Title tag formatting

[ToonyWoony]

So I thought I had Title tags cracked...

• Unique to each page
• Priority phrases at the start
• Under 70 characters inc spaces
• No spamming of keyword phrase
• Brand at the end

But do people believe that this structure is bad?

<keyword 1="" phrase="">| <keyword 2="" phrase="">|<brand></brand></keyword></keyword>

and that Title tags should now be structure more like full sentences?

And does using the same keyword phrase on several pages dilute or cannibalize results?

Thanks
Kate

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Kate,

I personally would aim to make your titles more natural in the way of an appropriate title that includes your keyword phrase and then brand. I wouldn't go for two keyword phrases as I think it makes your page look overly optimised, which Google is now looking at.

<keyword phrase="">|<brand></brand></keyword>

In regards to diluting the search results I would say it depends if you are actually targeting the same keyword phrase on another page (repeatedly mentioning it and including it in your  key on-page elements) or you are just mentioning it as it is appropriate to that page as well. Optimising several pages for the same keyword can essentially lead to keyword cannibalisation which will impact your overall rankings for the term you are targeting.

Have a look at this article - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization

It is old but still applicable - this issue has been around in the SEO world for a long time.

[ToonyWoony]

Hi Matt

Thanks for explaining, that makes perfect sense!

Best wishes,
Kate

[CMC-SD]

As another data point, we are still including 2-3 keywords in title tags and have not suffered for it yet. We often do something like

KW1, KW2 & KW3 | Brand

or

KW1 - KW2 | Brand

depending on whether the keywords are very close variations or somewhat dissimilar terms.