Have a think for a moment – just how many buttons and links have you pressed on today on your travels around the web? The chances are you have clicked on hundreds of them, often without realising.

We love clicking on things. It is what the Internet is all about – us doing things, taking part, interacting. Pressing buttons and “Click Here” signs is the very stuff of the web.

But new research implies it is much more beneficial to businesses than we might think. Indeed, if you incorporate some kind of button clicking into your ordering process you can increase the perceived value of what you are selling.

The study asked people to say how much they would pay for certain food items. Then they were shown images of a variety of food items. Some of these images had a button which people were invited to press. When they did so it made a noise. After they had seen all the images the participants were asked to select two of them which they had previously said they would pay similar amounts for. Having done this the people in the study were then asked to select just one of the pair. They chose the one that had the button. Even though the items were foods they were happy to pay the same amount for, the presence of the button led to the final selection.

In other words, the items with the buttons had a greater perceived value than those without the buttons. Yet the buttons did nothing other than play a random noise.

What this really suggests is that the interactivity helped. It was the involvement of the participants which appeared to increase the perceived value.

The study does not mean you need buttons making random noises on your website, but it confirms that you need interactivity.

For instance, if you sell an ebook to download from your website you could have the same item in two sizes – European A4 or American Letter size. Not only does this make people perceive they have a choice, it also gives them something to do – some interactivity. However, the ebook is (other than page size) identical – clicking the button does not change the content…!

You can also use this on your blog. For instance:

[button link=”http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/2012/blog/internet-psychology/how-to-engage-your-website-visitors.html” color=”red” window=”yes”]Click Here to Read More about Website Engagement[/button] [button link=”http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/2013/downloads/using-social-media/social-media-pros-and-cons.html” color=”green” window=”yes”]Click Here to Discover Social Media Pros and Cons[/button]

I could, of course, have simply provided some links to other articles – but the interactive buttons can help increase engagement.

What this study really tells us is that interactivity is good. It helps people increase their perceived value in what you are offering.