What are the best ways to promote (free!), your webpage or blog?

I recently started blogging and would like to promote my blogs. My problem though is that I do not get much traffic to them. I have used pay per click programs, but found them some what wanting, because most of those clicks are not of the quality needed to maintain traffic after the period of advertising.

Also, I’m new at the social networking thing, and so I’m shy about promoting my writing to friends in these networks. I have though, but these results have also been lacking in producing the continued readership needed to maintain and build traffic to my sites.

There are directories and search engines, but how many how do of these engines and directories do you have to submit to get that desired traffic?

My Speculation:

Perhaps some blogs are better promoted through social venues not related to the web, but by person to person contacts and personal networking, like word of mouth.

And, if you practically have no budget to work with, you have limited resources to achieve those much needed traffic levels to your sites.