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Re: Good page titles - friendly SEO

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From: Steven Henderson
Date: Jan 21, 2010 3:09AM

Hi Simius,

I'm really digesting what you are saying, but the part that I either am not
getting or am having trouble agreeing with (not sure yet), is if SERPs
listed say 20 competitors on the first page, and each used the same
title/description formula (as being suggested), then how does one really
compete for that all-important custom over the others in a SERP?

I took brand out of the equation for the purposes of non-brand search
criteria. Otherwise, it would be expected that someone looking for a
product/article or even be convinced by a website they are already familiar
with, would likely pick out criteria such as the store/brand/website name in
either the title, description, url or all three. By doing this, it made it
fair for a large portion of websites out there that people will be trying to
find through a search engine, where a brand or particular store would make
no difference in decision making.

This is where I posed the idea of titles in a SERP by my understanding, to
be actually competing against others. Hence why I wondered why SEO articles
and the like never actually cover this aspect of the page title. I think
this is where I am not sure how SERPs are in any way different to a
newsagent selling a magazine, as the user does not control the page titles
or descriptions of the SERP listing as far as I am aware. Is there something
that I am still missing?

Steven