I have written a few ezines and squidoo lenses about web design and linked to a flats to rent website we have within them. I now want to write some specific keyword-targetted articles and lenses about renting flats linking back to our flats to rent website. Question: if Google only takes notice of one link per source, will there be any point in writing a specific keyword rich "flats to rent" article and lens if Google already has links pointing to this website from ezines and squidoo about an unrelated topic??
Another question - if you write ezine articles using their pseudonym option, then would 3 articles count as 3 links (as by 3 "different people") or 1 person?
If you're writing for SEO purposes, I think you should only have one link from Ezines to the same URL. Two won't hurt but after the first link the rest tend to get ignored and therefore don't carry any weight. Why don't you try other directories besides Ezines for backlinks? Find some other directories which do not use nofollow (there are threads with lists of good directories somewhere) and submit your articles to them as well.
yea, you might want to try writing some hubs on hubpages.com and target different keywords. This will give you a broader range to decide on which method is working best for you.
Google likes links from different ip websites, so start submitting to other article directories there are dozens of them, you can spin your article and submit them quickly, you may continue increasing your traffic by posting more articles at ezine though