Interview blog posts allow you to provide valuable insider perspectives while also creating engaging content for your audience. This guide covers tips for conducting great interviews and turning them into blog posts that get attention.
Choose an Interview Subject Your Audience Wants to Hear From
The first step is identifying an interviewee your readers would be excited to gain insights from Consider
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Influencers or experts in your niche A marketing blog could feature interviews with successful entrepreneurs
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Company leaders like founders or CEOs of brands your audience follows. Interview the leader of a hot new start-up disrupting your industry.
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Celebrities who align with your blog’s niche. A sports blog could feature interviews with top athletes.
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Clients who have achieved great results with your product or service. Let them share their success stories.
Choose subjects based on who can provide a unique perspective readers won’t find elsewhere.
Reach Out to Schedule the Interview
Once you’ve identified who you want to interview, reach out to schedule it. Best practices for making interview requests include:
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Do your research – Read up on their background so you can reference relevant details in your request.
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Personalize the message – Make it clear you know who they are and why they’d be a great fit.
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Highlight benefits – Note how it can help build their personal brand and offer exposure to your shared audience.
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Suggest formats – Mention you’re open to in-person, phone, video, or email interviews, whichever works best.
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Follow up – Politely follow up within a week if you don’t receive an initial response.
Persistence and professionalism often lead to positive responses.
Create Interview Questions That Elicit Engaging Responses
Brainstorm a list of at least 10-15 substantive questions that provide value and align with your blog’s focus.
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Ask about their background – How they got started, career journey, major accomplishments, etc.
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Get their advice – Ask for tips related to your niche, based on their experiences.
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Inquire about challenges – What obstacles have they faced and how they overcame them.
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Look to the future – What trends are they watching or predictions do they have.
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Invite storytelling – Ask for anecdotes and examples that illustrate key points.
Well-crafted questions inspire more detailed, thoughtful responses.
Conduct a Smooth Interview
Use these tips to keep the interview conversational while getting the information you need:
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Set expectations – Explain the topics you want to cover and types of questions you’ll ask.
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Watch body language – Maintain eye contact and open posture to make them comfortable.
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Listen actively – Don’t just wait for your turn to talk – react and respond to what they say.
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Ask follow-up questions – Seek more detail and examples around compelling points.
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Wrap up cleanly – Confirm you have what you need and thank them for their time.
This approach results in an engaging, positive experience for the interviewee.
Organize Your Notes and Write Your First Draft
Soon after the interview concludes, review your notes to decide the structure of your post while details are still fresh.
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Identify central themes – See which topics or advice resonated most.
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Outline key points – Organize top quotes and takeaways around these themes.
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Flesh out transitions – Add context explaining how points connect back to main themes.
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Incorporate stories – Integrate relevant anecdotes that illustrate advice and engage readers.
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Wrap with recap – Close by summarizing 2-3 big picture takeaways.
Thorough organization sets you up to efficiently write an impactful first draft.
Edit Carefully to Create A Polished Post
Invest time revising your draft to create a compelling finished product:
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Tighten language – Eliminate wordiness, simplify complex sentences, and boost readability.
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Refine structure – Break up lengthy paragraphs, add subheads, and enhance flow.
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Verify quotes – Double check any quotes used match interview notes verbatim.
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Insert visuals – Include relevant photos, charts, icons to add visual interest.
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Proofread thoroughly – Fix typos, grammatical errors, inconsistent formatting, etc.
Honoring the interviewee’s words while enhancing readability results in a professional post.
Secure Approval and Promote the Content
As a courtesy, send the interviewee the finished post for approval. This ensures they are comfortable with how they are portrayed before you hit publish.
Once approved, get the word out to drive traffic:
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Email subscribers – Send a preview of the post in your newsletter.
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Turn quotes into graphics – Create shareable quotes graphics to post on social media and tag the interviewee.
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Suggest shares – Ask the interviewee to share with their own following.
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Pitch to influencers – Reach out to those in your niche to see if they will share or link to the post.
Leveraging your and the interviewee’s networks multiplies the impact.
Send a Thank You and Follow Up
Show appreciation by:
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Sending a thank you email recapping performance metrics on the post.
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Offering to provide a testimonial or endorsement they can use.
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Asking if they would be open to a follow-up interview down the road.
This continues building the relationship for potential future collaborations.
Conducting insightful interviews and producing compelling blog posts takes effort. But the rewards are worth it. You create value for your audience, establish relationships with influencers, and generate content people want to share. Use these tips to consistently create engaging interview blog posts.
Do your research before you do anything else
First things first – do you even know who you’ll be interviewing? If you don’t, you’ll need to get out there and find someone either by networking or publicly asking on social media. When Napa and I are looking for new office dogs, we tend to take to Twitter. You’d be shocked how many canines there are on that social media platform, and many of them are barking about their jobs.
We Tweet to them and ask them if they’d be interested in interviewing with us. If we don’t hear back from them, no pressure. If we do, we move on to phase #2. When I’ve worked with other (human) clients, our interview subjects usually come to us via networking or direct suggestion.
Phase #2: Once you know who you’ll speak with, make sure you know enough about their professional history. If you don’t, do some digging. When someone is referred to me by a client as a person I might want to interview, I usually have a lot to learn about their background.
The first thing I do is ask questions of my client – where does this person work? What makes him or her important? What do you think your readers will gain from learning about this person? Then, I go online and find out everything I can. Sites like LinkedIn are helpful, but regular ol’ Google is my go-to tool when researching interviewees. In fact, I even like to read other interviews of the subjects to better prepare myself.
A few tips on using an interview blog post template to share incredible content.
One of my favorite interview series that I work on weekly, happens over at Napa’s Daily Growl. My canine co-worker and I team up to find outstanding office dogs from all over the world, and then we interview them so the world will know what a great job they’re doing. This started off as a fun little side project for Napa’s thriving dog blog, but in turn has become one of his most popular features.
Before we talk about how to prepare for an interview, let me be honest with you. Interview posts aren’t always the easy route to take. Sure, sometimes, if you’ve developed easy-to-ask questions and a stellar interview blog post template, an interview can feel uncomplicated and easy. But, that isn’t always the case.
Sometimes preparing for interviews takes great effort and preparation. Other times the recording and dictation of the interviews can be more time consuming than creating the post. To ease the pain that can sometimes come along with posting an interview, follow some of these tips and create an interview blog post template to streamline some of your practices.
How to Write a Blog Post From Start to Finish | Neil Patel
How do you write an interview blog post?
Write the interview blog post upon receipt of answers to your questions. Publish and send the link to your interview and tag them in your social media posts. If you enjoyed reading the blog post. Why not share it with your friends. I would love to hear your views.
Should you add interviews to your blogging strategy?
Though it might not be the most popular approach, interview blog posts remain one of the most effective (and easiest) ways to expand your content and provide value to your audience. So, why should you consider adding interviews to your blogging strategy? For one, interviews are a surefire way to create unique content.
How do I start doing interviews on my blog?
The least intimidating way to start doing interviews on your blog is to just do a text interview. This is also the smallest amount of work for a number of reasons: You don’t have to schedule a time to talk with someone. Editing a text post takes less time and effort than an audio or video interview.
Why do you need a blog interview?
The people you interview may promote your blog to their audience. It may also increase your popularity across social media if your interviewee boosts your posts. An interview post can also increase your credibility, especially if you interview an expert your audience trusts. Finally, your audience gets a chance to learn about something new.
