Changing Your Homepage Title from Schmeg.com

   

Changing the (meta) title will make a difference.... because you are changing a very important element. However, even if you drop rankings or get different rankings your visitors may be more relevent.

1. Searchers read titles, even if you drop 5 places, you may be more clickable for the right person.
2. You may start to appear for different searches that are more relevent.
3. You may start to capture more longtail searches which is where the money is.

Don't judge your site on a few keyword searches and their position, look at the bigger picture. Make your title accurate for your business and clickable, then let google rank you as it feels fit. They sometimes make mistakes but on average they are pretty good! Then look at your overall traffic figures rather than one or two keywords. Also look at your overall income or conversion (or whatever you are trying to achieve) to see if overall there is an improvement.

It all depends on what you are going to change. The best titles maintain theme with good keywords and also have attractive 'clickability'.

e.g.
'Widgets going cheap widgets can not be cheaper anywhere' - is not an attractive title but may get number 1 spot for 'widgets' but little else.

'Widgets blue green and pink in London" - may get number 5 slot but also appear for other descriptive searches and is honest about only supplying in London. Therefore you may pick up longer tail searches which are of better value and even at lower rankings get overall more traffic.

You can always try it and back track later. Try and change one or two words at first, let the spider through, monitor effect and then change a bit more. But make sure you stay on theme with supporting text on the page for words used in the title.