How to Format an Interview Article in an Interesting Way

Transcripts

Readers in the 21st century like full disclosure and getting the story-behind-the-story. One way to deliver that is to record the interview and then transcribe exactly what was said. Then post the transcript in its entirety. If you've recorded the interview, another way to present the interview is to give your readers the option to listen to the interview instead of reading it -- or provide both on the same Web page. Present the entire transcript of the interview, and then post a link to a podcast feed -- or embed an audio player onto a Web page to allow people to get the information multiple ways.

Q&A

If you're worried about all the "ums" and flubs that you committed during the interview, another option is to deliver only the best portions of the interview, in a "Q&A" style interview article. Choose some of the questions and answers that will be most appealing to your audience, and then type out the questions -- feeling free to paraphrase if you didn't deliver it perfectly during the actual interview -- and then type out the interviewee's responses.

Slideshow

Also consider making your interview more visual by creating a slideshow out of it. First create an interesting cartoon, graphic or photo slide for each question. The more visually stimulating the slides, the more reason your audience will have for sticking through to the end. On each slide, paste a question and answer and let the audience click through the slides at will.

List

Online readers love lists with bolded headlines. When you know that an article includes "top five" list, you'll tend to scroll through the entire article to find all five key points, right? Distill the content of the interview into five to 10 key points that the interviewee made. Then make each of those five to 10 points into a subhead, and paraphrase what the interviewee said in the subsequent paragraph.