We have an ecommerce site and I woundered if it's possible to water down the keyphrase you are targetting by adding additional words to the title. For instance, I'm targetting the keyphrase "safety window film" for this particular product. Would having the title in H1 header as "Safety Window Film" be better thatn having "Clear Safety Window Film (175 Micron)". The additional bits are not important for SEO but I would like people to know this additional info, but not at the expense of spoiling my ranking for the chosen keyphrase.
It's generally best to place the main keywords at the front of the title tag. The further to the right you go, the less weight they will have. There is nothing wrong with having a longer title tag as it can help with conversion and click through rate if used correctly. To answer your question of which one is best I would ask how important the word "clear" is. Is this a word people will use when searching? Will it help with click throughs? Title tags are all about balance. So a good mixture of keywords and call to action. Hope this helps you to decide.
I have found that Gordongekko is right. Maybe make it "Safety Window Film - Clear Safety Window Film (175 Micron)". What you will find is that the exact match domain phrase is MUCh more important than the title, then the title next, but then run the google wonder wheel on "Safety Window Film", and incorporate all those 6 or 8 phrases in the first 160 characters of your site description and the home page if at all possible. This is a case of Google telling you exactly what they want from you.
Well what ever you are trying to rank for should be in your <h1> tag....use the <h2> to give more of a description
for that particular question: shorter and keyword rich h1 will be better choice... But, difference is so so small that it will not have almost any influence on positions... 1. keyword reach 2. if shorter then % of keywords will be higher 3. close to the beginning of H1/title 4. match that with description, content and other elements...
You have to be very explicit when telling the SE's what your page is about. Every word or phrase before or after can alter the meaning of the word in the eyes of the algorithm. If it helps from a user standpoint I would leave it however, as conversions is the ultimate goal/reason for a website.
From a customer point of view "Clear Safety Window Film (175 Micron)" would probably look better than ""Safety Window Film - Clear Safety Window Film (175 Micron)" but if the second would give the desired keyword better ranking then it's going to be much better to have the second. The question is, how much better ranking would the second give me? I know theres no hard and fast answer to that but I mean, from an SEO point of view would I be better to use the second one?