You will drive HUGE traffic to your blog plus you gain instant popularity from readers across the world! This is another great way to showcase your expertise and credibility to mass audiences.

Before you can submit your blog URLs, make sure to sign up for both a Google and Yahoo account (sign-ups are free!)

How Google News Works

Google “crawls” news sites and gathers articles. Headlines are crawled based on algorithms/certain factors: how often and the particular site where the story appears.

Google taps into more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide. There are NO human editors associated with selecting articles. They solely rely on online news outlets and online publishers to determine which stories have the most prominence/relevance. Google News consists of top stories and eight sections: World, Nation, Business, Sci/Tech, Sports, Entertainment, Health and Most Popular.

• Currently, Google News does NOT accept single articles or RSS/Atom feeds.

• Submit blog URL – You have to answer a few questions first before you submit your URL. Google reviews your blog to determine if it's suitable for inclusion. They will notify you if your blog is accepted or if they need additional information. They cannot guarantee that your site will be added to Google News

• Google News Help Topics provides further information and tips for publishers.

How Yahoo News Works

Yahoo also gets millions of visitors to Yahoo News each day. Yahoo News works similar to Google News. There aren't human editors picking out top stories. Main stories (that you find on Yahoo News front page) are generated by content partners. Internal search stories are found via the Yahoo News indexing.

• Fill out the Yahoo News source form. Yahoo asks you to fill out some preliminary questions. You also need to be able to “pitch” your blog. Yahoo asks you why you recommend your blog so make it sound good!

• Yahoo News will determine if your blog is suitable for inclusion – they will contact you if your blog is accepted.

How to Get Your Blog Accepted

The competition is stiff when applying to Google News and Yahoo News, and many blogs are rejected. However, there are some publishing tips to keep in mind when creating/writing your blogs.

• Original content – Unique content wins every time! Remember to make your content SEO-friendly and add relevant keywords. Don't duplicate content on your blogs!

• More than one blogger/author – Content from one writer alone won't do the trick – include guest bloggers/writers or ask another blogger to join you!

• Response time – Server response time (Bots look for pages they can index quickly and that load quickly for readers)

If Google News accepts your blog, Google suggests adding sitemaps to your blog. Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and add sitemaps via the tools section. This is the easiest way to promote web traffic and for spiders to efficiently crawl your blog.