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Personal branding is more and more important in today's competitive world, but having your own website can truly help smooth and accelerate the process. I interviewed photographer Wanda Chin, who did just that in the process of re-branding herself: she created her own website. WanderTrail.xyz is Wanda's masterpiece that has allowed her to push her brand and work farther than she could have before. Check out her story and tips for fellow photographers!
Wanda is an Australian food and photography lover who put her passions together and turned it into a career. With food blogs and magazines such as Kinfolk and Cereal Magazine as inspiration for her works, it was easy to find her style, she explained.
My aesthetic is slightly romantic - I love images that inspire you to do things. It's sort of a 'where-I'd-rather-be' vibe. That's where my domain name branches out from. My style is skewed towards the minimal side. I try to keep things simple where they can be, but at the same time, complex enough to portray a knowledge of technicality. It's actually taken me a while to come to the conclusion that simple is better, but now I'm fully trying to immerse myself into it and I think I've managed to let that show in my website!
A chance to start her brand over again came to Wanda when she moved from Melbourne to Byron Bay; a new place meant new opportunities and she jumped on the chance to re-brand herself with a clean slate. With a new website Wanda says she was able to strengthen her own idea of her brand.
I didn't have a clear goal of where my photography wanted to be when I was back in Melbourne; [I was] taking any job that came by. Having a website gave a boundary of sorts because it helped me decide on one type of thing I wanted to take photographs of food and the celebration and exploration of the topic.
As part of her re-branding, Wanda wanted to create an online portfolio that could provide visitors with a strong first impression; she needed something more professional, expressive, and unique than a Facebook or Instagram page, and a website was the perfect place to do it.
It needed to look and sound the part, I want people to take me seriously, especially when the kind of work that you are doing involves making things look pretty! When people want to look at examples of your work, it does make a difference when you show them a place on the Internet where you have put in effort to create, update and maintain as compared to a couple of badly curated albums on Facebook.
WanderTrail has helped Wanda establish a more professional, serious presence in the photography industry, and the short time spent working on her website using Dynadot's Website Builder was well worthwhile, she says. She is also working on a logo, and works with a graphic designer with similar style.
It's a great place to direct people who want to see the full works. Social media is great for getting the word out but they really destroy the quality of your images! Also, it's so much more aesthetically pleasing because you can control the whole experience. I've scored jobs from the stuff that people see on the website, and I like to think its because it is just a better viewing experience.
I asked Wanda if she has any tips for fellow photographers who are looking to re-brand themselves with a new website, and here's what she said:
Make sure you don't make the same mistakes as you did with a previous brand. A clean slate makes everything so much easier so start everything afresh! New content, new web design and maybe even a new name! But just with everything that is new, make sure you test it out over and over again. It's never going to be done, because constant maintenance and tweaking is important to get people to keep coming back. Get your head into the analytics of your site because you start to notice what drives more traffic and what doesn't. Plus it's just interesting to know!
I hope you enjoy the collection of my images as much as I enjoyed the process of curating it!
WanderTrail does not a classic .COM domain, did you notice? Wanda chose .XYZ for her website, here's why:
It was different and it felt kind of whimsical and adventurous, which fit my brand to a tee. It flows off the tongue just as smoothly as .COM does and I wasn't worried about people getting the domain wrong. That's the beauty of starting on a clean slate, you literally can create anything!
You can follow in Wanda's footsteps with an .XYZ, too! Check out our .XYZ sale, and strengthen your brand like Wanda did!
All images were taken by Wanda Chin, and found at WanderTrail.xyz
Post by Samantha Banks