How does Google handle Title?

What's best strategy?

[GilbertZ]

If I sell widgets, my domain name is WidgetWorld.com, and my targetted keywords for a particular page are "Widgets and Butter", how is it best to Title the page for Google?

1. Widgetworld.com: Widgets and Butter

2. Widgets and Butter

Does adding Widgetworld.com have a negative impact on searches for:

Widgets and Butter

?

[creative craig]

Myself I use option 1.

I am not so sure if it does damage the keywords though with having your URL in there as well.

Craig

[MeditationMan]

I think it's important to have your brand name in the title -- as marketers we're all trying to establish our brands (then again, maybe some of us aren't).

A third option is to have "(Find)Widgets and Butter at Widgetworld".

I work on the assumption that it's best to keep the specific keywords nearer the start of the title.

[Dante_Maure]

If you're in a heavily competitive keyword niche the second option will be stronger because the first dilutes the relevance of your target key phrase.

Branding is important, and imrho the greatest opportunity for strengthening your brand is a higher position in the SERPs.

Higher rankings with a relevant title can mean dramatically more clickthroughs, and a single targeted visitor to your site can do more to build your brand than ten who just look at your listing in the SERPs.

In PPC on the other hand... it can sometimes be worth adding the brand name since it isn't going to impact your positioning at all.

[europeforvisitors]

I'd probably go with Widgets and Butter - Widgetsworld.com, which gets the keywords up front as "spider food" while creating differentiation between your listing and all the other "Widgets and Butter" titles on the SERP.

In my experience, adding the name of the site after the keywords has little if any real-world impact on SERP placement. I've been doing it for a while now, because I've come to the conclusion that (a) it's likely to increase clickthroughs by readers who are familiar with my site, and (b) it helps to reinforce my "brand identity."

[ulstrup]

widgets and butter : widgetworld

don't think it's big difference using : or -

maybe i'd use: widgets and butter : widgetworld.com for branding the url and specifically if it's not a .com domain:

widgets and butter : widgetworld.co.uk