Pleased as punch this week to have bragging rights. The companies I have written and conceptualised campaigns for are all looking healthier than when they first commissioned me and that is what I have a particular passion for.

I resent the attitude espoused by many, particularly in the world of web design, that the customer is really some sort of victim of those of us who understand the internet. I came up through some pretty successful business people and the habit of providing good service is deeply ingrained in me. I would not feel happy about doing copywriting or any other work that had been recommended simply to boost the invoice I am able to send my client at the end of the month.

The excitement of seeing a client’s business grow as a result of my own input, not to mention my translation, proofreading and editing team, whose little green lights bring me comfort throughout the day ( I have them all on chat) is incomparable. I love it.

It is strange how inspiration affects one’s life. This year so far, and for the last part of 2011 too, this copywriter worked exclusively on commercial, briefed projects. Websites and slogans, a book is underway for one company and all manner of leaflets, flyers and social networking campaigns have been undertaken and even a little money earned, but no creative project has even sparked until just last night when I started writing a story about a character called Xu/orshu, who is a baboon.

I am really enjoying that, and as though a floodgate was opened by the beginning of a new story all sorts of other, more commercial developments got under way. Suddenly calls flood in and all sorts of things to do come out of the woodwork. Transcriptions and sales copy and report writing all kinds of bread and butter stuff mixed up with interesting projects, the sort where one has an opportunity to learn more about something and educate oneself and the readers. Inspiration is something that has an impact on every sphere of your life at the same time.

Copywriters in Johannesburg are in demand. A day does not go by without new job listings being placed for copywriting. In addition to this the crowd sourcing idea is catching on and there are many earning their bread and butter money doing this.

A client needs to feel certain of the creative resources at their disposal sometimes and likes to feel personally assured that their project is receiving the attention it deserves. Copywriters in Johannesburg spend just as much time in traffic as everyone else going to meet with clients and sometimes to research sites where photography might come into things too. A great deal goes into making a website and SEO Copywriting is one part of a whole process that takes place with the sole aim of ushering people through your website. Done properly, it’s a ton of work.

• Digital rendering and editing as well as photography.
• Copywriting
• Graphic Design

These things are what make websites great on the surface.

• Good code
• Successful linking strategies
• SEO copywriting

These things make websites successful underneath.

Taking the high road and ignoring the importance of search engine optimisation, or SEO for short is silly old school nonsense that needs to be forgotten before we can move on with the new era of digital communication. SEO is a legitimate element of the modern web copywriter’s repertoire, copywriting services that reach even beyond the hearts and minds affected by the read and into the workings of the search algorithm.

Jeremy Van der want offers a full copywriting service. Conceptualisation, demographic analysis in terms of determining appropriate content for the targeted demographic and world class content generation to leave your clients in no doubt whatsoever about which company to choose.

Copywriting makes it easy for your business to communicate effectively with the right people to introduce your products to. Copywriters in South Africa are often somewhat specialised, but Jeremy, under the banner ‘Watercycler’ thoroughly researches and writes pieces on a variety of subjects for businesses, organisations and individuals.

Writing copy means understanding the client’s product offering and making that information accessible and even desirable to clients. Whether  in advertisements on radio or in print or in inter office communications or product brochures or social network media.

The words chosen to represent your products should be very carefully considered. Not only in terms of your reputation, but for the purpose of spurring a prospective client to take action and contact your business, copy is essential.

Watercycler offers a comprehensive copy service. Founded on the belief that successful business is all about communication, Watercycler generates business reports, technical reports, inter office communication or quality sales copy and slogans.

A copywriting service is more than having your words corrected, these days a copywriter should understand the complex array of publication opportunities available. Hardcopy is still a real and viable marketing platform but there is also social networking and the internet itself. Also important is the understanding that real activity on the ground and the efficient publication of that activity is perhaps the most effective way of stimulating web interest and building an online reputation.

A copywriter in johannesburg or anywhere else in the world is then someone who understands the dynamics of communicating on behalf of your business with these various and at times complicated tools. The scope for small business marketing has become very much broader with the advent of these new technologies. One thing remains the same however, the value of a copywriting service is to elevate and enrich your reputation through the use of the best possible words.

Projects with tons of copy required are an excellent antidote to the post nasal drip. I find, especially in Johannesburg, that I am prone to turning even the mildest sniffles into a long lasting, sleep-disrupting post nasal drip that makes sitting over a keyboard only just preferable to the irritation of lying back and allowing this awful disruptive liquid with which my nasal passages have been cursed to dribble down into my throat and ruin any chance of sleep or even comfort.

