How can I drive more traffic to my blog?

Now that I have my blog (which I'm already especially proud of) I need to find out the best ways to drive traffic to my blog. Wow! There is so much junk and clotter to read when you google driving traffic to a blog/website. Most of it, I have no clue what they're talking about; I need some sort of Blogging for Dummies (which I'm sure there is). I'll try to break it down and post the most useful links that I find while doing my research.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/02/13/how-to-drive-traffic-to-your-blog-the-advice-of-a-12-year-old/

This useful blog is extremely beginner friendly and helped me understand that there is no real easy way to drive traffic to your blog. There are no short cuts; only quality content and the "The Three C's" as they called it. Want to drive traffic to your site, well duh! write something interested and orginial. It's the simplest answer but I don't think most people would even realize it.

"The Three C's" refer to Community, Communication, and Consideration.

Community: In a nut shell, be active in every aspect of the internet community. Whether its on MySpace, Facebook, uTube, or Twitter. Post links from social networking sites and its a guaranteed way to have friends, family, and other people visit your site. It probably won't drive much traffic but it's a start. Today I added a link to all of my social networking sites and even another blog that I started today. http://www.occoastalnews.com/.

Communication: Probably the most time consuming of the Cs. Be a part of the community even more so by conversing with people in other chat room. Make a footprint on the internet and have intelligent conversations. Don't spam your blog link all over the interest because that will probably not work and will actually have a negative impact. So as much or as little as you would like, spend some time on the internet talking on other blogs about similar topics. The more time you spend have great conversations the more traffic you will eventually drive and most of this traffic will become repeat visitors.

Consideration: This one brings me back to elementary English class when the teacher constantly said "remember who your audience is!" A blog is for the readers, so make the content reader friendly.

http://ezinearticles.com/?16-Ways-to-Drive-Traffic-to-Your-Blog&id=22928

That last site was pretty useful and all but it didn't give me any technical ways to make my blog more apparent. This next site helps with making your blog known, rather than focusing on the content. The 16 tips that this specific website gives are directly foocused on attracting hits to your site and I found it very straight forward and helpful. Granted I'm only on step 5 at the moment.

To be honest, I can already tell that creating a successful blog is going to take hard work. There is not going to be a quick and easy solution, and if there is I would really appreciate if someone would share! :) Feel free to leave comments about whether you find this blog useful or if you're in the same situations as me and you've found good tricks. Experts are also always welcome!