Why Your Pretty Website Is Costing You Customers — With Greg Merrilees

About this episode

Greg Merrilees discusses the relevance of websites, conversion strategies, and the impact of AI on web design.

Greg Merrilees is the founder of Studio1 Design — a conversion-focused website agency that has designed for over 2,000 businesses worldwide, including Hollywood A-listers like Sylvester Stallone. He’s the author of Next Level Website Design and has been building websites since 2009. In this episode, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Greg to tackle whether websites are still relevant, how to build for searcher intent, why copywriting beats design every time, and what the rise of AI vibe coding actually means for your brand. Episode Highlights Do you really need a website in 2025? Greg’s nuanced take on social media vs. owned assets The cold / warm / hot traffic model and how to match your CTA to intent Why Microsoft Clarity should be on every website (and how it compares to Hotjar) Website design trends to avoid in 2026 — and what converts instead How to find your unique positioning in a commoditized niche Interactive lead magnets vs. PDF downloads — what actually converts today The AI sameness problem: why vibe-coded websites all look the same Key Resources Mentioned Studio1 Design — Greg’s agency Next Level Website Design (Book) Free Resources — Custom GPT + book companion Microsoft…

People in this episode

Host: Jeremy Rivera

Guest: Greg Merrilees

Topics covered

• website design
• conversion optimization
• searcher intent
• copywriting
• AI in web design
• traffic models
• lead magnets

Keywords

• website relevance
• conversion-focused design
• copywriting vs design
• AI coding
• traffic models
• lead magnets
• website trends

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Studio1 Design, Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, Enterprise Fitness

Products: Next Level Website Design

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