Yahoo! Buzz is now available to all web publishers, and this represents a new way of driving even more traffic to your site. We're conducting several experiments at the moment, and this is what we've found so far. In the case of a hush-hush post which was "buzzed" by a fan, 3 other people voted for it, and 6 people visited the site directly from Yahoo! Buzz. So, what does this mean?

This means that even with minimal effort, the story was picked up by around 5 other people, because the story appeared in Yahoo! Buzz. If this was achieved even if no one heavily promoted the buzzed webpage, how much more if your page rises up the Yahoo! Buzz list, right?

If more people like your blog post and then they click on the Buzz Up! button, then your page will gain higher visibility in the Yahoo! Buzz community. The higher the visibility, the more chances you get to attract even more web visitors.

So here's the Yahoo! Buzz Web Traffic Strategy:

1. Put Yahoo! Buzz buttons at the top and bottom of your WordPress blog posts. Be sure to use the special javascript code to make it easier for first-time buzzers to post your story.

Here's an example of the javascript code:

<script type="text/javascript">
yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = "<?php wp_title(); ?>";
yahooBuzzArticleSummary = "<?php the_excerpt(); ?>";
yahooBuzzArticleCategory = "business";
yahooBuzzArticleType = "text";
yahooBuzzArticleId = window.location.href;
</script>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px;">
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://d.yimg.com/ds/badge2.js" badgetype="square"></script>
</div>

By making use of the special javascript code, along with WordPress template tags for the post title and excerpt, people will find it easy to submit your blog post to Yahoo! Buzz. They won't have to manually type in the blog post title or summary anymore, because the code will do that for them.

2. Adjust the way WordPress handles your excerpts, because the usual way inserts certain html codes that interfere with the javascript code. To get around this, you will need the following WordPress plugins:

  • No Excerpt P Plugin -- removes those <p> tags that appear in the default WordPress blog excerpts. Based on our tests, those P tags result in blank Yahoo! Buzz submit pages. It will be a hassle for those who want to submit your stories to Yahoo! Go ahead and try the buzz buttons on this page and see how it works.

  • Advanced Excerpt Plugin -- allows you to control the length of your excerpt, because extremely long excerpts will affect the javascript code. Go for a length of 150 characters (uncheck the "words" option), and uncheck all the tags. In other words, do not require Advanced Excerpt to retain the html mark-ups, because all you're interested in is the plain text version of your excerpts.

3. Consider typing something in the Optional Excerpt of each blog post. This will give you a lot of flexibility, because you can write a single paragraph containing 300 characters (the maximum allowed by Yahoo! Buzz) without using those code-breaking HTML tags.

Will this bring in a flood of traffic?

A lot of my friends have tried the Digg button which has brought in a trickle of traffic. Since Yahoo! Buzz is quite new, the novelty factor will help bring in more traffic. Just be sure to make the most of the new traffic that comes in, by offering useful or entertaining content, and by getting people to subscribe to your mailing list.

What are you waiting for? Try this tactic today and watch you WordPress blog visitors increase.

Did you enjoy reading this post?
Click on the Buzz up! button below. Thanks!

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"Yahoo Buzz Traffic Strategy"
First Posted: August 22, 2008 | Filed in: Web Traffic

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