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Blog Interviews: A Surprisingly Traditional Way to Build Massive Blog Traffic

Written by Brandon on December 22, 2007 – 10:36 pm -

Probably one of the biggest boosts that you can create for your blog is by conducting interviews with people in your field. You are probably thinking, “That’s so traditional, how could this such a successful method to build traffic?” In the next few paragraphs I hope to prove to you that interviews may potentially be the best way to build traffic. (Just as a quick example, interviews I’ve done in the past have usually grown my audience by a bump of fifty sustained visitors to the blog which adds up over the course of twenty interviews.) And after I’ve convinced you of its benefits I hope to give you a road map of how to conduct and leverage your interview into a continuous moneymaker. But now, for why this method is so powerful:

Blog Interviews- A Powerful Blog Traffic Building Tool

photo by laffy4k

People want to read about real world case studies because it inspires them.

I know when I hear an interview with an entrepreneur in my field that has made a successful and established business of what he or she created I am listening intently. This information is gold not only because the interview can give me new tips and ideas, but also because I learn what the interview subject went through emotionally to get where he or she got.

Your interviewee will enjoy the PR boost that they get from your interview, and in turn, let all of their friends, customers and potential customers know about.

In basic terms, doing interviews is also about trading audiences. You give the interviewee your audience, and the interview subject gives you her audience when she sends out an email to all of her contacts telling her audience to listen to or read the interview. It’s really a beautiful marriage.

An interview creates a more intimate relationship which you may be able to leverage in the future.

Speaking of beautiful marriage, if the interview is well received and generates business for the both of you, then you will feel like you’ve both given and received something valuable which is a great way to establish a strong relationship. This relationship may in the future lead to sponsorship of the blog or other favors.

An interview is a solid piece of data that you can incorporate and repackage into several forms.

Interviews can be used to make a podcast and a blog post, but of utmost importance is it can make multiple podcasts and blog posts. Interviews can often be extended into four or five parts with each new part gaining greater and greater anticipation by the audience. Give the audience a taste with the first podcast, and keep them wanting more by telling them what they’ll miss in the next podcast. Beyond this, interviews are great material for case studies in books or ebooks.

An interview helps create a legitimate brand.

If your brand is not established, an interview with someone whose brand is established will start to legitimize your blog. For instance, if I ran a small political blog, and I somehow landed an audio interview with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House in the U.S., then I would surely be on my way to creating a legitimate brand, and seen as someone who has access to important people. If your niche is very narrow like sock knitting, then legitimizing your brand would include interviews with famous yarn manufacturers whose brands your audience would be familiar with.

Pocast Interview

photo by Matt Forsythe

Now you know why you’d want to do an interview, what about how to perform an interview? I’ve create a list of five short points that will get you on the road to making an interview with an eye for creating maximum traffic for your site. I don’t tell you how to improve your interview skills or how to record an interview, but at the end of the article I will list a number of resources to help improve your interviewing skills and techniques.

First, identify your interviewee. You should speak with her at least once to evaluate her a two main criteria: authority and personality. You want to evaluate does she know what she’s talking about and can answer in an engaging manner. Now, Let’s say you’ve identified your first interview and she has agreed to the interview. What next?
Second, prepare a list of questions. These questions should, in my opinion, be biased towards the subject, focused on the interviewee’s area of expertise, and be framed from the perspective of your audiences interests. I would start with a list of ten questions, but if you’re familiar with the interviewee then you can develop more detailed questions as well. Definitely email these questions well in advance of your interview to give the interviewee time to prepare. As well, I suggest you ask the subject to create any of her own questions that she might find pertinent to the conversation. Make sure, as well, that the subject know who your audience is and that she should frame her answers specifically for your audience.
Third, conduct the interview. There are two styles of interviews I like and only two: The recorded interview and the email interview. I do not prefer the face to face interview where I take notes because of the amount of work and the accuracy which I can record. The recorded interview is the best type of interview because you can distribute this content in several media types, and it’s really the simplest method for the interviewee to participate in. All they have to do is show up and talk. The email interview, however, takes much more writing commitment on the part of the subject, but it is much less work for you. This is a great type of interview, though, if you just want a quick, short bit of information. I list a bunch of resources at the end of the post.
Fourth (this is crucial), urge your interview subject to email all of her contacts to be sure that they read your interview. You may even want to craft a letter for them as a go by. Also, ask the interviewee to please do a press release announcing their interview as well as publishing it on their own company newsletter. What you are aiming for is to get maximum exposure to an audience that is completely familiar with the interview subject but may have never heard of your blog or podcast.
Fifth, keep in contact with the interview subject. I would ask her if you could put her on your email mailing list. If you maintain the relationship then you may want even ask her to become a sponsor of the blog at some point. At this level in your relationship, the interview subject may even be a booster for your website and could be much more easily convinced to become your sponsor.

If you are able to follow these five steps, then I think you will really be able to maximize the interview to its fullest revenue potential. To recap, I’ve broadly covered why interviews are important and how to maximize interviews for your podcast or blog, the next step would be to look at some of the skills needed to create a good interview. The resources listed below should be a great start: