Is it a good idea to change page titles to improve traffic results?

[JS_Harris]

I'm not referring to the use of proper titles on new articles, my question is about going back and changing the titles (and perhaps the meta descriptions) on older articles.

This has been discussed before but my question is specific to the Google webmaster tools statistics under "top search queries". On that page you currently see a list of your articles and the percentage of searches someone COULD have clicked on your site vs the number of times someone did.

It stands to reason that if you see an article ranked 6th on a well searched for term, for example, but it is generating very little traffic or a noticeably small % of traffic for that term you would want to change it, right?

Google WMT offers the following - "Compare the first and second lists to identify how you can improve your content. Your page title appears in the results, so make sure it's relevant and accurate. etc"

Assuming I can find an alternate title that retains the right keywords (so that it doesn't drop 50+ places in the process) would you recommend I go back and make such drastic changes? The impact will be felt in more places than just that article title, all internal links will carry the new title as well, and Google gathers information on this.

summary: I WANT to tweek some titles but I don't know how much of a minefield that currently involves and can't afford to risk a reduction in traffic from Google, thoughts?

[tedster]

Constant title tweaks have been reported to cause ranking problems - but in the situation you're describing, it sounds like a good idea to do a one-time edit. It's not THAT much of a minefield ;)

[aristotle]

I read somewhere about a study which showed that searchers are more likely to click on results with titles that exactly match the search term, even if they're not at the top of the SERPs.

For example, in a search for "Antique Widgets", a page with the title "Antique Widgets" will get more clicks than pages immediately above it in the SERPs which have a different title.

[tedster]

My experience certainly agrees with that aristotle. I see this with PPC titles as well, and I notice it in my own behavior as a searcher.

[youfoundjake]

I came across this about a year ago myself, changing the Title and meta description..the one thing is to keep patient..give it some time for the impact to truely be noticed.