Interviews can do really well, but they're more of a challenge to get right than the list or tutorial. People love celebrities and those doing exceptional and unusual things. However, if you interview run-of-the-mill professionals, the reaction is generally pretty dull. It might sound a little elitist, but people generally don't care to read about someone else unless there's something that significantly separates them from the average individual.
Journalists are trained to interview subjects in a way that produces good stories, not transcribed conversations. They have an advantage in that they're trained to bypass their fear of being rude to or provoking the subject, and are willing to ask the tough questions that create entertaining pieces.
If you're going to use interviews on your blog, read a few books on interview technique and practice regularly. Interviews can be really dull if done badly, and entertaining if they're done with the right subject and the right interview techniques. Take the time to get it right.
If you want to do an interview, ask lots of questions, chase every avenue of questioning, and if you find you want to ask something tough, just do it. If you can't do that, your interviews will lack the substance that makes those published by the traditional press interesting. While the traditional press may be failing due to its business model, they still know what makes compelling content. Don't make the common blogger's mistake of discounting the techniques used by the media.
If you can, avoid email interviews. They can be fine in some situations, but they give the respondent too much time to craft a press release instead of giving an honest, insightful answer. Email interviews are by far the most common on the web, and they are rarely as good as phone or live interviews.
Always get a picture of your interview subject to go at the top of the post. It's a small touch, but it gives the reader a stronger sense that the interview was conducted with a real person, whereas a wall of text doesn't have any personable qualities about it.
News is not an easy niche to get into because competition can be fierce. However, if you've got some breaking news in your niche and can get it published before anyone else, you've got a great opportunity to generate traffic and build your credibility.
All you need to do then is drum up some interest on a variety of social media sites and hope that nobody with bigger marketing muscle steals your thunder!
Controversy works because it gets people coming to your site to defend their position on a topic. For the blog owner, it can be a fine line to walk: on one hand, it could bring a whole bunch of new readers to your site, but if you go too far, it could alienate even more readers than you end up gaining. Controversial posts take many forms: opinion pieces, exposés, and humor, are just three of the most common controversy starters.
The strength of controversial posts is that they generate comments and links. You want your readers to defend their point of view or expand on your argument. Other post types may bring in heavy traffic without adding to your comment count or inbound links at all. Getting your comment count beefed up may seem like a waste of time, and most blogging experts put too much of an emphasis on it, but it's important to show new visitors that they haven't stumbled upon a ghost town.
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02172011
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