The Search for a Writing Tip
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