My latest Toronto Events article in DeHaan Services, "A Dozen Free Toronto Events August 7 to 11, 2013", covers more than twelve but some come with a small price tag.

Last year I'd only touched on three or so of these festivals. I was astounded that so many compete for our leisure time in this one weekend in Toronto.

By the way, two separate events are scheduled for Wychwood Barns on Sunday. I invited people to write me to let me report on how that turns out.

One reason for writing about annual Toronto events is that people can find useful information in old articles. I link to the festival organizers (or other reliable sources), so people who find my "Taste of the Danforth" article from 2012 can still link to their current official page.

One of the annual events that I'd covered in 2012 holds their activity at Yonge Dundas Square. Since the organizer, Panorama India, did not have all the details I wanted on their site for the 2013 edition, I checked the Yonge Dundas Square schedule.

To my surprise, it was only listed as "To Be Announced". Fearing that Panorama India might have fallen apart, I sent an e-mail. They replied, both with the details I requested and also to say that they hadn't realized that Yonge Dundas Square needed to be updated. So my query resolved my concerns but also led to the information being posted in the official YDS schedule.

The writing tip is to ask questions when needed. Develop your sources!

This works very well when the question will help that other party. Both Panorama India and YDS benefit from having the information posted on the YDS schedule. Other groups have also responded to my questions when they realize they're getting free publicity.

Be polite, respectful, concise and specific with your questions. Start by stating your purpose in a way that demonstrates a benefit to the other party.

Remember to thank them later for their reply, preferably with a link to your new article.

Thank you for reading about these dozen annual summer events in Toronto that

My latest Decoded Science article, "Risk Assessment for Skydiving versus Grocery Shopping", is a direct response to a reader's question.

Decoded Science offers a service called "Ask the Expert" so people can request answers on any topic of their choice. All the articles written in response are included in a category of that same name.

While I'm not an expert on safety, whether for parachute jumping or buying groceries, I do know how to dig out statistics and make a case for one probability to be higher or lower than another.

In essence, the "Ask the Expert" feature asks readers the question, "What topic do you want us to cover? What question do you want us to answer"?

My shamelessly self-promoting blog article in DeHaan Services, "How Canadians Might Risk Skydiving versus Buying Groceries", runs a similar calculation using some made-in-Canada statistics.

The really remarkable comparison is the overall rate of accidental deaths between the two countries!

One important metric for the success of an online magazine or blog is "reader engagement". Do your readers ask questions or leave comments? Those people are "engaged".

Advertisers favour sites and pages with engaged readers, because it's clear that those people care about the contents.

As well, engaged readers are likely to return to the site and read the next article. They may even return to see whether their questions or comments have elicited replies.

So ask questions in your articles. Go beyond "agree or disagree" polls; try "what next" or "could you do better"?

What other generic questions should you use to engage your readers?

The Canadian Civic Holiday in August is called "Simcoe Day", at least in Toronto. How can a resident of, or visitor to, Toronto commemorate the first Monday of August 2013?

My answer is in "Toronto Attractions for Simcoe Day, the Ontario Civic Holiday".

In fact, my article offers four suggestions. Go ahead. Read it...thanks.

It's not fair to leave my neighbours out of the celebrations, so I searched for events.

I only found two GTA ("Greater Toronto Area") events with either name, "Simcoe Day" or "Civic Holiday", on the first Monday of August in 2013.

"Celebrate the 2013 Ontario Civic Holiday in the GTA" ranges even outside the official GTA area to include an ever-popular fireworks display to mark this holiday.

Another five festivals run in Toronto during the Civic Holiday, that avoid John Graves Simcoe altogether.

Learn more in "Celebrating 2013 Civic Holiday in Toronto without Simcoe Day". Allow me to hint that Caribbean music plays a significant role in at least three of the five.

Let me introduce a bonus writing tip by pointing out that at least a week passed between writing the two "Celebrate..." articles. I didn't notice the resemblance until just this moment; even though I've been working from a text document that has all three titles fairly close to each other.

The bonus writing tip is to check your list of recent titles before settling on the next. This applies especially if you're writing a series.

Regular readers know that my DeHaan Services site includes quite a number of articles for things to do in Toronto, with a focus on free events or less-publicized public celebrations.

Last year, I'd written "Ontario Civic Holiday: 2012 Simcoe Day Events in Toronto". Quite a few Toronto museums offered special programmes at that time.

