In a world where AI writing tools are taking over, you need to work extra hard to deliver quality content and keep your articles original. That way, good clients or your readers will always find a way to come crawling back to your site for inspiring content.

Interviewing experts for your articles is one way to bring quality with unique examples and give real-life advice. So, let’s understand how to interview someone for a blog post.

1. Make a List of the Potential Interviewees

Interviewee red flags

The first thing you’ll need is to come up with a list of the people to interview. This step depends on the purpose of the interview. So, before you make your list, ask yourself:

  • Are you interviewing this person because you need some specific real-world examples to include in your content piece?
  • Do you want to interview an expert and write a whole blog post based on their opinions about a particular subject or topic?
  • Do you want to include multiple influencers' opinions in your article to make a point and have all of them share it to expand your reach?

Depending on your purpose, create a list of the people to reach out to and come up with their contact information. Although, emails are the best way to reach out to someone, especially when you’re making a request. It helps them to make a decision in their own time and respond—hunter.io is a wonderful tool to find the email addresses of people.

However, avoid emailing your prospects right off the bat. Instead, do your homework first:

  • Follow them on social media.
  • Go through their website, read their about page, some blog posts, and subscribe to their newsletter.
  • Figure out if there’s any new project they’re working on that you can talk about in your email—for instance, a new book, a course, a volunteering program, etc.

That way, you’ll get an idea of who they are and what they do. However, spend no more than half an hour on this research, you still don’t know if they’ll agree to talk to you.

2. Reach Out to the Selected People

Woman typing on laptop

Once you have enough information about all interviewees, email them. Fair warning: you may need to send more than one email if you’re reaching out to already busy people, aka follow-up emails.

Make sure your email covers these points:

  1. Your introduction and the information you found in your pre-email research. The latter will hook your potential interviewee with the email.
  2. Your request for the interview and the purpose behind it.
  3. A description of interview length. Make sure to tell them it won’t be long and will merely take 30 minutes of their time.
  4. A benefit for them. Explain why they should say yes to the interview. What is in it for them?

You can also use this template.

Once they agree to take some time to talk to you, do in-depth research about them to conduct a professional interview. You can consider listening to the podcasts they are featured in, watching their previous interviews or videos on YouTube.

3. Prepare for the Interview

Person focused at office desk

To make sure the interview runs smoothly, you need to have a system in place. Especially, if you’re doing it for the first time.

Here are a few things that you can do to prepare for the interview:

  • Have your questions ready for the interview beforehand.
  • Prepare your introduction and how you’ll start with the first question if you’re nervous. Most people find themselves anxious before an interview. So, here are some beginner tips that you can use to be more confident:
    • Make sure to record the interview and let them know about it. Recording can help you recall the answers, later on, easily.
    • Use a high-quality headset.
    • Make sure your internet connection is strong and keep alternatives ready if your Wi-Fi stops working for some reason.
    • Begin the interview by greeting the interviewee.
    • Thank them for joining you, and begin with your first question.
  • Make sure the first couple of questions you ask are easy to answer. It’ll help you both become comfortable with the process and gradually, it’ll run seamlessly.
  • Wrap up the interview by asking them if is there anything they would like to add to the interview.
  • Thank them when you’re done and say goodbye.

Apart from this, you should also take care of a few more things on your end:

4. Questions to Ask

Illustration of People's Hands on Desk With Computer and Notebooks

While drafting the questions for the interview, ask yourself these questions:

  • What are your audience's pain points?
  • What answers would your readers be interested in knowing about this topic?
  • Is there anything specific the interviewee has succeeded in doing that you can discuss?
  • Ask the expert if there’s something they want to talk about in particular.

Besides that, you can also take help from some of the questions below to get started:

  1. How do you spend your day, or what does an ordinary day look like for you?
  2. What’s the best part of your job?
  3. If you had to do it [grow a 6-figure business, build a successful blog, or become the CEO of the company, or whatever they’ve achieved] all over again from scratch, what approach you’ll take?
  4. What is your favorite quote of all time, and why?
  5. What books will you recommend that everyone should read once in their lives?
  6. How do you maintain a work-life balance?
  7. What are the biggest challenges you faced in your career as a [their profession], and how did you handle them?
  8. What is the best advice someone ever gave you?
  9. Who inspires you the most?
  10. What’s the next thing you’re going to do in life?

Interviewing an Expert Shouldn’t Be That Difficult

Interviewing someone may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re fully prepared and have practiced a few times, it can go easily.

Moreover, once you’ve done it several times, you’ll become a pro in this art already.