What do these numbers mean?

The numbers above mean that Dental Heroes is good, but not great. To make it great, I need your help. I developed a short survey to discover what you want to see in the next version of the Dental Heroes Blog. Your responses will play a big role in shaping Dental Heroes for the future – so don’t hold back. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to help out the Dental Heroes Community.

Start the Survey

Thanks so much for your help!

Changes to Dental Heroes in 2009

In fact, I anticipate a number of exciting developments here at the Dental Heroes Blog throughout 2009. I think the most noticeable change that you can expect in the first few months of 2009 is an entirely new look(theme) for Dental Heroes. I love the current look, but I’ve decided that Dental Heroes has added so much new content this past year that more organization is needed. I also want you to be able to access this content as quickly and painlessly as possible. It’s fairly easy now, but with the current structure, I simply can’t fit as much information on the page as I would like. Also, stay tuned for some exciting contests, interviews, and special offers this year.

Help to Improve Dental Heroes

Finally, I need your help. In order to improve Dental Heroes in the new year, I’ve posted a new poll asking you what you would like to see more of in 2009. Your responses will help me to focus on the issues and content that matters to you, while filtering out those that don’t.

Thank you in advance for participating, and best of luck to you all in the new year!

This past year has been incredibly exciting for Dental Heroes, as we’ve grown faster than ever before. I have all of you to thank for making Dental Heroes the success that it is today, and I look forward to the journey that is yet to come. Without you there would be no Dental Heroes, so I sincerely thank you for your support and participation.

This coming week, I’ll be recapping some of this year’s highlights on the Dental Heroes Blog, and sharing some exciting ideas that you can look forward to in the coming year.

Now, go and enjoy your Christmas

Some of you may have noticed over the past two weeks that I’ve added a new item to the sidebar called “Deal of the Week”. It’s pretty self-explanatory really, but I wanted everyone to be aware of this new feature. Each week you can look forward to a new special offer on a popular dental care product. The current “Deal of the Week” is $5 off Crest Whitestrips Premium. If you know of any special offers that you would like to see in an upcoming “Deal of the Week” feature please let me know. Thanks.

For those of you who haven’t yet subscribed to the Dental Heroes RSS Feed, please take a couple of seconds to do so. This would not only make me happy , but you’ll also be able to stay on top of all of my latest posts and not miss a beat. Subscribe now.

Finally, for any of you who may be confused about just what the heck an RSS Feed is, Darren Rowse at Problogger.net provides a fantastic explanation.

Subscribe to the Dental Heroes RSS Feed

I’ve been using a now quite popular social networking service called Twitter for over a year now to connect with my friends. I thought, well, it works so well to connect with my friends, that it would be cool to use to connect with Dental Heroes’ readers as well. So, I recently set up a Dental Heroes Twitter account.

What is Twitter?

So, before I explain how I intend to interact with you via Twitter, I want those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about to get a better sense of what Twitter is. As usual, I’ll defer to the trusty Wikipedia to clearly describe Twitter for you, as I’m sure it does a better job than I could of explaining. According to Wikipedia, Twitter is:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default)…Full Wikipedia Article

To get a sense of what Twitter looks like, you can visit my Twitter Page. Take a look around at other peoples’ pages and get a sense for the type of information people publish on Twitter.

How I’d Like to Use Twitter with Dental Heroes’ Readers

I think Twitter will be a great tool for communicating with you. I certainly don’t want to replace the great commenting that is taking place on Dental Heroes. Rather, I’d like to interact with you via Twitter to notify me of important dental stories or links that you’d like me to post about, share your experiences with different dental products, and keep tabs on upcoming posts or contests that will take place on the blog.

How to follow me

If you’re interested in following me on Twitter, then simply click the “follow me” link below and click the “follow” button below my picture on my Twitter page. Once you’ve signed up to follow me, you can see my updates by visiting my Twitter page, or in the sidebar to your right.