This philosophy has a tendency to make your keyboard somewhat sticky however and the responsible copywriter or industrious writer does not want that. In fact there is only one thing more frustrating than a tickly throat you can do nothing about and that’s a keyboard error you can’t help.

Fortunately a pharmacist recently handed over some pdeudoephedrine and I am now typing away like mad. I suspect an additional review of the work may be in order because, well, just because. Great to stop sniffing.

The truth, after all the chat ranting, is that South Africa is a wonderful country. Few regions can show you a little village where people drink from a well, (like Magudu in K.Z.N.) and just a little further along serve you a five star meal in Pongola or Mkuze. Which you can still eat while watching the black rhino and absorbing the heated flurry of life in that hot and humid part of South Africa.

I passed by Magudu in 2009 when I ran away from decorating and started writing in paper notebooks while I rode my bicycle from town to town, zigzagging across this broad and marvellous land from Gauteng to K.Z.N and St. Lucia and then back across to the Eastern Free State and down to the Maluti mountains (or should that be up, I’m not sure).

It was shortly after that trip but also partly as a result of several chance meetings along the way that I got my first good break as a professional copywriter. Like many I had always fancied myself a writer of fiction, and I am still writing my own creative prose, but the specific art of coming up with the perfect words with which to communicate the services, products and overall position of an individual or a company to the world came to fascinate me. At this stage I am a busy writer with new projects to learn about coming in continuously and I must say I find the tasks satisfying and instructive. Also there’s no rush like knowing that it was your words and strategy that made for a big jump in your client’s turnover.

Cycling around the country brought me a unique perspective. I find I have incredible objectivity now and that I am capable of far greater concentration than I was before the trip. That ride changed me forever. Not least, I transformed from a visual artist into a wordsmith in the three months or so I spent exploring every nook and cranny of South Africa that took my fancy.

Copywriters in South Africa.

Copywriters in South Africa are a surprisingly busy group. I may have blogged about this before. For a country that really is not quite at the centre of things we seem to have a natural propensity to produce communicators. Maybe it’s because we need them so badly with a society as fractured as ours has been historically.

Most of the old guard, so to speak, came to writing as a career before the advent of the communications era. Their style tends toward the traditional and I’m sure my English teaching father would not have been out of place among them. For a long time, copywriters in South Africa have been a fairly rigid lot, not unlike English teachers in South Africa.

The Internet and Copywriters in South Africa.

The new boys (and here I include myself although most of my internet expertise derives from my association with my step brother and his company Idea fabrication) are naturals at the fast paced and many layered approach necessary to communicate with this incredible new tool, the internet. It isn’t magic, but the study of how it works is just as arcane.SEO copywriters in South Africa are among the best talent in the world. Providing relevance and search friendliness isn’t always easy but thanks to superb linguistic education and lifelong familiarity with the inticacies of the web are a useful combination.

Q.R. code wake up call.

There is a wake up call out there for the advertising industry and for copywriters in Johannesburg in particular. It’s called the Q.R code and it is rapidly changing how readers are able to access your advertising material and from where.

Here are only some of the ways this breakthrough is changing things.

• Clients access the website by scanning a code off signs.
• Business cards can lead directly to far more information. A website.
• Bumper stickers can load websites now.

This changes everything. For the first time, copywriters in Johannesburg have to contend with the fact that their copy is infinitely more accessible and from a variety of different settings. This has an impact on the type of material a copywriter may want to write, tailoring the message to the environment the reader may find themselve’s in.

Interested in finding out more about how to use this new communications tool? Click on the ‘talk to a copywriter’ link.

 Advertising is how you introduce your business to the public.

It’s about communication. Advertising works on a number of different levels. Popularising a brand means putting your corporate colours and logo in front of as many people as possible, getting the message of the company and products out to as many people as possible. Which people? The right people. Advertising depends on accurate demographic information. It is necessary to know as much as possible about the population groups likely to be interested in the product or service being advertised in order to communicate effectively with them.

Teasers and closing the deal.

Succesful adverts frequently use a kind of ‘double punch’. First the public is introduced to a company with limited information but perhaps an intriguing image or concept, to ‘tease’ the customer and get them asking questions about the subject of the advertising so that when the second phase of the advertising campaign is released, it appears to answer some of these questions and leads the potential customer to the point of actually contacting a representative.

All advertising needs to be professionally considered, since it is the first line of contact between a business and its clientele. It is decidedly advantageous to spend the time and money required to create a complete plan of action rather than occasionally doing some advertising and hoping for the best.