You need to define success; what do you mean by "really work"?

Do you want your article read?
Do you want your article republished?
Do you want visitors resulting from the article?
Do you want business resulting from your article?
Do you want return on investment?

Before looking at techniques to achieve success, you need to be clear on how you will define success - and how you will know when you have it. In a measurable form.

And if this involves giving away your creation, you need to define those 'successes' in comparison with not giving away the article; eg publishing it on your own site.

You cannot ignore the question of whether it is 'worthwhile'; how can it be a success at all if it is not 'worthwhile'?

Fair enough. In this case I am looking for my articles to be used on other people's sites so I get links in return.

Success is defined by the amount of times it is republished.

Even though you say you don't understand why some articles are successful and others aren't, you're probably in the best position of anyone to get at least a preliminary answer. If you line up your "successful" articles next to your "failed" articles, or place them on a continuum from best results to worst, what do you see? You're not necessarily looking for a precise answer here - you're really looking for patterns. What parameters you look at will vary depending on what kinds of articles you tend to write and what audiences you write for, but they might be things such as paragraph length, use of quotations and/or anecdotes, level of reading skill and knowledge of the subject needed to understand it, tone (for example, do your humorous articles tend to do better than your serious ones?), controversy and new ideas vs. reviewing and collecting what's already known, even which subjects are more successful if you write about a variety of them. Some of what makes your articles successful is going to depend on your own strengths and limitations as a writer, so will be individual for you. Some are more general, such as keeping the article length web-friendly and writing about topics people with websites will be interested in publishing.

I've been doing a slew of article submissions the past month for links. I'm surprised that the one with the most action is one of the most poorly written, devoid of real content, rambling on about the obvious things i have seen.

But it has a catchy title on a hot niche topic.

So if you are just looking for links, I'd say concern yourself with the implied topic and opening hook. Apparently a lot of webmasters don't look beyond that. Quality links on the other hand...

I think it also depends on what article sites you are submitting too. Some sites do far better then others I have found after much testing.

Also look for forums in your niche that have a section for uploading reprintable articles. I have found this to be helpful in getting my articles picked up as well.

writing about topics people with websites will be interested in publishing.

I really think this is the key here. The web is really no different than a magazine or newspaper that utilizes outside freelance writer's content. Either the articles are well written and appeal to that publication's base of readers or it doesn't. If it does and is well written a freelance writer will typically be paid for the work and it will be published.

Maybe go out to the sites that have published your articles and write the webmaster and ask what types of articles they typically like to see and if you wrote more like that would they be interested. Do this enough times with enough sites and you will be have plenty of published articles with links coming back.

Fortune Hunter

Good take for me, thanks guys!

Of course, there are those who opine that article submission has outlived its usefulness - an old worn out strategy for cultivating backlinks. I'm not convinced of this and would love to hear about current experiences from others.

"Of course, there are those who opine that article submission has outlived its usefulness - an old worn out strategy for cultivating backlinks. I'm not convinced of this and would love to hear about current experiences from others."

Getting quality one way back links out of article submissions to article banks is still relevant in my opinion. My clients are vastly benefited out of this exercise in improving their search engine ranks.

I do believe that from submitting articles you do get back links.

I have seen strange sites/blogs using my articles and feels good as well. :)

Let me add here that I have also noticed that if you add someone's articles to your site (as I have quite a few) and that page doesn't have any PR untill after 3-4 Pr updates where as rest of the site had a decent PR in just 1-2 Updates. This is strange.

Of course, there are those who opine that article submission has outlived its usefulness

Do the great wise ones of the land of "they" have another suggestion of things that work better than articles for building incoming links?

I was told by a consultant I know and respect that said the simplest answer is the typically the best answer. To me this is a pretty simple strategy and while I am sure you will find plenty of new fancy techniques I will stick with "the simple answer is the best answer strategy". It has worked pretty well for me.

FH

Well, there are "those" who will tell you that the only really effective way to attract quality ibl's is to craft your own Pulitzer Prize level content and keep it to yourself (your site). Build that way and they will come. It seems I'm always coming accross ivory tower purists who hold views contrary to my more messy thinking. I opt for quantity and mid-level quality. It pays well.

My sincere appreciation for your way of describing things...
By the way, had the quality been as strongly emphasized as the quantity, things would have moved better and faster...!