Yahoo has an audience of more than six million users each month. Since determining through online polls that many of their users are “green consumers” or have expressed interest when offered new ways to be environmentally responsible, Yahoo launched green centers within their finance and shopping sites – and experienced similar results in traffic success.

That’s great for Yahoo. But there's much that the broader business community can learn from the trends Yahoo has observed. Here’s what consumers told Yahoo about what works and what doesn't when it comes to green messaging.

Here are the highlights:

1. Be positive. Spare the doom and gloom. Consumers want to hear about new possibilities, not just responses to problems.

2. Keep it real. Skip the celebrity endorsements. People don't trust the message if they think some celebrity has signed a secret deal to promote it. “Real people” in real situations works much better.

3. Extremes inspire. A few of last year’s biggest click-throughs were an article about a woman living in an 84 square foot all-green house, and a feature on the Pope adding environmental degradation to a list of sins. People expressed inspiration to do their part and do what’s right.

4. Talk about benefits to your audience. The highest numbers posted to information on money-saving gadgets and products that offered health benefits.

5. People are shifting from awareness to action. Not surprising, the top searched environmental term in 2006 was “climate change,” but in 2007, it was “recycling.” That says a lot.