Building a website or setting up a blog doesn’t guarantee visitors, you have to market it. If you’re lucky, you have a big family, a lot of friends interested in what you do, or best of all, an email list of contacts, colleagues and coworkers who want to be kept updated.

If you don’t have these resources, or want to move to the next level, it’s marketing you’ll have to do.

Hate the word? Don’t even know what it means? There are online resources, some of them free, for learning the art of self promotion. Because as an independent business person, an artist, a freelancer — or anyone just getting their feet wet with an online presence — marketing and self promotion mean pretty much the same thing.

And self promotion can feel awkward. But there are ways to break it down. Handing out a business card is self promotion. So is telling your cousins you’ve started a blog.

However, self promotion in the absence of a relationship IS awkward, at best impersonal, and not always effective. To establish new relationships — and get beyond the cousins — you need to have something to give. Put something out there. It could be a postcard. A free consultation. Some expert advice for people who want to do what you do.