I have not been blogging for a long time, at least not for professional reasons. I have been blogging on my other more personal blogs Some Random Thoughts and Lyrics for some time but I never worried about bringing traffic to these sites. This blog, I have been trying to get traffic as this blog is a tool which I use to connect with startup community, bouncing off ideas and getting to know interesting people. So unless I have decent enough traffic my goal is not achieved. Remember importance of traffic may not be something tangible for you ie number of ad clicks, number of purchases, number of deals signed, but still having more traffic is important if you want to get maximum out of your blog. Similarly for your blogs which you use for similar reasons, you will also be trying to get traffic. So there are few things I learnt through my last 6 months of experience. Honestly I am still total n00b when it comes to all these things, but since I am getting results I would like to share what I did with you. Again I am no authority and do not claim to know everything or even 10% of things. Most of the things I know are due to Ankesh and Rohan. If you need further information contact them. Here are few things I did for getting more traffic -

• First of all do not count hits through direct addresses. If you really want to understand your traffic hits through direct addresses are not at all helpful. Most of the times these hits will be through your tweets, emails, linked profile. Though they are significant and more the number better it is. But if all your traffic is through these then you are not doing enough to get wider audience. So make sure %hits through direct addresses are not more than 70-80%. If you achieve this then you are doing good.
• Having a good theme helps. I mean really helps. Though I still do not have good theme and doing away with a okayish one but its much better than what I had previously.
• Comment on other blogs and leave your footprint. But don’t just comment on big blogs like Techcrunch, Pluggdin and others. Comment also on people who share similar ideas like you. Who are talking about similar things like you. Comment in depth and relevant to topic.
• Talk about exactly one thing in one post. Do not clutter your posts through many different things. Make sure your title is clear about what post is about. Title means page title and not necessarily post title. If you can keep post title also close enough, well done.
• You tag cloud extensively. Search engines do pick up side bar and having good number of tags helps. Your readers will not object I think even if your tag cloud is cluttered and has just too many things.
• Host your blog. Your blog should be www.blogname.com and not www.blogname.wordpress.com. Total cost of hosting this blog is around 1500 Rs per year, which is like a movie + pop corn + couple of beers for you and one significant other these days.
• There are few plugins which help in getting more traffic. All in One SEO pack is one such good plugin. Use it and fill in the required fields in it for every post. Also fill in fields for homepage.
• Another good plugin is Sitemap generator. It generated sitemap automatically so search engine bots can pick up site easily.
• Guest posting. This is the most important thing you need to do. Contact authority blogs related to your subject, as well as peer blogs related to your subject and guest post on them. Since the time a major Indian blog related to startups published my post with linkback my google hits are tripled! But don’t stop after publishing a guest post at such blogs once. Keep on publishing a guest post every other month of similar higher ranked blogs. Remember live and more recent links are much more important than stale or dead links.
• Get an editor. Having an editor to represent your thoughts is good. Now this blog does not have an editor due to money issues and feel free to donate. But if you can get a freelance editor, typical charges 5$ per post to 10$ per post, then get one. It will greatly improve your content and hence engagement with readership. It will also eliminate embarrassing spelling mistakes, grammar problems
• Most important thing is publish a post regularly. Create a schedule and stick to it. Be it as less as 1 post per week to 1 post everyday, what ever you are comfortable with. But stick to your blogging schedule. Write posts which will last you for one month in advance before starting the blog. So even if you are travelling, fall sick have personal emergency then you can publish these posts on schedule. 

Hope this helps.