Follow Me

Why Advertise on Dental Heroes

• Many dental-related keywords appear high in Google and Yahoo SERPS
• Good mix of dental consumer and dental professional visitors
• Google Page Rank = 4

Types of Advertising We Offer

• 125 x 125 banner ads
• Text Links
• Product Reviews
• Site Reviews
• Custom

Please use the form below to contact us and describe the type of advertising your interested in. I’ll get back to you within 24 hours with the rates for the type of advertising your interested in. Thank you for your interest in advertising with Dental Heroes. I look forward to a long and profitable partnership with you!

Request Advertising Rates

As an affiliate, I want to do my part to ensure that everybody who’s looking to save money at the dentist can do so at an affordable price. This is especially important with the state of our economy these days.

I don’t want to turn this into a commercial, but if you’re interested in saving 10%-60% at the dentist on most dental care procedures and do not currently have access to dental insurance, you should really check it out.

Visit DentalPlanCards.com

P.S. Look for tomorrow’s post highlighting the negative effects smoking has on your teeth…

You’ve probably noticed that in the last couple of days the site has begun to look a little different. I’ve started what I consider to be a “phased-redesign”. I know that’s typically not the best way to re-design a site, but there were some things I just couldn’t wait to change. I have a long way to go, but it’ll be well worth it. In the meantime, however, everything will remain fully-functional, and I will continue to write posts.

The reason for the re-design is really two-fold. (A) I want to create the capacity for growth. That won’t mean major changes, because my theme was solid, but it’ll require tweaks here and there. (B) I’m a designing fool, and constantly re-design my sites because I like the change of scenery.

Coming Up

In the coming weeks, I’ll be launching some great dental product contests, introducing some guest posters, posting interviews with various well-known members of the dental community, and reviewing a number of products. You won’t want to miss what I have in store for Dental Heroes.

Lastly, thanks for visiting. Your continued support makes Dental Heroes thrive, and I’m grateful for that!

Over the past several months the Dental Heroes blog has enjoyed significant growth and popularity within the dental community. It was not too long ago that Dental Heroes was a small side project of mine – slowly dying due to neglect. However, a burst of inspiration revived Dental Heroes, and turned what was a passing thought into a vision for the future.

As readership has grown over the past several months, I’ve discovered that a significant number of visitors are interested in engaging with Dental Heroes on a regular basis, but simply aren’t aware of all the ways they can do this. Hopefully, this post will help those of you who would like to contribute to the Dental Heroes Community, but just don’t know how.

Bookmark Dental Heroes

Many readers simply bookmark Dental Heroes or set it as their homepage so that every time they log on they see the latest post.

RSS Feed

Subscribing to the Dental Heroes RSS Feed is the most popular way that readers stay up-to-date with new posts. RSS technology lets you subscribe to our site and be notified of updates on a variety of tools such as Google’s ‘Reader’ tool, iGoogle, MyYahoo and many other news aggregators and feed readers. Subscribe to Dental Heroes RSS Feed.

Daily E-mail Updates

If you’d rather not subscribe to the Dental Heroes RSS Feed, but would still like to stay on top of each new post, you can subscribe to our daily e-mail updates.

Social Bookmarking

Dental Heroes readers also stay engaged with the latest posts by utilizing various social bookmarking tools. At the bottom of each post, you’ll notice a small button that reads “ShareThis”. Simply click this link to submit(also known as “bookmarking”) an individual post to a variety of popular social bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. By bookmarking Dental Heroes’ posts, you’re making it easier to find out posts at a later date, but also helping to spread the word about Dental Heroes around the internet.

Feedback

How do you follow Dental Heroes? Do you have any suggestions for me to make Dental Heroes more accessible for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

While there are certainly differing opinions about what is in their best interests, I tend to think that since they can afford it, dental insurance is an intelligent decision. Why? Well, at their age, or any age for that matter, it’s a good idea to prepare for the unexpected. Unfortunately, being caught unprepared for a dental emergency could spell financial disaster for the uninsured. While I communicated these concerns to my parents, they seemed resolved to stick it out without insurance. That’s when I suggested considering a discount dental plan. After all, a discount dental plan is quite inexpensive(around $120/yr for a family on average), and offers significant discounts on many procedures. With a miminum of two cleanings and an x-ray for each of my parents every year, the discount dental plan would pay for itself in short order. My parents were pleasantly surprised to hear about discount dental plans and their ability to save them money. Sadly, my parents were unaware that discount dental plans even exist.

