So you wanna put your brand name in the title tags…
- Where to find your title tags
All I can say is, whatever floats your boat.
This post is loosely in response to Jamie Harrop’s comment on my guest post over at his blog. Jamie disagrees with me, so no offense at what follows Jamie. 
There’s always more than one way to do anything. When you get advice, the person giving it can only tell you what they think is best from their perspective.
The <title></title> tags for your web pages are of supreme importance to your ranking and which searches you come up for. You need well-thought-out tags that are different for every page in order to get the best results–which is more traffic to your website. If you get it wrong you might even be penalized (like having the same title tag for every page of your website).
From an SEO point of view it makes a lot more sense to put the phrase or search term that your potential visitors are going to type into a search box when they’re looking for whatever it is that you’re selling. Quite simply, names, or your ‘brand,’ while they are important, will not figure into the equation at the search stage. Of course, once a visitor lands on your website you want to do everything you can to get them to remember your name or your brand. But that’s once they’ve arrived. Would you lure a fish onto your line by tying a frying pan onto your rod? Using your name to get new visitors is about as effective.
So, if you’re still determined to put your name in your title tags, without a search term before it, go ahead, Your competitor who listens to their SEO will most likely get more visitors than you do.
SEO Self Regulation Community--SEOs for Higher Standards!
Search Engine Journal
SOSG
I think it all depends on what the brand is. If it's a big brand, it'll definitely improve click-thrus, so it may well be worth doing it.
Depends only on what the brand is? What about mine? Don't you see any benefits?
You're right, but I doubt the owners of Pepsi, Coke, IBM, Dell, Microsoft and such brands will be reading my li'l old blog. Of course these names are different and people do search for them. But you have to be REALLY big to be in the league where someone will type in your name instead of a generic search term. I'm not suggesting that you don't use your brand on your blog. Of course you should take any opportunity to grow your brand, but don't use it in places where the search engines are trying to match up what your blog's about with what people type into a search box, and the title tags are such.
I think it all depends on what the brand is. If it's a big brand, it'll definitely improve click-thrus, so it may well be worth doing it.
Depends only on what the brand is? What about mine? Don't you see any benefits?
You're right, but I doubt the owners of Pepsi, Coke, IBM, Dell, Microsoft and such brands will be reading my li'l old blog. Of course these names are different and people do search for them. But you have to be REALLY big to be in the league where someone will type in your name instead of a generic search term. I'm not suggesting that you don't use your brand on your blog. Of course you should take any opportunity to grow your brand, but don't use it in places where the search engines are trying to match up what your blog's about with what people type into a search box, and the title tags are such.
So what should one put onto the title tag?