My "Three Cultures Weekend in Toronto mid-July 2013", published last week, had to be quite selective. Yes, I reported on three cultural festivals; but other events would have deserved some publicity but just didn't fit into the "exotic cultures" theme I'd chosen for that article.

This year I found nothing that said "Simcoe Day" or even "Civic Holiday" in Toronto. However, there are interesting things to see and do during this August long weekend.

The writing tip is to search for and report what your readers need to know. It's better to offer "one stop shopping", even if the message is "there's only a limited supply in a few sizes". At least it saves your readers time from doing their own research.

I certainly hope that regular readers will check my articles to see what I've found. Perhaps more events will be publicized in the next week or so. If that's the case, maybe the bonus writing tip should be to time your research carefully: wait until someone makes plans before you ask what their plans are!

Thanks for reading about Toronto events for Simcoe Day 2013.

My recent DeHaan Services article, "The 2013 Salsa on St. Clair Street Festival in Toronto", previews the 9th anniversary of a Latino dance festival that is an annual summer free event in Toronto.

This writing tip is more about the search for a street festival.

One Reddit comment about a recent street festival on St. Clair Avenue led me on an online search. The "Salsa on St. Clair" street party was the only useful search result; but the date was in the future.

So the comment on Reddit was actually about the Corso Italia, which was part of my earlier "Five Free Toronto Events for July 6-7, 2013" article. Corso Italia did not have the phrase "street festival", so I didn't find it in that recent search. If the comment had accurately said "Corso Italia", then I wouldn't have bothered looking for "street festival".

Luckily the Salsa Festival did use that phrase, and fit right in with my theme of "free or frugal annual events in Toronto".

Today's writing tip is to change your search criteria. If I usually seek "street festival", maybe I should also look for "road closure" or "street party" or "annual event" or "outdoor festival".

If you search for a style of music, try some variations. If you want a location, change it up with "in Toronto" versus "near Toronto", "downtown Toronto", "suburban Toronto" as well as north/south/east/west variations. Go to a thesaurus for synonyms, if you must.

Certainly you may find a lot of useless results. I'd have to wade through a lot of "road closures" for street repairs before finding a "street festival". But that might be an outdoor event that I would have missed otherwise!

Varying your search helps you cover your topic more thoroughly than you could otherwise accomplish. It will also expand the number of keywords in your articles; that may translate into more readers finding you in their searches.

Much like I found the 2013 Salsa on St. Clair Street Festival thanks to a

My latest DeHaan Services article promotes another annual Toronto summer event, with an emphasis on one aspect of this large festival.

"Workshops of the 2013 Beaches Jazz Festival in Toronto" gives the basics of the Beaches Jazz Fest, but spends extra time on the free workshops. I think they may not get the attention they deserve; although some now require pre-registration, which is a good sign.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, refers to a set of practices that encourage search engines to report your articles for their appropriate keywords. Many online authors work at SEO in order to build their readership. Covering key topics several times helps make a site more authoritative on those topics; this is part of SEO.

Since I've been writing in a niche about "annual Toronto events" for over a year, some topics have begun to reappear.

I'd covered the Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival last year. This year, the "Hennessy Talent Quest for Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival 2013" was an event in its own right, but also gave me a reason to build my reputation in the niche for the Toronto Beaches International Jazz Festival (as it is formally known).

Today's writing tip is that search engines will consider a site more authoritative on a subject that recurs on:

• different pages of a web site;
  
• various posts of a blog;
• different articles in an online magazine;
• pages linked because of common topics.

One of my articles already had a decent rank for one of the keywords associated with the Beaches Jazz Fest. I tried to leverage that advantage by writing the follow-up articles.

Another SEO process is to link from one article to another in your site. This only makes sense, of course, if these articles have related topics.

I usually update earlier DeHaan Services articles, such as the one for the 2012 Jazz Fest, with an early paragraph pointing to the 2013 version. Similarly, if I avoid covering the same information in the 2013 article, I will link back to the 2012 page.

It's the reader's choice whether to follow these links, but they tell the reader and the search engines that the site covers a topic in some depth.

Other examples of internal links in DeHaan Services are found in my articles about some annual marathon races and triathlon events, as well as fireworks celebrations for Canada Day or Victoria Day. Also, I've cross-linked my 2013 Canada Day articles for events in Toronto and those for Canada Day 2013 in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).

Thanks for reading about linking for SEO in my Toronto 2013 Beaches Jazz Festival article.

My recent Decoded Science article, "The Drake Equation Estimated the Scope of the SETI Project", explains how one equation led to the attempt to detect radio transmissions from alien civilizations.

