Defying the Panda! - Blog or Squeeze Page or Sales Page - What's the right strategy?

[MChriston]

(QUICK NOTE: This is not an SEO question... though it references Panda... it's about strategy, hence it's in this forum rather than the PPC/SEO one)

With Google's Panda flopping it's big paw on search results and squishing many a decent website... what does that mean when it comes to overall strategy?

Let's say you're in the info product business (as in creating your own, not being an affiliate)... do you:

A) Build an authoritative blog, encourage the visitor to click a link/ad to a sales page for your product. Which means you drive traffic to the blog.

B) As above, but instead of direct link to sales page, get blog visitor to go to squeeze page for free content which then leads to sales page. Again, which means drive traffic to the blog.

C) Forget the blog and use squeeze pages for free content and then sell off those (e.g. email sequence with promo link to sales page or OTO on back of some free content). Which means drive traffic directly to the squeeze page (but what about Google?)

D) Forget the blog, forget the squeeze page, just drive traffic directly to sales page (again, what about Google? ...but of course, you could use Social Media instead but that takes time too)

As I see it there are three major considerations:

1 - If Google doesn't like your destination then you won't get any "organic" traffic, even PPC could be compromised (goodbye option C and D?)

2 - If you go for the blog idea... then you have an interesting conversion issue because you have several hoops for the prospective customer to jump through ...each one will reduce conversion.

3 - Time and effort versus return on investment... Building an authoritative blog and/or squeeze pages with email followups, then sales pages too, takes a lot of time when compared to Option D

Okay, you could argue that consideration '2' would reduce conversion but what you are left with is a more quality list ...but that's where consideration '3' kicks in!

That said - Hard work is nothing to be scared of, but you also need to work smart.

Ultimately, it could be argued it's a question of whether you go for the long-term building relationship approach or instead use exceptional targeting and then go straight to sales page...

So the question: If you were starting out today and/or were about to revamp your business, what strategy would you use A, B, C or D ...or perhaps something else ...and why?

Let the discussion begin! ...and thanks in advance for any comments!

All the best, Michael