(Entry was posted by Cassy Richardso on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 08/02/2018).

I know Google doesn`t care about exact match

We`ve mapped out keywords to landing pages based on content/target keywords/volume. Now, the client wants to change page titles, h1s, and every where the targeted keyword or topic is used so it`s branded, ie, "KFC Chicken Sandwich" vs "Chicken Sandwich". Everywhere. I know Google doesn`t care about exact match, but I`m wondering if changing the term EVERYWHERE to be branded vs non-branded will affect traffic and search volume at all? Has anyone encountered this? Does anyone have an example or a good article that you could share?

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Dave Elliott: They`ll almost certainly rank for brand + keyword anyway so it`s pointless.
Cassy Richardson: My example was bad, it`s not their brand name that`s going in front of the keyword lol. Instead of KFC putting "KFC Chicken Sandwich" it would be like them deciding to name Chicken Sandwiches "KAY Chicken Sandwiches" or something stupid.
Stockbridge Truslow: I`d need to see a specific example, but even with that, my first question would be "why"? In your original post, you suggested it was for branding. I`m a big fan of branding. It`s our JOB as internet marketers to build brand awareness and recognition. In this reply though, you`re saying it`s not a brand. It must be SOMETHING and they must have SOME reason or they wouldn`t want to do it. Find out what the reason is and then you can better assess.
Michael Martinez: Allowing for the fact that the algorithms are chaotic brain twisters in a rolling barrel falling through space toward a black hole, we usually don`t see much change in search referral traffic when adding trivial words to the titles. What might affect the traffic is a change in semantic meaning (although I think most marketers put way too much importance on "semantic" these days). It`s like taking "ice cream" and adding "melted" in front of it - two totally different concepts are conveyed. But what the search engines make of the word change depends on what they find "in the corpus" (billions upon billions of unrelated documents). Semantic analysis requires a LOT of data.
Stockbridge Truslow: I`m not sure they put too much emphasis on it. I just think they don`t quite understand it so - they aren`t really using the term properly in some cases.
Dan Thies: Iâ€™ve never had a problem with this kind of minor change. Traffic is going to go up or down either way.
Trey Collier: If the "Brand" name is already in the domain name then adding again the brand name in the title tag is moot. IE www.kay.com/chicken-sandwich.htm