Why write a "preview" article? I published this online prior to the one in Decoded Science simply to stake my copyright claim to the original artwork: the detail from a spreadsheet I created for this project.

Also read my "The Equation that Launched 3.4 Million Hosts" to learn about the Canadian connection to a different approach to finding alien life on exoplanets. SETI is not the only project based on a simple math equation!

This writing tip actually applies anywhere you need to include superscripts or subscripts in online articles. Footnote numbers provide another example of superscript text. (But if your online editor automatically makes footnotes, then it will handle the superscript too).

Let's use that image from my Decoded Science article, and focus on the section at the bottom starting "Each 'N' is...".

The image shows two equations, but let's take just a tiny bit: "fp * ne".

The 'p' and 'e' should be subscripts, but let's make the 'e' a superscript instead.

In Weebly, click the "More" in the upper left menu (below "Basic" and "Multimedia"). You should see a "Custom HTML" widget. Drag it down like a paragraph or title widget.

Then type "f_p * n^e in HTML" into that "custom HTML" paragraph. See the next section for the result.

That custom HTML coding works in other online editors, too, so long as they give you an environment for coding HTML tags.

Thanks for reading about the Drake Equation, crucial for the foundation of the SETI Institute. And an excuse for today's writing tip about HTML tags to create superscript and subscript text.

My latest DeHaan Services article, "Ideas for Fathers Day 2013 in Toronto", suggests readers choose between two music festivals in Toronto that end on the Fathers' Day weekend.

Of course, readers could attend both free events and use the money saved to buy a simple Fathers' Day gift.

While writing the publicity notes for this Fathers' Day article, I realized that I had missed the opportunity to use one of the popular tools in the web writer's kit.

I made amends by employing that tool in this Weebly article. Can you recognize it now, before I explain this writing tip?

Many online articles, and even print magazine articles in bygone years, include a number in the title.

"Top Ten" or "97 Ways" are typical leaders in titles. Online articles usually stick with a dozen or fewer. No-one wants to read a lengthy list from a web site.

Magazines could hope that readers would recognize the value of a long and comprehensive list.

No matter the size of the number, the value is that the reader recognizes a promise that the article will cover that many points, and then reach a conclusion. There's no fear that the article will be continued over multiple sessions. With short lists in online articles, there's no feeling of intimidation. (You only need to remember a handful of "weird tricks"; how often have you seen that phrase in an online ad)?

You don't need to use that approach in every article, unless you really want to build a reputation as that "simple six" guy.

Nonetheless, I missed out on my first chance to stick a number into the title of this primary article. (I have done this before in DeHaan Services; both "Three Themes for Doors Open Toronto 2012" and "Three Outdoor Carol Events in Dec. 2012 in Eastern Toronto" were viewed by several readers on June 3, 2013).

Shortly after writing this article, I wrote another in DeHaan Services with a number leading off the title. "8 Fun or Charity Fitness Events in Toronto on June 9, 2013" had to cover a lot of ground. In fact, these are not the only eight events that I've publicized for that same weekend.

So sometimes I heed my own writing tips; today this article's title says that I wrote about two music events in Toronto for the 2013 Fathers' Day weekend.

Since reporting on this writing tip, I've actually followed my own advice!

These Canadian flags illustrate yesterday's "A Dozen Venues for Canada Day 2013 Events in Toronto".

The day before, I'd written "Eleven Free Toronto GTA Fireworks Displays for Canada Day 2013". I think this garnered my highest readership for one DeHaan Services article in one day.

Last week highlighted "One Free Friday for the 2013 TD Toronto Jazz Festival".

I certainly have not completely shifted to numerology for my articles. The "2013 Redpath Waterfront Festival in Toronto" has the year, but not the number of things to do on Queen's Quay for this event.

On June 27, I used a number that was far too large for effective SEO in publicizing my Decoded Science article, “The Drake Equation Estimated the Scope of the SETI Project“. I used "The Equation that Launched 3.4 Million Hosts": much too large to attract a numero-phile.

Finally for these examples, on July 4 I wrote "Five Free Toronto Events for July 6-7, 2013". That was a case of "hurry before it's too late", as you can see by the publication date. I'd hoped to write at least four separate articles, since any relationships among them only come in pairs. Also, there's something for SEO if you can put the actual event into the article's title. Nonetheless, it's attracting some readers on Friday the 5th, so perhaps that's a good sign.

