As an online content publisher, you spend a lot of time creating Authoritative Content that is useful to your audience. You also spend time ensuring that your website or blog, where your online content is published, is well-designed. After all, if your content looks terrible, few people will give it a chance.In other words, your content packaging matters, but what about the buttons used on your website or blog? What do they look like? They matter, but they're not typically given the design attention they deserve.YouTube designer Marc Hemeon created The Button Test to demonstrate how well-designed and well-branded buttons can help your content. You can follow the preceding link to take the test, but the main point of the test is to show how a button can turn into a recognizable brand element. Consistent branding of visual design elements can evoke feelings of trust and security in audience members, which is so important to brand building.Not only do well-designed buttons help with building your content brand, but they also help to increase desired reader behaviors. For example, a boring, standard button is less likely to encourage people to click it than a unique, well-designed button. Furthermore, as your audience becomes familiar with how the different types of buttons look on your site, they'll be trained to look for them in the future.Remember, button design is just part of your content packaging. Every part of your website or blog design, navigation, and usability affects the success of your content. It's the marriage of great content and design (including buttons) that can position a brand for success. The rest is up to you.To help you get started with your own button designs for your website or blog, Marc shared a few great tips:

• Pick one height for all buttons.
• All buttons should use the same style attributes such as rounded corners.
• Don't use more than three button colors.

You can follow the link above to get all of Marc's button design suggestions. Keep in mind, bigger isn't necessarily better in button design. Use Marc's tips and you'll be on the path to getting more clicks.Image: Hernan Marcelo