Title tag : how many keywords ?

Hi shulink,

thanks for your hint- really appreciate it

Google "displays" the first 65-67 characters of the title in the SERPs before truncating it. Google "uses" the ENTIRE title to rank as best I can tell regardless of length... at least out to 300+ characters (and my guess is no matter how long it is).

I have personally tested this with really long title elements of 300+ characters with random, very unique strings in them (like "title test 283819c99kckekk - testing long titles 29918cjjeiciikj - best long 2838skkwikdiekdi title...") where I KNOW the keywords like "283819c99kckekk" do not exist on any other page on the web. The ONLY place the strings appeared were in the title element of my test page (nowhere on the page, not in the meta keywords, not in the meta description, and the ONLY link to the page was from my home page with a link text of "Test"). And once the page was indexed, even if "29918cjjeiciikj " were in position 300+ of the title element, a search for "29918cjjeiciikj" at Google returns one result... my page. So they likely consider the ENTIRE title regardless of length.

That being said, typically your title should target 1 keyword phrase... maybe 2 or 3 keyword phrases if they are all very similar and very closely related. Keyword density within the title element is VERY important. Though keyword density within the overall page carries very little weight these days, keyword density within HTML elements that are themselves ranking factors (like title, h1, h2s, URL, link text of incoming links, etc.) is VERY important. So don't stuff your titles with words (like the name of your site) that are not part of your targeted keyword phrase(s).

"Refinance - Mortgage Refinance - Refinance Loans" is a MUCH better title than "Get a Refinance Loan Today - JoeMama.com" if you are trying to rank for "refinance loan" related keywords. The words "get a", "today", and "joemama.com" all hurt your page's ability to rank for its targeted "refinance loan" related keyword phrases.

I can give you a few ideas. Ideally stick your main keyword phrase at the start of the title and then put something after it that gets people to click (like a headline), something that makes people curious. So it would be Keyword Phrase - Call to Action.
That way you can increase clickthroughs on the results, which means that with the right call to action/headline you could get a better clickthrough than the URL's ranking above you.
So to answer your question for number of keywords using this method you just need to make sure your phrase and headline are within the character limits.
(As a sidenote your meta description can increase clickthroughs if you sell it right).

Another option is to nest your keywords, so within 7 words or whatever you're picking up different variations of a keyword phrase or different keyword phrases altogether. A simple example is a review page. If you had a page that was for a...hmm..train set review you'd have this in the title:

"{Specific train set model) Review | Train Set Reviews"

That's a simple example for picking up the plural variations (and using some keywords out of the phrase can give some seo benefit in my experience (not saying this is true all of the time), but for some sites I can get 5 different keywords phrases in the title (as long as it doesn't look spammy, it needs to be natural) Here's an example:

"Legal Problems in Seattle | Seattle Legal Services & Advice"

You'd be picking up:

legal problems in seattle
seattle legal services
seattle legal advice
legal advice
legal services
legal problems
seattle legal

Now, this isn't the best example but my point is by nesting the keywords you can pick up multiples if you really take your time over it. I've sort of gone of subject with the number of keywords, but it's kind of related.

Could do, the only way to know is to test. Not a very comforting answer, I know. Try it on a page that isn't ranking and see what happens.

There should be two keywords per page. According to me the quality of keyword is more important than the quantity of keywords. It is also depend on the competition and strength of your pages. Less keyword with high quality helps a lot.

Hi Plato!
In my opinion title tag is one of the most important factor in getting high search engine rankings!
My advice: use specific keyword phrases, or to answer your question a recommended number is 2,3 keywords in your title tag!

some good pointers in this thread thanks.

We often use 3 keywords in the Title. one of our clients has 3 keywords as the title and is ranking #1 on all 3.

60 to 67 characters would be better for title tag optimization