Steps 1 And 2: Understanding The Key Purpose Of the chosen Website, And
Whether It Meets The Needs Of Its Target Audience Segments

What do you think are the needs of the various audience segments of the said site?

The audience would consist mainly of people that have used the physical copy of the Classified Advertisements in The Straits Times, and thus those people that are interested in hiring/looking for employment, buying/selling/renting cars, property, consumers that are interested in finding a particular product or type of product in shops.

These needs are addressed on the main page itself: http://www.st701.com/index.html

Jobs
Cars
Property
Shops

For these 4 categories, a sampling of the available classified ads is available. This would help the user locate the service/product of interest and get to his/her objective more quickly.

There are also sidebars that introduce what is available, eg.
Get the Right Job
Expand your search! Take your pick from more than 8,000 job listings.

Round-the-clock Virtual Showroom
Check out our extensive spread of new and preowned cars.

The Real Deal in Real Estate
Lifestyle habitats online. Come on in to view our wide range of condominium ads.

Retail Therapy at a Click
Experience online retail shopping like never before.

There is also a 'Just Ask' section that helps users interested in the various sections decide what they really want and some of the common questions posted are also shown on the front page to help the user :
JOBS
how to get a job fast?

CARS
Buy honda stream or toyota wish ?

PROPERTY
Which housing agent is more relaible?I am looking for HDB flat....

SHOPS
which portable media player is value for money?

Post Questions - users can post their own questions if after browsing through the 'Just Ask' section they are unable to find a satisfactory answer.



Do you think the communication objectives meet the needs of the various target
audience segments? Why or why not?

Yes, the communication objectives meet the needs well. There is a full listing available for browsing users that are not quite sure what they want, and a search function for users that have already decided what they want, within what price range, etc.

For example, if a user wants to find a property to rent, he can view a sample of the ads available on the front page itself. The properties are sorted by Industrial / Commercial, Condos / Apartment, Landed property, HDB / HUDC, which enables the user to pick the section that he is interested in and view the available properties for rent.

If the user is not interested in those posted on the front page, he can click on the 'Property' link to see the entire list of property for sale/rent. He can then either browse if he is not sure if he wants to buy/rent a property, or further click on 'Find Property' on the left hand sidebar, and choose the type of property he is interested in (eg. condominium). The 'Top Picks' menu will also scroll as the user mouses over a property type to show the relevant 'Top Picks' or popular properties for the category.

After the user has clicked on condominium for example, he can browse through the pages of advertisements. Relevant information of each property is shown, such as
Date Posted District/Estate Asking Status
This summary is useful as it saves time for the user by telling him, for example, the asking rent. The user can then compare it to his budget and decide whether he wants to click on it for even more information.

Once the user clicks on the property he is interested in, he can view a full list of details about the property:
http://property.st701.com/properties/view/2914?from=%2Fproperties%2Fresults%2Fbe5d7eab44913482cbea022ce46c6e88%3Ffrom%3D%252Fproperties%252Fsearch%252Fbasic%252Fcondo

Alternatively, if the user is very sure about what he wants and his budget, he can use the property search
http://property.st701.com/properties/search/basic/condo
and input his requirements.



Competitor Analysis: In order to get a better understanding of how the chosen website fares compared with other sites, study the following:
· The site’s direct & indirect competitors

http://www.sgadsonline.com/
This is a direct competitor. Upon opening the website, you can see a full listing of all the classified advertisements which include Jobs, Vehicles, Properties, For sale, that can be found on ST701.com, and even more other types of advertisements(eg. Personal Classifieds:Looking for Girlfriend (50)).
This website also does not have registration for users, and there is free posting of classified advertisements, which may attract more advertisers and users looking for certain products or services.

However, the website is more cluttered than st701 as all listings are displayed. This may be appreciated by certain consumers but many may find it clastrophobic and combined with the tiny text, harder to locate the desired product/service. With regards to the web page design, it looks very amateurish without any graphics and there are also Google Adsense advertisements which make the website appear unprofessional. Also, no registration and free advertisements may affect the quality of the advertisements and products/services offered, as there is no regulatory guidelines in place.

http://forums.ohgenki.com/
This is an example of indirect competition.
Forum users frequent forums due to interests, so they are very likely to view the ads posted, which means high and relevant traffic for related ads. This is also a fairly active forum, with Threads: 189,605, Posts: 1,901,720. For example, the OhGenki forums are made up mostly of people of most walks of life who use the internet frequently. Such people are the target of online advertisements as they are most likely to search advertisements online as compared to looking through the newspapers or other physical media.

The forums have a section, Classified, where there are sections :

Notices
Press Releases. Company Notices. New Shop Openings. Offline Events.

Market Place
Trade. Sell. Buy.

Jobs Recruit
Singapore Jobs: Work. Internship. Find jobs in Singapore.

New advertisements are posted frequently and interested people can reply directly in this forum system, which makes advertisers able to respond faster and improve efficiency.

However, advertisements are quickly replaced by new ones posted up and have to be 'bumped' up to the front page, which means that advertisers have to be vigilant in keeping their advertisements up on the front page for maximum viewership. Also, forum-goers are not necessarily the best audience as they are very diverse and not all will be interested in a certain product/service as compared to dedicated classified advertisement websites such as st701.com.


Best practices on the web
http://adwords.google.com
http://www.webaward.org/winner.asp?eid=1213
According to web marketing association, the winner for the Best Advertising Website 2003 was Google Adwords.

Google has a trademark simplistic 'no-frills' approach to website design, as evidenced by their renowned Google search (google.com) and also Google Adwords. Information is easily available on the front page, with a simple introduction of how it works. Adwords has a novel concept, as in advertisers do not have to pay when the ad is displayed, but only when someone clicks on the ad. This service is boosted by Google's search engine, which will display the ads alongside search result. Not only does this boost the relevance of interested users, it will also increase greatly the traffic to the ad as Google is the world's leading search engine.

As compared to st701.com, we feel that Google Adwords is much better in terms of execution and design, not to mention the powerful backing from the Google search engine. Advertisers get their goal easily, with simple instructions and globally(optional) supported advertisements, as compared to st701.com which only caters to locals. Users of the Google search will also be more likely to click on relevant advertisements as they search for the desired service/product.