How To Easily Turn Phone Interviews Into Valuable Web Content

By Brian Duvall

A great way to add valuable content for your blog or for sale is to record phone interviews with guest experts. Stop paying for expensive monthly services to do this. The tools I’m about to share with you are totally free.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Skype: Sign-up for a free account and download the software. This will let you place calls over the internet so you can record the interview directly to your computer.
• CallGraph: Download this free Skype plugin. CallGraph is a simple little audio recorder plugin that auto-records your phone calls when Skype is connected. Once it’s installed, it runs in the background so recording is easy.
• Audacity: Download this free audio editor. Audacity is a powerful audio editor that you’ll use to remove long pauses, flubs, uhhh’s, um’s, etc. from your interview. This will also let you export your recording as an MP3 file.
• LAME: Download this little codec and install it in your Audacity file to allow Audacity to encode your recording as an MP3 file.
• Microphone / Headset: If you don’t already have one, then you’ll need to get a standard microphone for your computer. I recommend getting one with a headset so you can hear what you are recording.

Communicate with your guest expert ahead of time to arrange a quiet time to conduct your interview. I recommend that you send your expert a list of the questions you want to ask so they have time to prepare. Be sure to ask your expert for permission to record the call before you get them on the phone. You don’t want them backing out at the last moment.

When you are ready to do the interview plug in on your headset mic and activate Skype on your computer. Enter the phone number or Skype ID you wish to call and click the Call button. As soon as your expert answers the call then CallGraph will begin recording automatically.

I recommend that you develop a short introduction or greeting to start your interview. This should be how you start all of your interviews because it’ll become your brand identifier. Welcome your expert and ask them to tell everyone a little about themselves and what they do. Another approach is for you to make the introduction they way you would if you were introducing them on stage. Build up their credentials as a real expert on the subject being covered.

Conduct your interview. I recommend that you keep it to maximum of about twenty minutes. Listeners tend to drop out the longer you go.

Once the interview is complete, import the CallGraph recording into Audacity to edit it. You’ll want to remove any long pauses, mistakes, ahh’s, umm’s, etc. to make your interview sound more professional. You’ll want to avoid changing the order or content of the interview with your edits because this could damage your credibility.

Once your editing is complete, simply export the edited interview as an MP3 file and upload it to your website or blog.
You’ll need an embedable flash MP3 player so visitors to your site can listen to the interview.