You do get a lot of traffic initially when your article is posted on directories, but the key to long-term traffic is to use the right keywords in your articles.
The visitor rate per article won’t be as hot after a while, but with 500 articles or a few thousand articles, it won’t be a big deal because some of your articles will get traffic from the search engines, and also from the search bar in the article directory itself, if you’ve done some good keyword optimization in your title, article keywords, description and actual article content.
You do want to get out as many articles as you initially, then once your traffic has become stable, add in articles occasionally.
You can also submit your articles to other article directories. If you haven’t used article submission services before, you can add that to the mix. That’s one more way of leveraging your articles.
You can also use your articles as press releases, and even for classified ads. I haven’t seen many people post articles on classified ads. Your article will stand out as a powerful advertorial amongst the sea of hard-selling ads.
Personally I prefer writing the articles myself, it can be hard to find a writer whose writing style matches the brand of your business. You can, however, find some good writers on sites like Elance and Get A Freelancer. Simply hire a good one to do your projects for the long-term if you are not interested in writing them.
Those are just some tips for getting leads and sales from articles. Do keep them in your mind as you go about your daily marketing activities. Quantity and quality equals power. There is no black or white.