Although the search engines make announcements that influence the search industry all the time, these announcements should not influence website usability. According to Matt Van Wagner of Find Me Faster, usability has a timeless solidity to it.

Many times, webmasters focus so much on the search engines that they forget about the users. In the end, even if you do rank #1 in Google, your customers will leave as soon as they go to your site if it isn’t user friendly.

Van Wagner suggests looking at the overall picture instead of focusing on one particular area. Usability is tied directly into the website’s audience and the goals of the website owner. If a webmaster wants to sell something, the website should allow users to make purchases quickly and easily. Objectivity also plays a role in usability with the incorporation of robots such as the title tag and anchor text.

The bottom line is, establishing usability is actually a fairly natural process, so why does everyone make is so difficult?