Are Dental Plans Still Unknown

My parents certainly aren’t alone. But, just how few of us know about discount dental plans? That’s what I want to find out with the newest Dental Heroes poll.

• CssMania.com
• Designsnack.com
• webcreme.com

Dentalheroes Featured

I’ve been hard at work tweaking the Dental Heroes design for several weeks now, and I still have a ways to go. My goal is to provide an aesthetically-appealing site, but with great functionality as well. I think I’m well on my way, and I hope you find it to be both of those things. Recently, I’ve had the honor of being featured in several WordPress(blogging platform) design galleries. This validates the hard work that I’ve been putting into Dental Heroes to provide you(my readers) with the best possible experience while learning about, and contributing to the dental care discussion. Take a look at the sites that featured Dental Heroes below:

wp-premiums.com

wp-premiums.com is a site dedicated to premium theme modifications. Unfortunately, they still have a screenshot of Dental Heroes with my our past design, but I can’t complain.

wpzoom.com

wpzoom.com is also a premium theme modification showcase for the most part. Once again, our old design is present on their site, but I think the new Dental Heroes design is even better.

welovewp.com

welovewp.com is a beautifully-designed WordPress site showcase. Some of the best WordPress designs are present on this site, and it’s an honor to be among them.

What do you think

So, what are your thoughts about our new design? I value your constructive feedback, so please be honest. That’s the only way that Dental Heroes will improve.

Flossing Poll Results

In a recent poll, I asked Dental Heroes readers if they floss on a daily basis? Out of 21 responses(hey, we’re new), 13 people said “no” they don’t floss everyday. That means, you guessed it, 8 people said “yes” they do floss everyday. Of course the sample size was much too small to serve as an accurate predictor of a trend, I can only go by the numbers seen in the Dental Heroes poll. As such, it appears as though flossing is not popular among my readers.

I Hate Flossing

It’s OK. I hate flossing too. In fact, I don’t floss. That’s right, I don’t floss. Instead, I use interdental cleaners everyday. The interdental cleaners I use are much like those I wrote about in the Dr. Collins Interdental Cleaner review. You may want to give them a try if you find floss to be hard on your gums, or you find floss to be a hassle to work with.

Too Important to Avoid

In any event, simply brushing your teeth is not enough to properly ensure that our gums stay healthy and that our teeth are properly cared for. I would suggest either biting the bullet and beginning to floss everyday, or trying interdental cleaners as I suggested earlier.

To learn more about flossing and why it’s time to start if you don’t currently, visit our friends at dentalgentlecare.com.

Migrating to Dentalheroes.com

Migrating the Dental Heroes WordPress installation from its original location on another domain to its own domain(http://www.dentalheroes.com) has been on my list of things to do for some time now. As of today, June 29th, the Dental Heroes blog is officially live on dentalheroes.com.

Why did I make the move? I felt that is was necessary to move the Dental Heroes Blog to its own domain primarily for branding purposes, but also to facilitate growth. It was simply getting too cluttered for the budding Dental Heroes blog. Besides, I felt as though Dental Heroes deserved its own domain name.

What do you think?

Do you like the decision to migrate Dental Heroes to a new domain, or was it better off where it was?

Please take a few seconds to respond with a simple “yes” or ” no” in the poll below. Thanks.

Why I Need Your Comments
The first reason I need your comments is because comments are perhaps the best way to get feedback from you. I want to know what matters to you. The Dental Heroes blog would be a lonely place if I only blogged about what I’m interested in – believe me, that includes some real boring stuff!

The second reason I need your comments is that comments are generally a good indicator of a blog’s state of well-being so to speak. Simply put, the more comments my posts receive the easier it is for me to assess the state of Dental Heroes.

The third reason I need your comments is because comments promote discussion. Discussing issues that matter to you is an important way to get your voice heard.

Show Top Commentators Plugin
To encourage you further to leave comments on Dental Heroes, I’ve installed two fantastic comment plugins. I installed the “Show Top Commentators” plugin some time ago. This plugin essentially tracks the number of comments you’ve left on posts throughout my blog, and lists that number along with your username and blog address in my sidebar. The top 5 commentators will show up at any given time. This of course will increase your exposure if you run a blog because your username and blog link will be highly visible.

