what you’ve written and giving yourself some space from it. When you come back the next day, you’ll be amazed at what a difference a pair of fresh eyes can make. Another tried-and-true tactic is reading the text out loud, to make sure your ear doesn’t catch anything strange or repetitive.

Running a spellcheck is a must, but sometimes they don’t pick up everything, so using a free tool like Grammarly is a good way to find even the sneakiest little errors. Finally, send your text to a friend or colleague to have one last look at it. An outside perspective is priceless.

If you’ve gone through all the steps and it’s just not working, it may be time to consider working with a copywriter. Think about it: Is writing your website taking you away from other important work in your business? Are you spending way too much time and not making any progress? Is not getting it done holding you back from achieving your goals?

If you can answer yes to any of those questions, give yourself permission to bring in some help. It’s OK, not everybody is a writer, and not everybody should have to be. You’re an expert at what you do, and that’s enough.

We all make small decisions to pay people to do things we’d rather not do all the time. Maybe you get a manicure instead of doing it yourself. Or you order groceries or dinner to be delivered instead of going and picking it up. This is no different.

The good news is that if you do decide to work with a copywriter, they’re going to ask you to go through the same type of thought exercise and organizing of ideas that you’ve already done. In other words, you’ve already got a jump on the process, which will help keep the price down. In fact, the clearer your thoughts are, the easier and faster it will be for a copywriter to shape them into compelling texts.

If you’re looking for a copywriter, GKW would be happy to recommend someone to help get you over the finish line.