1. Check out where your articles are on google page rank. Very simple, go to google's home page. Google in your article's title, or blog, and see where you are on their ranking page. If you are on the first page, then that is outstanding. That alone won't always generate a lot of traffic, though. Using good backlinks helps as well.
2. Pick your title carefully. For example, if I write how to love a girl. Google that title and check to see if there are similar titles with those exact keywords. It's okay if they have some of those keywords, which obviously there will be on that topic, but the exact ones is what you want to stay away from. Keywords are everything, when you want to get ranked on google. You have to choose the proper ones, otherwise you won't find your articles at all. Using words like 'make' or 'get' are pretty seo friendly words on the internet. Avoid exact titles of others.
3. See how many web hits your title gets on google. When you can get something like 50 million, or more web matches when, you'll probably tend to get more traffic. However, you have more competition at the same time, even if you do rank on the first page. Still, choose good seo words in your titles, where these words tend to get a lot of hits on google. You can fool around with their site, and see which words do better, and which ones don't. Just words like 'make' can be a significant difference in getting hits. There is no point in picking a title, getting it ranked number one on google, if no one on the web searches for it.
4. Use good seo words. Seo words are critical, because they create backlinks and help you rank even better on google. Use ones that have to do with your article, or blog though. If you're using google adsense, like there is on ehow, you need seo words to target your google ads as well. If you're writing about cleaning an oven, you need your ads, and google to recognize exactly what your topic is about. That way you drive in more traffic, targeted to your audience on that topic. Use the google adwords tool bar, or google search-based keyword tool to figure it out. It's good to use your title keywords in the first paragraph of your articles, that is how google bots pick them up, then you get ranked better on their site. Avoid stuffing those words in your articles, because google will classify them as spam.
5. Promote your articles. I've written articles and have had about three or four articles from social bookmark sites pop up on google, on the front page with my original one as well. Sometimes they do even better than the original. The more backlinks you can create, the better you will do on google. Sometimes it's harder, depending on competition, and the topic. Some topics are rather easy to get on the front page. Obviously when you write blogs, or articles, you'd like to make money. To make money, you need to drive in traffic. You need google to do that if you are going to bring in a lot of traffic to your site.