I am thinking about getting involved in some CB programs to build affiliate marketing skills and sales. Since I am a professional content writer I think I could use articles to sell the products but I'm not sure if that is a good way to go. What advice do you guys have?

Yes...

While writing content target only 1 keyword with a piece of content. If you want to target 5 keywords, better go ahead and create 5 content/articles/pages/properties/lenses.

Find an EMD with low competition and do a ***king good on site seo thanks to your articles, send them to article directories for off site seo. You should be able to rank if your keyword isn't much competitive.