Blogs are a beautiful thing. Any one of us can create one for our business, for our family, for our passion, or for anything in the world. We can make amazing connections through our writing and through reading the work of others. Blogs are full of opportunities, and the opportunities grow if more people read your blog. Getting more people to read your blog is no easy task though. One search on the subject on Google brings up thousands of different ideas. And I’m guessing you don’t have the time to try each one.
No worries. You’re in luck. Today I have a technique for increasing your blog traffic that has worked well for me, increasing my traffic by about 650% over 2 years. That technique is interviewing people.
Why Interviews?
Think of interviews as scouts that venture out into the open web and meet potential readers of your blog. Interviews are part of your marketing team. They’re constantly meeting new people and introducing them to your blog. The best part is your interviews never take time off. They’re out there every day and night working for you, and they naturally attract traffic to your blog.
How Do Interviews Work Exactly?
There are four main ways that interviews work to increase your blog traffic:
1. We all like to talk about ourselves.
The person you interview is going to want to tell everybody they know about the interview they did with you. They’ll tweet about it, post it on Facebook, tell their LinkedIn groups, and shout it from the rooftops. You’d do the same if somebody interviewed you, right? When you interview somebody, you’re giving them a reason to spread the word about your blog.
2. Interviews boost your credibility.
Who you know makes a big difference in how your readers perceive you and your blog. For example, if you write a blog about filmmaking and you know Steven Spielberg, you’re credibility is much higher than another similar blogger who doesn’t know Mr. Spielberg. Interviews help you know the right people and boost your credibility. By interviewing trusted, well-known professionals in your industry, your credibility goes up. Readers see the amazing people you’ve interviewed on your blog, trust you more, and come back to read your blog more often.
3. More content for your blog.
Generally, producing more content for your blog will result in more traffic. People are more likely to visit a blog they know produces great content regularly than a blog that produces great content once in a while. Interviews are a gift that keeps on giving. After you’ve initially posted and promoted an interview, you can repurpose it down the road by reintroducing the interview again on your blog. You can also create audio versions of video interviews, written versions of audio/video interviews, and so on. The life of an interview doesn’t end when you first post it.
4. Transcriptions and SEO.
Interviews are a great way to boost your site SEO too. Posting a transcription of your interview on your blog allows search engines like Google to “read” your interview. Right now, Google and friends have no way of watching videos or listening to audio files. Unless you provide a transcription of those, Google doesn’t know they exist and can’t index all the juicy keywords hidden in your interviews. The more Google knows about your site, the more traffic you’re going to get.
I’m ready!
We’ve only scratched the surface here of the power of interviews. The benefits are truly endless and there aren’t any downsides to using interviews on your blog. For all the step-by-step info on creating high quality interviews that will increase your blog traffic, check out my e-book “Use Interviews To Increase Your Blog Traffic”.
Tim Jahn has conducted over 150 interviews on BeyondThePedway.com, a website he founded for creative entrepreneurs to learn from the successes, failures, and journeys of fellow creators. He is the author of “Use Interviews To Increase Your Blog Traffic”, an e-book teaching the art of interviewing and how it can help increase blog traffic.
