Specifically, if you have a branded site, let's say, brand.web, and it is about hollywood stars, which title scenario would be a better choice for a page? "Brad Pitt biography" OR "Brad Pitt biography | brand.web" Or any other ideas you may have. Just wondering if noting the brand is useless or harmful to the ranking process. Thanks.
It seems many webmasters have forgotten the actual purpose of the title tag. The title tag (not title attribute) is used to give a quick title of the web document itself, just as the meta description element should give a brief description of the web document. People tend to forget these two things are usually what get displayed in search results to searchers, what good is it being #1 for a keyword\phrase if your title\description turns searchers to lower listings?
Page Title - Site name - It works fine from a SEO point of view. - It works fine from a usability point of view. Not including your site name is horrible for branding, including it first is horrible for usability (try to use the browser history and realize all the pages within a site appear the same). - It works fine from a CTR (click ratio on search pages) point of view. People see what the page is about and click consequentially.
Title | Site Name or whatever like that works. However, you should really consider experimenting with your title tag to see if you can get a higher CTR on your listings by having a better title. This kind of thing is common in the PPC world, but SEO's on forums seem clueless to the fact that their organic listings have a CTR and they can get more bang for the buck by having a catchy title in the organic listings.
Just make sure it is not spammy like: Brad Pitt rocks - Brad Pitt the best So that means that you shouldn't use the keywords twice. The SE don't like that. Other than the shorter the better I believe
Brad Pitt Biography | Hollywood Star Biographies Brad Pitt at brand.web This would work good for both allintitle:Brad Pitt Biography and intitle:Brad Pitt Biography
The branding will help make the title tag unique and if you use first like Brand.web: Brad Pitt Biography | Hollywood Star Biographies Brad Pitt makes it easier to math first 4 words on title tag
the best way is:: keyword1 - keyword2 - site name where keyword1 and keyword2 shud be the most targetted keywords for your site, ofcourse related to your site name
You can have title upto 65 characters, IMO, you can use relevant keyword for that page till 65 characters, If you are using 100 characters for title, there is no harm in it. still the first 65 characters will be considered by G, but it may help more than 65 characters title in other SE's.
Do you have any concept of what the title tags actual purpose is? It's not made to stuff keywords; this isn't 1996.
I agree with you Ssandecki, But not agree too... Why "In 1996 Google was not there" Lol... Title tag must define for the page is which about.