How to Get the Most SEO and Web Traffic Benefits from Blogging

The best way to get people and search engines (which means more people) to your website is by getting relevant inbound links. If you have some spiffy new gimmick on your website this may be easy as everyone will be linking to you.
However, with a basic, solid web page the process maybe much more difficult and slower. How do you get people to link to you?
The best way is to empty your wallet! Ok, just kidding, but first we will learn how easy that is.
For example there is a pay for blogging service that will cost you at least $5 per blog post (ie: per link) and maybe $25 or more. Now that will eat up your budget, and fast. These paid blog links don't come with any guarantee. You might get lots of visitors and you might not get any at all.
Pay per click is another great option for spending all your money. This will bring you visitors for sure and you'll know how much each one costs. That's it. There is no long term benefit. The ads show for only as long as you pay for them. When your money isn't on the table, you don't exist!
You can buy links all over the place and again this may end up costing you a pretty penny, you may or may not get suitable results but when you stop paying the results (good or bad) stop. You gain nothing for the future.
Now blogs are a great way to get visitors and develop a long term return. Blog posts tend to stick around for a long time. The trick here is to get people to blog about your website without forking over a bundle of your hard earned cash.
A great idea is to become a guest blogger. This would be where you write blog posts for other people's blogs. Read: your links on someone else's website for free!
This puts you in the drivers seat for a couple of reasons. First you have control over exactly what is said. Secondly, if you do a good job you may have the opportunity to make regular blog posts. That will build an audience on the blogs for your writing and turn into more and higher quality traffic for your website.
The key to being a great guest blogger is to write short (3 to 6 or so paragraph) posts that are interesting, informative, humorous and relevant to the topic of the blog (and your website). Of course they should have a link to your website. Don't over do the linking. Don't make it sound like an advertisement or something you just cut and pasted from your website.
A few minutes to compose a couple of well thought out paragraphs could do wonders for your web traffic. Keep looking for guest blogging opportunities and never use the same post for more than one blog. One post could bring a lifetime of traffic.
This may well be your most effective way to developing quality web traffic and enhancing your the SEO for your website(s).