The fonts on your website, meaning the styles of lettering your words are shown in, affect how easy your pages are to read, how quickly they appear and how your business comes across. Here’s what to think about when you choose them.
Easy To Read Comes First
Most of the words on your website are in its ordinary paragraphs, the part people actually sit and read. Use a clear, simple font for those. Save fancy or unusual fonts for headings, where there are only a few words.
For your paragraphs, make the writing big enough to read comfortably on a phone, make sure it stands out clearly from the background (dark writing on a light background is easiest to read), and don’t use more than two or three different fonts across the whole website.
Google Fonts
Google Fonts is a free collection of well over a thousand fonts, provided by Google. Anyone can use them on any website, including a business website, without paying for them or asking permission. They display properly on phones, tablets and computers, in every up-to-date web browser (the program people use to look at websites, such as Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox).
This website uses Open Sans, one of the Google fonts, for all of its writing.
Will It Work For Everyone?
Not long ago, a font had to be set up in several different file types before every web browser could show it. That’s no longer the case. Every up-to-date web browser now reads the same type of font file, so a font from Google Fonts will look the same for all your visitors.
Are You Allowed To Use It?
Just because you can download a font doesn’t mean you’re allowed to use it on your website. Many fonts you buy only let you use them on your own computer, for things like printed documents and artwork. To use them on a website you need separate written permission from the font’s owner, called a web licence. Check before you choose a font, or choose one from Google Fonts, where that permission is already given.
Speed
Each font you use, and each version of it (such as light, normal or bold), is another file your visitor’s phone or computer has to download before your page looks right. Using one or two fonts, and only the versions you need, keeps your pages quick to appear.
Our Recommendation
Use one clear, easy-to-read font for your paragraphs and, if you want your website to look distinctive, one more for your headings. Google Fonts has plenty of good choices for both. Our Google Font List shows some that work well.