My longtail keywords didn't seem to do anything- what gives?

You like building backlinks to other people's sites rather than to your own?

You're not concerned that if you do that an article directory will outrank your own site for your own keywords?

I'm really happy for my competitors to do this. It's the descending ceiling.

The one thing I'll almost never do is to build bookmarks/ping/backlink or do anything to promote an article-directory copy of my work. I don't like shooting myself and my business in the foot.

Building backlinks to copies of articles published in directories can, in the long run, be a big, counterproductive mistake. Building up those directory copies of articles in the SERP's is short-term and deeply flawed thinking. This is something I completely avoid, because unlike most "misguided SEO things" you can do, which tend to have "no benefit at all" as their worst possible outcome, this is one that's really bad: it can actually damage your business, in the long run.

I want to build my own sites, not other people's, even if I have my own backlinks on the pages to which I'd be sending traffic and making links.

It's true that there can be a short-term traffic advantage to building backlinks to directory articles, but it's the classic case of "the descending ceiling" to do so, and is really short-sighted: it can produce some fast traffic and fast commissions, but every inch you raise yourself up in that way silently lowers the ceiling by three inches and limits the height you can eventually reach. The more you do it, the more certain it becomes that in the long run, you're shooting yourself in the foot and will end up with an article directory permanently outranking your own site for your own keywords (not exactly an ideal way to build a business!).

I'm in business to develop my own appreciating assets (my niche sites) over the long term, from which I can continue indefinitely to derive increasing, passive income. Sending to directories the traffic that I produce with my backlinking campaigns would take me in the opposite direction.

Many people do this, because of the potential for a small, fast benefit from it, not appreciating the potential for long-term damage. As a result, some end up consigning themselves, almost by force, to a "rinse and repeat" model of article marketing instead of a "building a business" model. :p

At first, there may be a small gain, but in the long run there's a big loss in terms of opportunity-cost. For many people, that's ultimately quite likely to be the difference between making a living and not making a living.

It's easy to imagine that you're "getting traffic from article directories" when in fact you're actually "sending traffic to article directories" rather than building up your own properties.

This is largely a technique of people who either disappear and drop out of the business, or come back a year or so later announcing that "Article marketing doesn't work any more".

Ah, "rinse and repeat", I see ... I'd always imagined that Steadypay was looking for a "build an appreciating business" model, not a "rinse and repeat" model.