Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Let me clarify a little bit, because I don't think my example was optimal. Let's say I want to optimize for three-word phrases, but two of the words repeat. So, I can either have my title tags be XYA, XYB, XYC, XYD or my title tags can be XYA - B, C, D

The former seems a little on the spammy side because it's so repetitious and may turn off visitors. However, it seems like it would be the preferred method in order to rank highly for those terms. This gets me over the preferred number of 8 keywords, if repetition counts towards that.  If I use the latter, will I still have a shot at ranking for XYB, XYC and XYD?

Thanks again, and I hope this helps clarify my issue a little better!

I'm writing up keywords for new pages on a website. There are a number of variations on the way we can say what we're looking for, and I don't want to post the specific keywords but I'll give an example using fruits. Let's say I want to optimize for Granny Smith apples, McIntosh apples, Jonathan apples, etc.

Could my title be Apples - Granny Smith, McIntosh, Jonathan

and my page will come up when someone searchs "Granny Smith apples" or "McIntosh apples" etc. or do the words have to be repeated in order. Obviously I will also be repeating these in the description and on the page I'm optimizing. Thanks!