I just recorded an episode with Greg Merrilees — founder of Studio1 Design, designer of 2,000+ websites, and author of Next Level Website Design — and he said something I can’t stop thinking about:

“The most important thing on your website is actually the copywriting — and this is coming from a designer.”  — Greg Merrilees

1. Your website is an owned asset. Social media is rented land.

If the algorithm changes or your account goes down, you lose everything. Your website — and the email list it feeds — is the only equity you actually own. Greg puts it plainly: you need a website, lead magnets, and an email list if you want a serious business. And as I pointed out, ChatGPT is reading your website right now to answer queries about your brand. Get that content right.

2. 97% of your visitors are not ready to buy. Stop treating them like they are.

Greg’s cold/warm/hot framework is one of the cleanest mental models for website strategy I’ve heard. Cold traffic gets a lead magnet. Warm traffic gets a deeper offer. Hot traffic gets a distraction-free page with one action. Most websites ignore this completely and lose conversions at every stage.

3. Interactive lead magnets are the new PDF. Way better conversion rates.

Greg and his team built a macro calculator for Enterprise Fitness using vibe coding tools. It obliterates every PDF lead magnet they’d tried before. People want instant results, not downloads they’ll never open.

Both Greg and I ended up on the same page here: AI-generated websites and copy all look and feel the same. Google has spent years tightening its brand signal requirements. If your site looks like every other vibe-coded site in your niche, you’re not differentiating — you’re blending in. And blending in doesn’t rank.

Head to unscriptedseo.com and grab the full conversation. And check out Greg’s free resources — including a custom GPT trained on his book — at nextlevelwebsitedesign.com/free.