Show Top Commentators Plugin Site

CommentLuv Plugin
The CommentLuv plugin was installed this evening. This plugin is really neat in that it will display
your last blog post when you comment on my blog. This is also a great way to build exposure for your blog and build backlinks.

CommentLuv Plugin Site

Do you normally leave comments when you visit blogs? Why or why not?

You’ll notice that the first poll topic is, “Which is your favorite toothpaste brand?” This is one that everyone is sure to have an opinion about, so let’s hear them. In the future, I’ll be rotating out the polls once a week, so be sure to look for a new one each week. If by chance you miss a week, simply click on the “Polls Archive” link at the bottom of the poll widget to see last week’s results.

So, which toothpaste brand is the most popular? You decide.

Our newest feature is a neat little widget that displays dental-related videos currently found at YouTube. The videos can be found in the right sidebar underneath the “category” section. You can view any of the videos by clicking on the thumbnail of the video of your choice.

The videos feature a wide variety of dental-related content – everything from saving money on cosmetic dentistry to tips on brushing your teeth properly. These videos are brought to you by dentists, dental care professionals, and consumers from around the world.

I hope you enjoy these videos, and please let us know if there’s a topic not represented that you’d like to see, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you.

The new name for my blog is – The Dental Heroes. The inspiration behind the new name is really two-fold. I wanted to come up with a name that represented my commitment to promoting the importance of good oral hygiene, and in essence defend teeth. The other inspiration behind the new name is the funny header image of the “superhero” kids I found while perusing my favorite stock photo site – hence the “Heroes” portion of the new name.

The spirit of the blog will not change. I will continue to advocate good oral care habits, and sprinkle in a dash of sugar-free humor as well to keep you from falling asleep.

I look forward to evolving with this blog and with you, my readers, well into the future. I truly appreciate your support, and hope that you will continue to enjoy this blog. Thanks.

Great. Consider this an official invitation to submit your high-quality site to our brand spankin’ new dental and health website directory. We’re calling it HealthSeeker in honor of our beloved general website directory, SiteSeeker(Now deceased ).

So, why should you spend your time submitting to yet another website directory? Because we care about the links in our directory and promote the heck out of it. This means more exposure for you, and more fun for us.

There really isn’t much more to say, other than that we look forward to seeing your submissions and hope to bring some targeted traffic your way as we this high-quality directory continues to grow.

Whether we like it or not, one of the first things we notice about others is their smile. Poor teeth make for a bad smile. Unfortunately, this is enough for many people to look the other way and not give a person a second look. Whether we like it or not this is reality.

Fortunately, dentists have devised numerous ways to improve the appearance of teeth. This includes porcelain veneers, composite bonding, and implants The problem with most of these solutions is the enormous cost associated with them.

However, tooth whitening(also known as bleaching) has emerged as the most common form of aesthetic restoration for your teeth. Why? Whitening is both the easiest and most affordable procedure to restore the your teeth’s brilliance. Whitening applications come in various forms, but far and away the best that we have seen is brought to you by Brite Smile®.

Brite Smile is spawing tooth whitening spas around the country that offer very affordable tooth whitening solutions – that take only an hour to complete. Most whitening solutions take weeks of hassle to acheive even modest whitening.

This is going to be short and sweet. Very sweet. I’d like to announce on behalf of dentalplancards.com, that we have been authorized by DentalPlans.com to offer their entire discount dental plan offering at a 10% discount off normal prices. The discount code you will need to receive this 10% discount is: DPP10
This means that you will pay less for a DentalPlans.com discount dental plan if you visit our site and follow a link to DentalPlans.com than if you went to DentalPlans.com directly. They’ve been very generous in allowing us to do this. So, we’d like to show our gratitude by sending them some traffic.

Enter your zip code in the plan search box at the top of the page to be transferred to DentalPlans.com. There, you will be able to view all of the high-quality discount dental plans and participating dentists in your local area. Once you find the correct plan, you will need to enter the discount code: DPP10 at checkout to receive the 10% discount. That’s it! Enjoy!

Find Dental Health Plan Site