There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint to build wealth on Wall Street. As long as you have a long-term mindset, a bevy of investment strategies can be used to grow your nest egg. But among these countless strategies, few have performed better over the long haul than buying dividend stocks.

Publicly traded companies that pay a regular dividend are almost always profitable and capable of providing transparent growth outlooks to their shareholders. Perhaps more importantly, income stocks are typically time-tested. These are businesses that have navigated their way through downturns before, which means investors can sleep easy at night owning them.

Dividend stocks also provide a rich history of outperformance when compared to publicly traded companies that don't offer a payout. When the wealth management division of JPMorgan Chase compared the annualized returns of dividend-paying stocks to nonpayers over a 40-year period (1972-2012), it found that the income stocks absolutely crushed those not doling out a dividend (9.5% annualized return versus 1.6% annualized return).

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Source Fool.com