About 3 years ago I was interested in learning more about ‘perpetual travelling’ so I came up with an idea to find people who were already doing it and talk to them about it. Today, I thought I’d write about how YOU can interview someone for your blog too.
Have a topic you’d like to learn more about.
For me it was perpetual travelling. For you, it could be about driving sports cars, or stand up comedy, or maybe becoming a better writer. It might be the topic of your current blog and therefore in line with what you want to write about on your blog, or it might be something new you’d like to learn and write about.
Work out what exactly you’d like to learn about that topic.
This will help you create a bunch of questions you can ask those who are already doing it, but you also need to make sure it’s going to tell the subject’s story and be interesting, entertaining or educational for your readers. Some examples include:
- Tell us about yourself
- Why did you decide to start travelling
- What was your most memorable experience?
- What do you do to earn money?
- How has it changed you?
- What advice would you offer others?
Whatever questions you ask, you need to make sure that you’re getting the information from them that you want to learn. You also need to make sure your readers know their story too and why they’re the subject of your interview. Try and get to what’s important or interesting or unique about them and the topic of interest. Don’t be afraid to add new questions that may be inspired by their answers.
Then you need to find some people who you could potentially interview.
As usual, Google is your friend. Search for your topic of interest and add ‘blog’ to it. This will allow you to find all those blogs written by people who are engaging in your topic of interest. If you can’t find any or many, then maybe there’s room for your own successful blog?
Or maybe you’re using the wrong search term. Change the wording slightly so that you expand upon your search for bloggers. For example, if I couldn’t find any ‘perpetual traveller blog’, maybe it was because I wasn’t using the American spelling of ‘traveller’? So I might change it to ‘perpetual traveler blog’. Or maybe ‘permanent traveller blog’. Or even just ‘travel the world blog’. Changing your search terms around the same topic will allow you to find more people doing what you want to do.
Get in touch with a few of those bloggers.
Once I found a number of different blogs about my topic of interest, I read many of their posts. I read any FAQs they had. I read their ‘about’ pages. I read their story. If it was interesting or unique or educational or funny or sad, I sent them an email to introduce myself, included a link to my blog, and told them that I would love to interview them for my blog so that I could learn how they started doing that thing I want to do too, as well as share it with my readers. Every single one of them was happy to be interviewed!
Being interviewed is flattering (I was interviewed too). And since they’re already writing about their story, they’re already showing how much they want to share it, so they’ll invariably jump at the opportunity to be interviewed by you. Being interviewed on your blog will help expand their audience, and the same will be true for you when they promote the interview on their own blog, so it’s a win-win for both of you.
Determine the format of the interview.
It’s your blog, your interview. You decide how it’s going to be. You can do it via email so it’s a written interview, or you can do it via a recorded audio podcast, or you can do it via a recorded Skype video call. It’s up to you and what you’re comfortable with. But don’t forget to discuss it with your interviewee. They might be a huge introvert and not want to do a recorded Skype video call. They might prefer to do it via email so that they can have time to think about the answers you’re seeking. I know for me, being an introvert myself, I just wanted to do it by email, so that was the only option I presented. They were all happy with that.
Edit the result.
Once you’ve completed your interview, edit the result so that it’s a suitable presentation for your blog. Whether this is in written form, audio or video, make sure you send it to your interviewee first for their approval. If they want to add anything or make changes, let them. They need to be happy with the result too! Also make sure you ask them for any photos they might want included, that shows them happily engaging in the topic of the interview. And don’t forget to include a link back to their own website.
Publish.
When it’s all completed and you’re both happy with the result, publish it. Others will find it (make sure you do proper SEO on it) and enjoy it.
More tips.
For more tips on how to get high profile guest interviews, have a read of this: 7 Ways To Get High Profile Guest Interviews For Your Podcast. Even though it’s about podcasting, you can use these tips for any form of interview.
Do you have any of your own ideas on how to find and write about interviewing people for a blog? Please share them below.
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