Branding and Page Titles - Please Help

[atmosol]

Hello,

I have a question about page titles.  How important is branding here?  I'm not referring to the company name, but rather the terminology that's used as "branding language" for a company.  For example, let's say that the it would be a good idea to target the keyword "Restaurant Coupons" based on search volume and competition.  However, our branding adheres to the language "Dining Offers".  Is it considered a bad idea to use "Restaurant Coupons" in the page title?  Or is that considered inconsistent branding?

Basically, I'm just trying to figure out the correct balance between the SEO value of words and adhering to a company's branding.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,
Nick

[atmosol]

This is a lot of good advice, thanks.  I did only use those two keywords as an example though.  So I guess my next question would be this: what if terms that are "against your branding" would draw much more traffic to your site, compared to very similar terms that are in line with your branding?  I'm really wondering if it would create consistency issues with the brand's messaging.  To people really care (or subconsciously notice) messaging differences in the page title/meta description vs. the content that's on the page or seen in marketing material?

Thanks

[EGOL]

For the title tag, I used to feel that it was very important to load it up with keywords no matter what.

Today, I believe that I need just enough keywords to make my page relevant for a wide range of queries and then fill the rest with language that is extremely readable and that will elicit clicks.  I give the searcher a second blast of marketing in the description tag.

To me there is a big difference between "restaurant coupons" and "dining offers".  I think that the people who search for them have different expectations.  But, you know more about this than me.

My advice would be to use keywords that people are searching for and keywords that will elicit the clicks.  Because people may have different expectations when searching for "restaurant coupons" and "dining offers", I might have two separate pages that present the image of what I think the searcher expects to find.  The coupon page might have something to print, but the dining offers page might have a phone number to make a reservation and a "we will treat you right" theme.

So, think about your place of business and your customers and what you think will convert best for your profits.

Then experiment a bit.