Thanks for reading this lengthy writing tip based originally on my 2013 Fathers' Day article.

DeHaan Services continues to cover free and interesting summer events in Toronto with "Walk among Art in Riverdale in Toronto in Early June".

As I ask in that article, where else can you see jury-selected artwork by about 125 Toronto artists for free, while enjoying a walk in Toronto's great outdoors?

This writing tip continues along one of my favourite paths.

If you have a theme for a series of articles, be sure to develop that topic.

If you have a blog, keep its focus on your main concept.

Yes, you need variety or your readers will get bored. But that variety comes inside your main topic area.

Let's use a food analogy. You can run a successful ice cream parlour, but serve a variety of flavours as well as cones versus sundae dishes. You could instead operate a general restaurant with ice cream desserts; but once you add salads and main courses to the menu, you have to reduce the variety of ice cream flavours.

My DeHaan Services site might not always stick to free (or cheap) Toronto events, but that's a niche that I cover as a mainstay for the content.

If you maintain your focus and cover your niche well, you can build a reputation for quality and authority. If you scatter your writing across all your interests, no-one will know whether to trust what you say.

So walk along your path until it's clear to others that you know where you're going. Personally

The annual Toronto Muhtadi International Drumming Festival returns to Woodbine Park in June 2013.

I've written about it for the second year, this time in "2013 Muhtadi Drumming Festival at Woodbine Park in Toronto". That's how much fun this celebration of the drum is.

On the same weekend, the "The 2013 Spring Beaches Arts and Crafts Show in Toronto" heads for the Beach neighbourhood in Toronto.

Last year I wrote "The Whereabouts of Woofstock 2012 in Toronto", but updated it with this year's date and times.

Yes: the June 2013 Woofstock dog festival is on the same weekend.

I was  overwhelmed by the possibilities, and just touched on another "8 Fun or Charity Fitness Events in Toronto on June 9, 2013".

The most unusual thing is knitting in an art museum; and no, it's not the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum).

Do you enjoy food? A street festival? If you prefer to exercise for charity, would you care to walk, bike, run or play volleyball?

In the past some of my writing tips have noted that you can boost your creative output by developing a theme.

This drumming festival in Toronto is an example of an annual event that deserves some publicity every year or two.

Simply reporting on recurring events guarantees that you will have topics.

Whether the same people will read your new articles depends on what changes. For example, when the Toronto Muhtadi Drumming Festival changed venues, it was vital to let people know. On the other hand, it had settled into Toronto's Woodbine Park before I learned about it; so I did not gain a bump in readership.

On the other hand, your web site needs to develop a reputation for expertise. That certainly does not come with one article on a topic.

Simply writing about the same topic, with the same information, a dozen times won't help much, either.

Add something new each time; change the emphasis; or even give a perspective on the history of your topic.

This summer, I do believe that I'm reaping some rewards for selecting a topic like "annual events". That's my writing tip, based today on writing about the Muhtadi International Drumming Festival in Toronto for the second year in a row.

The annual Toronto Waterfront BluesFest returns for three days of free music at Woodbine Park.

My "The 2013 Waterfront Blues Festival in Toronto" introduces the dates, venue and lineup.

Actually I learned this writing tip from the response to a previous DeHaan Services article.

I noticed that several people found "Watch Fireworks in Toronto for Victoria Day 2013" by searching for a Victoria Day fireworks display in the neighbouring city of Mississauga.

I searched for that information, but apparently Mississauga only celebrates Canada Day with fireworks. Nonetheless, I added that information to my article, along with some other out-of-town suggestions.

That may have been my most successful article, in terms of page views in the week leading up to the Victoria Day weekend.

When writing about the 2013 Waterfront BluesFest in Toronto, I decided to mention a few other Canadian cities that will host blues festivals this summer.

The writing tip is to provide some help to those who find your site when searching for something related.

Remember to balance keeping the main focus on one topic with today's writing tip to include "something for everyone".

I could have written a definitive guide to all blues fests in Canada for 2013. That would have a focus, but the article would be huge.

I could have ignored the other cities completely. If anyone had found mine while looking for Windsor, that would have been more disappointing for that reader.

My rule of thumb is to give enough information that people can do a better search the second time; or to link directly to an official site.

By the way, that article's success elevated my "bounce rate" because people would read that page and then leave. Hopefully they were satisfied with what I'd written.

At least, there are several other Canadian cities hosting bluesfests this summer. If people found them by taking a detour through the Waterfront Blues Festival in Toronto, then my article was a