Thanks, Alex.  Yeah, my instinct was that the keyword packed urls were spammy so I'll keep them simple.

I feel like I'm beginning to wrap my head around this.  So to clarify further...

If I'm trying to get my home page to rank for "San Francisco Video Production" should I not include that phrase at all in my title tags or is it still advisable providing it varies slightly and clearly relates the intended purpose of the page?

For example:

San Francisco Video Production Portfolio | Heartwave Media

or would it make more sense to let that term be exclusive to the home page and do something more like:

Corporate and Commercial Video Portfolio | Heartwave Media

Right now I have:

San Francisco Video Production | Portfolio | Heartwave Media

PS:

Do I even need to include my brand in the titles outside the landing page?

How can I make my page load faster.  I believe it's a bit slow...

www.heartwavemedia.com / Wordpress / All in One SEO pack

I understand Google values unique titles and content but I'm unclear as to the difference between changing the page url slug and the seo title.

For example:

I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About

I've noticed some of my competitors using url structures more like "www.competitor.com/san-francisco-video-production-about"

Would it be wise to follow their lead? Will my landing page rank higher if each subsequent page uses similar keyword packed, long tail url?  Or is that considered black hat?

If advisable, would a url structure that includes "san-francisco-video-production-_____" be seen as being to similar even if it varies by one word at the end?

Furthermore, will I be penalized for using similar SEO descriptions ie. "San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Portfolio" and San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Contact" or is the difference of one word "portfolio" and "contact" sufficient to read as unique?

Finally...am I making any sense?  Any and all thoughts appreciated...