I’ve been preaching about the overlap between website conversion and SEO for years. So when Greg Merrilees — founder of Studio1 Design and author of Next Level Website Design — sat down with me on the Unscripted SEO Podcast, I knew we’d hit some nerves. Greg has designed websites for over 2,000 businesses. Here’s what I took away.
Renting vs. Owning Your Digital Presence
Greg’s point landed hard: social media is renting. When your account gets suspended or the algorithm changes, you lose everything. Your owned properties — your site, your email list — are the only truly stable equity you can build. And ChatGPT checks SERPs and reads your website to build its answers. If you’re not there, you’re invisible to AI-driven search too.
Intent Mapping Is a CRO and SEO Discipline
Greg’s cold/warm/hot traffic framework maps directly onto the SEO content funnel. Cold content pages should have lead magnet CTAs, not sales CTAs. Warm audiences get deeper offers. Hot leads get stripped-down pages with one action. Understanding where the user is in the journey and serving the right content at the right moment — that’s good SEO and good CRO.
Copywriting Is the SEO Asset You’re Ignoring
Greg — a designer — said it: “The most important thing on your website is actually the copywriting.” If your homepage doesn’t immediately communicate what you do, who it’s for, and why you’re different, Google and your visitors both bounce. Clarity is a ranking factor in the broadest sense.
AI Sameness: The Real Brand Risk
AI produces sameness. Greg can spot an LLM-built website immediately. Google has spent years cranking up brand signal requirements — branded anchor text, real third-party mentions, actual differentiation. A Stanford study confirmed: even with creativity-prompted AI, major models return uniform structures. Your brand needs to be genuinely distinct to survive the next wave of algorithm updates.
Full episode on the Unscripted SEO Podcast. Greg’s free resources at nextlevelwebsitedesign.com/free