How often have you read a blog interview by someone you admire in your market space and wished it was you doing that interview instead? Oftentimes, interviews can end up being the most read blog post for the year on a blog. So how can you land those crucial blog interviews so you can get all the traffic and link love from it?

First step: ASK
Yes, it is that simple. Many extremely high profile people in many industries do not do as many blog interviews as they probably would, simply because no one has bothered to ask. Don’t ever think that you are too unknown or too small to be able to interview someone who is in the top of your industry. Asking never hurts, the worst he or she could say is no. Definitely start at the top and then work your way down, and don’t be afraid to ask who else within the company might be able to do an interview. One CEO might not be able or willing to do it, but might pass you along to their CTO instead, which just might end up being a better interview for your audience too.

Figure out your questions
Read other interviews done with the person and think about what you wished those people had asked instead, and then ask them yourself. You don’t want to ask a lot of easy questions that have been previously asked by other interviewers over and over again. You want your interview to be fresh with a variety of questions your readers would find interesting, not just the same old questions that everyone else has asked.

Skip the easy ones
Do you really need to waste a question asking “So, tell us a bit about you and what you do”? No, since you can easily pull that off a bio instead. Focus on ones you wouldn’t be able to pull out of official information, so you can ask something else interesting in place of the “who are you” type of question. Most interviewers are afraid of asking too many questions, so make sure the questions you ask count.

What would you ask?
Ask the interviewer to make up a question he or she always wished someone had asked during an interview, and then provide an answer. You could get all kinds of unusual responses and most often, a unique look into the person. Perhaps he wants people to know he used to play in a rock band or that she published a novel in college with a pseudonym. These are often the tidbits of information no one else has published, and can get links to your interview when you post it.

Tackle the tough ones?
This is the hard part… do you ask those controversial questions that could lose you the interview? Unfortunately, a lot of this will depend on how well you are known in the industry. If you are also a top person in the industry, your odds of getting an answer just went way up. Are you still an unknown and hoping this interview will put you on the map? You might be better off not asking the really tough questions, since your interviewee might just decide to put the brakes on the interview all together. So instead, figure out questions that could result in a lot of links and interest that no interviewer has asked before, yet are still on the “safe” side to ask. Then if the interview goes well, ask for a followup later, and you can hit the tougher and controversial ones then.

Ask for a candid
One blog interview I read recently included a non-professional type of photo of the interviewee. So instead of the traditional head shot published everywhere, this one showed him in his favorite soccer/rugby shirt sitting in a pub with friends instead. It gave a completely different perspective to the person I had only ever seen with a tie on in the corporate released photos. So ask for a candid shot of the person or take one yourself if you are doing the interview in person.

Blog interviews are almost always well received, especially when done with someone well known in your industry. When you combine the above tips with your interview, you can end up with a killer interview that many people will read and link to. But most importantly, simply ask for the interview, because odds are good the answer will be a yes!