Business is bad? Let's blame someone else!

(Subtitle: rearranging the deck chairs at Kiwi Café)


As I have noted here before, "The tourist season in St. Martin and St. Maarten starts after Halloween, and ends with the Easter weekend. Apart from a handful of French visitors in July and August, the island tends to quiet down rather dramatically in Summer." This past Saturday around dinner time, my friend Sebastiaan from Sopranos restaurant and I did a bit of competitive analysis while driving from the Sonesta Maho Beach resort to Marty's Gyro in Simpson Bay.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

Thanks Larry!

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm named after Larry Page. Google uses this algorithm as one of many factors to score documents (rank nodes) in the linked database that we all call World Wide Web. It was developed by Google's founders Larry and Sergey while they were students at Stanford University in the late 90's.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

One website: 100 island restaurants - See it, like it and book it!

Our recent press release was published today in "The Daily Herald" - St. Maarten's local newspaper.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

Benchmark survey of Destination Websites - Part 3

[Disclaimer: I'm feeling a bit cheeky today - comments are not meant to offend, kthxbai]

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

Benchmark survey of Destination Websites - Part 2

In part one of this analysis (read it now if you haven't yet), I wrote about how we selected our sample of websites for the benchmark survey. We follow fifteen websites that provide visitor information for the island of St. Maarten / St. Martin in the Caribbean. Update, there's now a part three as well.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

Benchmark survey of Destination Websites - Part 1

Part 1: Sample Selection and Preliminary Results

The DineSXM restaurant and dining guide for the island of St. Martin/St. Maarten was launched in early 2008. Now that the site is in its second year of existence, it receives a steady stream of visitors who are looking for reliable information on the best places to eat on our Caribbean island. Next to providing very extensive and detailed restaurant profiles, the site also lets visitors rate and review restaurants that they have visited, and it allows them to make guaranteed online table reservations at some 50 participating locations on both sides of the island.
Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

Analyzing search engine ranking results

Since our launch of DineSXM.com in February 2008, search engine traffic has contributed significantly to the site's growth. In the 3 month period from March 1st until May 31st 2009, approximately 63% of visitors came to our restaurant reservations and dining guide by following a link from a search engine. This number is up from 25% in the same period in 2008.


Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

DineSXM on Facebook

Below is a screen capture of DineSXM's new Facebook page (login required). We use it to promote special events that are organized by more than 40 restaurants that are featured on the DineSXM restaurant guide.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

404 Error: Restaurant not found - Part V (The Roundup)

Out of curiosity, I compiled a summary of the 102 restaurant names that visitors of the DineSXM dining guide unsuccessfully typed into our search box hoping to find their favorite place to eat on our dining guide.


Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

404 Error: Restaurant not found - Part IV (Final)

Astute readers will have understood by now that many St. Martin and St. Maarten restaurants still haven't latched on to the internet yet. Yes, it's Thursday again and I find myself posting another list of unfindable restaurants. This is the final installment for now, because I feel like I'm beating this horse to death.


Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

404 Error: Restaurant not found - Part III

Yet another Thursday, and it's time again for our weekly listing of "unfindable" restaurants. Below are the names of restaurants on the island of Sint Maarten / Saint Martin that people have searched for on DineSXM in the past week.


Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

404 Error: Restaurant not found - Part II

Time for the second installment of Thursday's DineSXM missing restaurant roundup. The restaurants below were searched for on the DineSXM website in the past 7 days but could not be found because their owners did not take action yet...

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

Markus Frind - Inspirational Mind

The only way to grow a site once it's running itself is to have brilliant ideas. Great ideas don’t come from sitting in front of the computer screen for 8 hours of the day wondering what to do next. You have to be inspired or have a really deep understanding of what is going on. So a Brilliant idea may start a business but you need to have many many more brilliant ideas if you are going to go from one of many to an industry leader.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

How is your restaurant getting by?

Jeffrey Summers of Restaurant Coaching Solutions is our hero of the day! While we have not had the pleasure to meet Jeffrey in person yet, we can easily picture him as the Dirty Harry of the Hospitality Consulting Biz. His latest Tweet was again spot on. He asks: why settle for "getting by" instead of reaching for the top?


Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

DineSXM earns Google Sitelinks

This weekend brought us several reasons to celebrate the overwhelming success of the DineSXM website. Yesterday we discovered that Google is ranking us on its top position for the sxm dining keyword combination. Today, the Big G surprised us with the addition of sitelinks for the website. As you can see in the image below, Google sitelinks make it easier to navigate directly from a search result to the site's most popular pages or information categories.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

St. Martin / St. Maarten restaurants on Twitter

You can now follow DineSXM restaurant updates on Twitter - go to http://www.twitter.com/dinesxm and click the "Follow" button to stay on top of news, updates and additions to the St. Martin and St. Maarten restaurant guide at DineSXM.com. Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

DineSXM in the news

The St. Maarten Daily Herald published our press release and pictures of the DineSXM restaurant guide in their weekly Out 'n About color supplement. This is great promotion for the website and helps to get the word out for some 40 restaurants in St. Maarten and St. Martin that are listed on the DineSXM St. Maarten / St. Martin restaurant reservations and dining guide.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

New for St. Maarten: Dinner Reservations Online

Just in time for the high season, the DineSXM online dining guide at http://www.dinesxm.com is promoting a new service to visitors and residents of St. Maarten and St. Martin. The guide features extensive restaurant descriptions with menu suggestions, neighborhood maps, ratings and reviews. An exclusive feature of DineSXM is that visitors of the site can make guaranteed breakfast, lunch and dinner reservations ahead of time.


Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

Introducing DineMonkey

Say hi to Charlie, he is our new mascot for DineMonkey.com

We're getting to the stage where the platform that we use for the DineSXM website is mature enough for licensing and worldwide deployment. Our idea is to enable independent operators to run locally owned businesses with a regional focus that allow guests to make restaurant reservations online.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.

DineSXM collateral improves guest satisfaction

Last Saturday, the DineSXM team visited a newly opened restaurant in St. Maarten. Without reservations, we were very lucky to be seated and subsequently watched as many as a dozen groups be turned away during our visit.

Jump to the DineSXM blog for the remainder of this post.