Why Interviews Are So Great

Over the last few months I have taken part in several interviews on other blogs and doing so has made me appreciate why interviews are so great for blogs (infact, Steven Snell from Traffikd posted an interview with myself today). Interviews are incredibly easy for both the blog owner to setup and the interviewee to take part in too. In this post I will look at why interviews are so popular with bloggers.

You have probably noticed that many of the blogs you read regularly feature interviews on a semi-regular basis. Interview articles are not likely to be posted every day but every week or every other week you might see an interview with someone who is important or well known in their niche.

Why you should interview people on your blog

• Interviews are very easy to setup – Most news and entertainment sites interview people in person or via a telephone call but the majority of bloggers conduct their interviews via email. In person or with a telephone call the interviewer has to make sure they record everything that is being said, either by recording it or writing the main points down.

  With email interviews the blog owner usually sends the interviewee a list of questions which they can answer in their own time and then return to the interviewer. This method is preferred by many people because they don’t have to set aside a specific time to participate in the interview. The blog owner can write the question in their own time and email it and the interviewee can respond when it suits them too. Since email interviews are not conducted in real time, the interviewer may have to email in response to some questions so that some points are clarified or expanded upon.

• A lot of content for a little time – If you are interviewing someone on your blog then you should do a little research about the person you are interviewing so that the questions are relevant and up to date. However, this is probably the most time consuming part of the process. Particularly with email interviews, once the interviewer has their questions answered, it’s just a matter of copying and pasting the questions and answers into a blog post.

  Also, the initial research into the questions won’t take long if you are familar with the person who is being interviewed (and if you keep up to date with news in your niche this should be the case).

• You might get an exclusive – Most of the time bloggers interview people who either have a higher profile than themselves or have an important job or role in their industry. This places the interviewer in a great position as it very easy to get the interviewee to talk about something which they wouldn’t normally talk about or information they wouldn’t normally volunteer.

  It’s very common in interviews for the interviewee to talk about something which hasn’t been announced or discussed anywhere else. If this does happen in your interview you might get a bucket load of links because they have revealed something groundbreaking. Also, if the interviewee has their own blog they will probably link to the interview on it.

Why you should be taking part in interviews

• Connect with a new audience – As a blogger you should always be looking to conntect with new audiences. Taking part in an interview will allow you to talk about yourself and your blog on a website where readers may not be familar with you. Even if the blog which is interviewing you is smaller than yours, it’s still worthwhile taking part as it will raise the profile of yourself and the blogs you write on.
• It’s easy to answer the interviewers questions – In interviews, I believe that the person being interviewed is doing a lot of the work. Many times the interviewer asks a simple one sentence question and the interviewee responds with an answer 2 or 3 paragraphs long. However, it’s very quick and easy to answer the questions in an interview because they all relate to either you, your blog or your industry. Therefore, no research or real effort is required to think of the answers so you won’t have to spend too much time particpating in the interview.
• More links to your blog(s) – Interviews always link to the blogs of the person being interviewed which means more links to your blog. The interviewer may also link to specific blog posts in the interview too (particularly if you discuss the subject in the interview).

Overview

Interviews are not something which you should add to your blog every day however they should prove a welcome addition to your regular blog posts and will give your blog more variety. If a blogger emails you with an interview request I’d definately recommend taking part.

In the future I will be adding more interviews to BloggingTips so if there is anyone in particular you want to see interviewed here please let me know. Again, don’t forget to check out my interview at Traffikd.

Link : Interview with Kevin Muldoon of Blogging Tips

Written by Kevin Muldoon from Blog Themes Club
Posted on September 2nd, 2008 and filed under Blogging
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