Right now in one of my client's title tag (of his index page), I have the name of the town "Brighton". I now want to add a couple words to it. Will that hurt the site in the SERPs?

If you wish to add description then add it in description section of meta tags. Always prefer to use single word in keyword area. It will not affect rating in Search Engines anyway.

try it and find out!

^ That is mostly it ...find it out for yourself!! Just copy the previous code/message and put it somewhere "SAFE" and if it doesn't workout like it supposed to be just return them back.

You try it out. If "Brighton" is really part of your targeted keyword then you should include in your title. Just be sure your title does not contain too long words already.

I would do...

Chiropractor Brighton MA | Simon Chiropractic

Although all those other keywords may help you a bit, they will make the page look more "spammish" to your visitors.

At my first glance, and by looking at the title tag, I thought that was a MFA (made for adsense) site targeting supposedly high paying keywords. The "Simon Chiropractic" was hard to find. That is important for your visitors.

you should write more attactive title with target keywords for your customer.

Yah,

The more, the better!

yeah title tag is still important

To stay on the safe side you can add those couple of words in the keywords meta tags. Do not add keywords to the title tag. I think this suggestion is helpful to you.

if want to add ,you should try to add this keywords in descriptive meta tag.it will help your getting indexed and rank high for those keywords.
your title tag should contains single keywords.

ok guys - I want to add the word "Boston". It's really the only word I want to add - so again - will this hurt?

Adding NEW ketword in meta tags will not affect you SEO in negative way. Dont be afraid to try.

Well ,Right add the couple of keywords you want but after the keyword "Brighton" you just add it.

Just simply try it and see if it works best as for serps is concern and if not then just go back using the first one.

Yes, you should expect some changes in your SERP after changing your title tag. Just make sure the revised tag is still very much relevant to page content so that the ranking changes won't be so drastic.

Use brief, but descriptive titles - Titles can be both short and informative. If the title is too long, Google will show only a portion of it in the search result.

I don't think it will hurt you. But use content relevant title for your site it will help you more.

Maybe. Can’t say exactly but it can’t help you whatever you want to get. Do some another thing just like use that keyword in your meta description, meta keyword

hey, you should find out by yourself