Scott Baradell

The Breadcrumb Path to a Crib Mattress

Let's look at a path to purchase through the lens of trust signals. In this case, the purchase of a crib mattress.

The Power of a Single Customer Review

For the right use case, a positive customer review can be the most important "trust breadcrumb" on the path to purchase.

What Is Moz's Spam Score?

Moz's Spam Score is a way to identify properties of your website that might make Google distrust you.

Conclusion: The New PR: Securing Trust at Scale

(Following is the conclusion and last of 18 excerpts republished here from Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World.) Our trust issues didn’t begin with the internet. The quest for trust didn’t even start with the first humans 300,000…

Start By Thinking About How You Make Purchases

As you're developing your marketing strategy and priorities, a good place to start is to think about your own path to purchase, whether the purchase is a car, or a microwave oven, or million-dollar enterprise software. The basic process is the same.

How I Use Trust Signals to Sell My Book

Trust signals are evidence points you can use to convince someone to trust you enough to, say, buy the book you wrote!

PR Is About Brand Trust

Most people think PR is about building brand awareness, but there are easier and cheaper ways to achieve that with targeted advertising today. What PR can uniquely deliver that those ads can't is the third-party validation that delivers #brandtrust.

Chapter 16: Getting Started with Grow With TRUST

“Everybody talks about the weather,” Mark Twain is famously said to have remarked. “But no one does anything about it.” So it seems to be with trust these days. There is plenty of gnashing of teeth among marketers and communicators about how…

Chapter 15: Sharing Knowledge— Thought Leadership

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “thought leader” dates back to an 1887 biography of the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, who the authors called “one of the great thought-leaders in America” (Pratt 2018). The concept of thought…

Chapter 14: Getting Found— Search Presence

In 2015, as Google’s algorithms slowly compelled the fields of PR and SEO to join forces, I gave the same talk at two events: the popular SEO conference State of Search and the Public Relations Society of America’s Counselors Academy. My presentation…

Chapter 13: Making Connections— User Experience

(Following is Chapter 13 of Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World.) Jeff Bezos once famously said, “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person.” I’ll take that wisdom a step further. The true test of a brand is whether its…

Chapter 12: Playing Defense— Reputation Management

(Following is Chapter 12 of Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World.) To borrow a phrase from George W. Bush’s now-famous critique of President Trump’s 2017 inaugural address: people are believing some “weird shit” these days. Such as the…

Which Podcasts Appearances Are Worth Your CEO's Time? Here’s How to Decide

As your business grows, you'll want to consider expanding your reach to new audiences by getting your CEO booked on podcasts. This can be a great way to share your company’s story, connect with potential customers, and learn from other industry…

Chapter 11: Earning Approval—Third-Party Validation

Influencer endorsements didn’t begin with the Kardashians’ promotion of flat-tummy shakes, hair vitamins, and twenty-five-dollar “couture” lollipops. They go back much further. One of their earliest uses as trust signals was by British entrepreneur…

Chapter 10: The Grow With TRUST System

I started Idea Grove at the worst possible time in my life. I left my last corporate job in the fall of 2004, with the intent to launch my own business in early 2005. But just as that plan was coming together, I was blindsided by a series of…

Trust Signals Podcast Trailer

This is the trailer for the upcoming Trust Signals Podcast!

Your Guide to Inbound PR: Making the Attention Come to You

In today’s world, consumers are wishing to base their purchases on research. This means that a simple ad in an Instagram story usually won’t cut it anymore. Businesses need to put their brand out there on the web: from well-tailored websites to…

Chapter 9: Choosing the Right Trust Signals in a Post-Truth World

(Following is Chapter 9 of Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World.) An ancient Latin proverb offers some good advice about priorities: “Duos insequens lepores neutrum capit.” He who chases two hares catches neither. In today’s world,…

Chapter 8: Trust Signals, Conversions, and Growth

Everybody claims to be a growth hacker these days—at least if you check out people’s bios on LinkedIn. The truth is that while marketers, developers, and product managers can team up on some clever customer acquisition strategies to build user bases…

Using Google Analytics (GA4) and Google Search Console in Your Next PR Campaign

There’s no doubt that Digital PR is an important part of any successful public relations strategy. But with the ever-changing landscape of the internet, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest trends and best practices. One area that is…