Why Interviews Are Highly Effective for SEO

Looking for great content for your website that will help to bring in more visitors and increase your ranking in Google? Don’t have the writing skills, the time or the inclination to write thousands of words worth of content yourself? Not sure what you would write about, even if you did have the capability?

Then perhaps what you’re looking for is a different kind of content. Using interviews is one of the best ways to get more readers to your site, to generate links and to save yourself time.

The Strengths of Interviews

• They’re Quick: One of the things that make interviewing a fantastic strategy for any blogger, is the fact that it’s quick and easy. Why? Because if you are doing written interviews, then the interviewees will actually generate your content for you. Send a few written questions – perhaps 100 words’ worth maximum – and you’ll get back anywhere from 200-1,000 words back. That’s a lot of free content that’s going to be high quality and interesting to boot.
• They’re Interesting: If you choose the right people to interview and if you choose the right interview questions, then you will find that interviews are very popular with your readers. People love conversations, so the content will be naturally engaging. On top of this though, you will also have the in-built fan-base of your interviewees as guaranteed readers and potential new fans for your website (especially if you stick within your niche). If the fan-base is big enough, then you’ll be sure to get a lot of inbound links from them too as a nice added bonus.

• You Make Contacts: When you interview someone who is influential within your niche, you will find that they’re likely to remember you and thus they’ll be more likely to want to work for you. Networking is crucial for SEO and marketing, so don’t consider this a small matter!

• You Get at Least One Free Link: We mentioned that you’d probably get some free links from the fans of the people you interview but that should be considered a bonus, not a guarantee. What is almost guaranteed though, is that you’ll at least get a link from the site or blog of the person you interviewed. Your interview is going to make them look good and as such they’ll want to share it with their own readers. If the interviewee is someone big, that’s potentially a high PR link too.

How to Set Up Great Interviews

It can be daunting setting out to contact big bloggers, YouTubers and industry giants and that’s what prevents a lot of people from making the effort. Remember though, people love to have their ego flattered and you’ll be providing them with free marketing too. Thus, you’ll often be surprised at just how many people get back to you with a positive response.

Anyway, you stand to lose nothing by just trying. This is a game of numbers, so if you write to 30 people and only get 2 responses… consider that a win! Keep your messages short and sweet, be respectful of their time and seek out as many people as you can. If you have a virtual assistant then this is an ideal job for them.