Freelancing and personal brand are not necessarily helping each other. You can have an amazing personal brand with zero income, or vice versa too. However, per

Freelancing and personal brand are not necessarily helping each other. You can have an amazing personal brand with zero income, or vice versa too. However, personal branding can help in other situations, both socially and mentally. - Definitely not linkedin. Personal web site. Not on medium, not in some random microblogging platform. - Blog posts can work wonders. My personal web site ranks quite well on certain SEO keywords, and they generate quite good contracts. Don't focus on SEO, and don't blog unless you know you'd enjoy it. - My own name. My business model is to work closely with the clients. Most of my clients are quite friendly, and I buffer the technical stuff from them (such as choosing the right stack, and even AWS billing sometimes), so we can establish a good level of trust. - I suppose it depends the type of branding you want. Unless you are doing a very nice thing, focusing onna specific trait makes you stand out and gives you a leeway to set better rates. I was freelancing for almost 10 years, and have never set foot in an office with a regular job. I wish you all the best in your endeavors. I know first hand how difficult it can be sometimes, specially when the market is saturated. Trust takes time to build, so I would say your first few clients will take a leap of faith, to which you need to do a wonderful job back.