Build a personal brand website around what you think
A CV page says where you've worked. A personal brand website says what you think and what you can be asked to do about it. It's built around a point of view, the writing and talks that prove it, and a newsletter that keeps people coming back.
How it differs from a CV site
| CV or resume site | Personal brand site | |
|---|---|---|
| Organised by | Time: roles, dates, employers | Ideas: the topics you're known for |
| Main reader | A recruiter checking a hire | A peer, client, editor or event organiser |
| Proof | Job titles and skills | Essays, talks, interviews, results |
| Main action | Download or contact | Subscribe, book a talk, start a project |
| Changes | When you change jobs | Every few weeks, as you publish |
If the main thing you want is a job, the resume website guide is the better starting point. A personal brand site is for founders, consultants, specialists and writers whose reputation brings the work.
Start with the point of view
The homepage headline is a position, not a job title. "I help B2B teams price their products" is a service; "Most SaaS companies undercharge their best customers, and here's how to fix it" is a point of view someone can agree or argue with. Under it, two or three topics you return to, each linked to your strongest piece on it. Readers decide in seconds whether you're worth following, and a clear stance is what makes them.
Write this part yourself. A model can draft from your notes, but the opinion has to be yours. Anticode's Critic flags stock phrases and headline formulas that make a page read as generated, which matters more here than anywhere: a personal brand that sounds like everyone else isn't one.
The pages that do the work
- Home: the position, the topics, the latest piece, a newsletter sign-up.
- Writing: your essays and articles, newest first, each with a one-line summary.
- Speaking: talks given, topics offered, a short bio and photo organisers can use, and a request form.
- About: the story behind the view, with enough career history to show why you'd know.
- Contact: what you take on and what you don't.
Holding it together with Anticode
Multi-page sites work, so these can be separate pages on one domain with a shared look. For writing, Anticode has no blog engine as such, but a CMS collection can hold posts with typed fields (title, date, summary, body, topic) edited in the dashboard, served at /writing/ and /writing/<slug>. Talks can live in a second collection. That covers publishing; it doesn't cover comments, RSS feeds or scheduled posts, so if those matter, publish on a newsletter platform and link from the site.
- Newsletter
- The newsletter form asks only for an email. Connect Kit or Mailchimp and new sign-ups arrive there as subscribers (Mailchimp uses double opt-in); you write the emails from that tool.
- Speaking requests
- The contact form (name, email, message) saves each request and can email you or post it to Slack, Notion or a Google Sheet through a connector. Say above the form what to include: event, date, audience size, fee or not. Or ask for a custom form tied to a site function, with a field for each.
- Look
- Pick a design system that fits your field: Editorial (Geist) for writers and strategists, Swiss (Inter Tight) for designers and engineers, Luxury (Jost) for advisory work. One font family and one accent colour run through every page.
- Domain
- Your name as the domain, connected on a paid plan. Free sites use an anticode.dev address and carry a small badge.
Common mistakes
- A logo wall of employers. It borrows other brands' credibility and says nothing about you.
- Too many topics. Five areas of expertise read as none. Two or three, then prune.
- A stale writing page. If the newest piece is a year old, move writing below the fold until you're publishing again.
- Invented social proof. No made-up quotes or audience numbers; the build checks for placeholder text, but it can't check a quote is genuine.
What Anticode won't do
- No blog features beyond collections: no comments, RSS or scheduled publishing.
- No sending of your newsletter; use an email tool through a connector.
- No paid community or member area on the site. Link to a platform built for that.
- English only. The builder and generated pages are in English.
Questions people ask
Do I need a personal brand website if I'm active on LinkedIn?
The platform holds your audience; your site holds your body of work in one place you control, under your own name.
Can I move my existing posts across?
There's no importer. You add posts to a CMS collection in the dashboard, which is manageable for a few dozen.
Can I add a booking page for calls?
Yes, the booking calendar asks for the service, day, time, name, phone and email. It offers six fixed times a day over the coming days (Mondays skipped), doesn't sync with your calendar, and you confirm each booking yourself.