You should definetly try to promote your blog a bit to get the most out of it... Linking to it is a good idea IMO
Build backlinks, you can do some SEO, but I don't think it'd do much for a personal blog. If you want SEO, look forward for the long term, it's not going to happen overnight. Link exchange, write articles and submit them to bigger sites, see if they'll publish them. bloggershq.com has a lot of info.
What type of content do you have? A classic blog is generally only of interest to the people who know you (online or for real) Blogs which focus on a specialist topic are easy to promote, just work around the sites also focused on that topic.