In this video interview mobile search expert Michael Martin offers a series of tips on how to make your website easily accessible to mobile devices.

Martin recommends keeping the mobile site in your main domain, not creating a separate .mobi domain that will lessen your SEO effectiveness.

Instead of a .mobi domain, Martin suggests setting up your site for "user agent detection," which looks for the browser identifier for each visitor. Once a site recognizes that the visitor is on a mobile device, then it renders the site in a mobile-friendly way using a separate CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). This way you don't have to duplicate content.

To make your site mobile-friendly:

Declare a DOC type that conforms to the mobile standard
Make sure you pages load quickly
Enable touch-friendly code for mobile touch screens
Martin notes that Flash currently works on mobile devices with a Android 2.2+ operating system, though JavaScript seems pretty well integrated into newer devices.

Michael Martin of Mobile Martin provides a mobile SEO consulting service in the San Diego area, as well as Android implementation. This interview was recorded at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Francisco, August 17-18, 2010.

In this brief video interview, mobile search marketing expert Michael Martin indicates that after many promises in previous years, 2010 is actually the year when mobile takes off.

Martin observes that conversion rates for mobile devices is at least four times higher for local searches, than from other types of browsers. The reason is that with mobile devices, most people aren't really doing "search" for research purposes, but doing "finding" for something close that will meet an immediate need.

High-end mobile devices have a GPS connection now. But even without GPS, mobile devices are considered to have local intent, so a search for "pizza" made from a San Diego location will show pizza locations in the local area.

In the US in 2010, about 25% of people currently have Internet-capable mobile devices. But that is expected to skyrocket to 50% within a year, since people tend to get new cell phones every couple of years.

The number of modern smart-phones is mushrooming. New platforms are available, as well, including the new Android platform.

Michael Martin of MobileMartin.com provides a mobile SEO consulting service in the San Diego area, as well as Android implementation. This interview was recorded at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Francisco, August 17-18, 2010.

In this fascinating video interview, Stanford persuasion psychologist BJ Fogg contends that we are on the cusp of the next stage of human evolution where every human will have a mobile device with them throughout their lives as a persuasion platform that will influence behavior.

Fogg observes that a mobile device can influence my behavior in the daily routines of my life, different from a computer and keyboard. For this reason, a mobile device can be targeted to what I am doing at the moment. There's a Greek word chairos that means, "the right time," the moment — and when it comes to persuasion, timing matters a lot!

"Will mobile devices eventually replace laptops and desktops?" asks Dr. Wilson. The answer isn't clear.

But what is clear about the future, says Fogg, is that we will always have a device with us that will connect us to the Internet, to our social network — our friends — and will be positioned to influence us.

We've reached the next stage of evolution, says Fogg, where every human being coming into the world will have a mobile device throughout their lives.

BJ Fogg is director of the Persuasion Technology Laboratory at Stanford University, which seeks to create models of behavior and behavior change that are accurate, but also simple enough to take action. You can learn more about the Persuasion Tech Lab's work on Facebook, at bjfogg.com, on http://twitter.com/bjfogg, and at captology.stanford.edu. This interview was recorded at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Francisco on August 18, 2010.

In this video interview, conversion and design expert Sandra Niehaus explains what kind of training will help a web designer develop the skills to increase the conversion rate on your website.

Most web designers are highly trained in design, says Niehaus, not in Internet marketing. This is true partly because of the newness of the field. Only in the last few years have there been books such as Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus, Web Design for ROI (New Riders, 2007) and Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Que, 2000).

First, Niehaus recommends very solid training in design itself. But designers need to be prepared to unlearn a few things. For example, creative expression is not a big part of increasing conversions. Sometimes a decorative element will detract from the main purpose of the webpage and lower conversions.

She recommends that designers research four areas: (1) usability, (2) cognitive psychology, (3) information or data display, and (4) persuasion.

Usability helps you know how to make things easier for the user. Cognitive psychology heps you get into the mind of the visitor and see things from his or her perspective. For usability, Niehaus suggests beginning at usability.gov.

In the area of information display, she recommends the books of Edward Tufte. For conferences, she recommends the new Conversion Conference which is held on the west and east coasts and in Europe. Dr. Wilson suggested the web design conferences offered by Internet Retailer. The Nielsen Norman Group offers Usability conferences.

Sandra Niehaus is the Vice President of User Experience and Creative Director at Closed Loop Marketing, a firm that focuses on optimizing sites and improving conversion rates through A/B testing, multivariate testing, end-to-end optimization, and coaching and consulting on testing, as well as search engine marketing. This interview was recorded at Conversion Conference West Coast in San Jose, California, May 2010.

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In this video interview, conversion expert Lance Loveday explains the pros and cons of simple A/B split-testing vs. the much more complex multivariate testing.

We've found, says, Loveday, that A/B testing tends to deliver the largest gain. Of course, he adds, that this could be ABCD testing, that is 4 variations of a single factor, as opposed to testing a large number of factors at one time.

The advantage of A/B testing is that it tends to cause you to rethink the entire user experience as you look for elements to test — layout, visual hierarchy, messaging, etc. Multivariate testing, on the other hand, often leads to testing smaller incremental variations that don't make as much difference. A/B testing forces you to be more creative about what you're testing.

Loveday explains that his firm's process is to start with some A/B testing to find an effective layout for a client. Once that's established, they'll do multivariate testing to get some additional incremental gains.

A/B testing suits small businesses well because clear results often don't require as many visitors as are needed with multivariate testing. And, A/B testing is a lot easier to execute than multivariate.

With a small business with some in-house tech savvy, a company could do A/B testing itself with a tool like Google Website Optimizer — or hire a firm to do testing for it.

Loveday encourages viewers to consider Internet sites that allow "crowdsourcing" of designs relatively inexpensively. For a couple of designs that might cost under $1,000, you could test them against your baseline and potentially make some big gains.

Lance Loveday is the president of Closed Loop Marketing, which assists clients through A/B testing, multivariate testing, end-to-end optimization, and coaching and consulting on testing, as well as search engine marketing. This interview was recorded at Conversion Conference West Coast in San Jose, California, May 2010.

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In this video interview, conversion and design expert Lance Loveday discusses why it's important to test non-landing pages.

Historically, he says, the first emphasis was on optimizing clicks to the sight using SEO and paid search. The next emphasis was on optimizing landing pages to get the click-through. But there are other points at which a site can profit by optimizing.

E-commerce sites, for example, should optimize the check-out process, since some customers leave before completing the checkout.

You should optimize the homepage when you see a lot of traffic going there or observe high bounce rates.

Sectional pages should be optimized when you see high bounce rates and low through-put.

Loveday has seen good success by making even small changes to graphics or to the amount of information displayed — which is sometimes overwhelming.

Lance Loveday is the president of Closed Loop Marketing, which assists clients through A/B testing, multivariate testing, end-to-end optimization, and coaching and consulting on testing, as well as search engine marketing. This interview was recorded at Conversion Conference West Coast in San Jose, California, May 2010.

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YTB announces free guarantee issue life insurance for it's Directors!
And, best of all, YTB also recently announced that reaching the level of Director has become easier with new simpler qualifications.