There are many ways that people go about doing this. First off, "conditioning" means to make the chosen pair as healthy as possible for breeding.  In addition, it helps the female to produce a belly full of eggs, which in turn means that you'll have more eggs to fertilize.  Usually the condition period is between 1.5 weeks to 2 weeks depending on the condition of your pair when you start conditioning.  I actually keep my bettas conditioned so that they can breed anytime.  The flaw to this is that feeding a lot (2x's/day) and keeping the temperature in the barrack system at 80 degrees Celsius can lead to growing old quicker.

The condition foods that I recommend are frozen foods, just b/c they are clean and free of parasites (compared to live black worms, brine shrimp, etc. they have at the local pet stores).  A variety of frozen foods are fine, but I stick with Hikari Frozen Bloodworms.  I've tried other foods like mosquito larvae by San Francisco Bay Brand, but they don't do the trick.  If you want to go with live food, however, I recommend live black worms and live mosquito larvae that are from certain places with a quality controlled environment in which they are harvested--free of parasites.  I've found that the black worms from the Aquatic Foods and the live mosquito larvae from Aquatic Ecosystems are the good places.  Feed them as much as they can eat BID-TID (2-3 times a day).  When the time comes, the female will show some vertical stripes (fig. 2), which indicate that she is ready to breed.  The male, on the other hand, starts to build a bubble nest (fig. 1).  I forgot to mention that you may either keep them in a their jars/containers/barracks and condition them or put them into their breeding tank and condition.  I prefer to keep them in their barracks. 

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(Fig. 1: Bubble Nest-view from bottom)

(Fig. 2: Female Betta showing vertical stripes)

(Fig. 3: Example of some conditioning foods)