Your brain works on two systems, one of which is the "adult" -- critical, discerning, investigative -- and the other which is "intuitive." While the intuitive just wants to have fun, the Adult shows up when there is a problem. If you are appealing to the intuitive with your website, don't do things that cause problems, otherwise, mommy will show up and ruin the fun.

If none of this makes sense, please just read this interesting article based on Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

 @tim_ash It's that magical moment in which a visitor becomes a lead or a sale; when they seek by their actions to start or continue a relationship with us. It is the moment they click a button. Conversion rate expert Tim Ash offers some great guidance on how to get your buttons clicked more and more.

The folks at Rejoiner were kind enough to include me in their list of conversion rate experts to follow on Twitter.

In my new book I liken abandonment to cholesterol: there is good abandonment and bad abandonment. SeeWhy.com CEO Charles Nichols was the person who helped me realize this, and his article shows you how to support your visitors natural need to abandon before they buy.

Wordpress themes often work against the Conversion Scientist. Too often they don't offer important templates, such as landing pages that work without navigation and sidebars, landing pages that incorporate video and more. I have built pages with both Thesis and Genesis, and currently Thesis is my preference. However, Genesis plus Premise is also working for me.

I've been seeing a lot about the film Caine's Arcade lately. The think that stuck out to me was his pricing model. Buyer psychologists would be proud. Find out why.

The blog volcano wants to ERUPT. But it won't unless you are doing some basic things in your posts and articles. Here are eight important and relatively easy to follow tips to give your posts and articles legs.

I frequently say that there are thousands of ways to increase your conversion rate, lead generation and revenue. With that thought in mind, you should be less intimidated by this little list of 40 ideas from @KISSMetrics.

 @KISSMetrics makes the point that plain is the new sexy; conventional websites sizzle. This article offers scientific proof that we consider a website "sexy" if it presents information as we expect it. You don't need to pay a creative team to come up with a unique site. In fact you will probably have to reel them in a bit once you've completed this article.

It is astounding that these rotating hero shots are so common on e-commerce sites. We have seen in the lab that they are a sure way to reduce site engagement and crater conversion rates. Don't believe it? Tim Ash would know and lists the reasons in this eye-opening article. Please read it.

There is more on hero sliders in my most recent Search Engine Land column.

This is a great place to start if you're not familiar with testing. This illustrated guide tackles the simplest to the most advanced testing methods without leaving beginners in the dust. Well done.

I often rail against the gratuitous use of social media icons on Ecommerce sites. It takes people away from your site for little real benefit. The folks at Monetate do a great job of summarizing the best way to use social for the good of your business and of your visitors.

 @PeepLaja Pricing is hard for online services. Part of the reason is that the kind of thinking that makes for great online services don't work well when applied to the psychology of buying. However, there are some things that are true for both apps and pricing schemes: keeping it simple, helping people choose the next step, limiting choices, and adding playfulness. Peep covers these and more with some great examples. These principles apply to other kinds of businesses as well, especially online publications and ecommerce sites. 

Where are we in the mobile revolution? This slide deck does a great job of telling us that we are early, but things have progressed beyond sitting and waiting.

When users look for information, they have a goal and are on a mission. Even before you started to read this article, chances are you did because you either had the implicit goal of checking what's new on Smashing Magazine, or had the explicit goal of finding information about "Navigation Design".

It's great to meet email professionals that 'get it." By "It" I mean conversion, or "What to do after the email recipient clicks through."

If you have any doubts about "It" then you will appreciate Scott Bratcher's summary check list. He even links to one of my stories.

Key to the many strategies included in The Customer Creation Equation (due out this Spring) is the use of content to charge and discharge marketing "batteries." These strategies involve writing what author Kathryn Aragon calls "Bait Pieces." While I don't see my customers as dumb fish, her process is right on.

Remember: to market on the Web you have to create a Markishing Department, part marketing, part publishing.

When calculating your conversion rate, the bottom half of the fraction is visits. The lower this number is, the high your conversion rate. That's right. You can increase your conversion rate by lowering your traffic. Likewise, you can destroy your conversion rate by driving lots of unqualified traffic to your site. AdWords and SEM are designed to get only qualified traffic to your site, traffic that is likely to increase your conversion rate.

So, I'm pleased that my column on the Backward Landing Page was included in this roundup of AdWords and SEM guides. After all, the top half of your conversion rate fraction is the number of conversions. Landing pages have everything to do with that.

 @copyblogger: Content is king. In my upcoming book The Customer Creation Equation, I teach you how to charge your marketing batteries and then tap the stored marketing potential... all with content. If you don't yet know what content you're going to create, or find yourself stuck, this infographic may be just the ticket for you.

If all problems are opportunities, then error messages and error pages are generally missed opportunities. Marketing should be policing the errors reported on their website, messages that are usually written by a techie in IT. John Ekman give us five steps toward writing error messages that say "Yes!" instead of making the visitor feel like an idiot.