Guide to site fonts, to optimize aesthetics and readability
We may underestimate them, but fonts are one of the main ways to personalize the website and build its overall visual appeal of the domain.Simplifying, we can say that selecting the best font types helps us communicate the right message and establish brand consistency, but most importantly it makes it easier for users to read. And even if there are no direct effects in terms of SEO, in the perspective of building a positive experience it is crucial to devote time and attention to this aspect as well, evaluating different font types to figure out which one is the best for our specific site: choosing a suitable font, in fact, is not always that easy and we can often come across fonts that are visually appealing, but not safe for the Web or vice versa.
What fonts are
A font is defined as a graphic representation of text that appears on a digital page, which can include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. They are not only an aesthetic vehicle, but also a means by which content is communicated to users.
Although we commonly understand them to be synonymous, technically font is different from typeface: typeface is a group of cohesive letterforms, a design style that includes a myriad of fonts of varying size and weight, while font is the way in which the typeface is presented, taking into account size and style. In addition, fonts contain varying numbers of individual symbols, called glyphs, such as letters, numbers, and punctuation, and in some cases also extend to contain ideograms and symbols such as mathematical characters, musical notes, geographic signs, icons, drawings, and more.
To clarify even further, we should more precisely define font as the single letter, punctuation mark or symbol, which can be composed of several glyphs (e.g., uppercase and lowercase), while font is the name that usually encompasses the set of characters and glyphs designed with the same visual coherence and meaning, as well as more technically, the one that identifies the medium that allows a typeface to be applied.
The English word font, used widely in digital jargon around the world, is “borrowed” from classical typographic language and refers back to the term from medieval French fonte, which meant “(something that was) cast,” in precise reference to the method of creating movable typefaces for letterpress printing, produced precisely by pouring molten metal into the form that contained the matrix of the individual typeface.
What fonts are for
If the visual design of a website represents the outward appearance of the company in the online world, and is a topic on which much of the attention is focused at the design stage, there is a danger of forgetting the importance of the published textual elements, which also define the voice of the brand. Tone of voice and quality of content are critical to communicating on the Internet and aspiring to organic visibility, but even the best writing is useless if users do not read the text. That is, it is also necessary to work on what can be a barrier for visitors and specifically-for online texts-optimize the aspects of readability, comprehensibility, and ease of understanding. In other words, users will not read web content unless the text is clear, the words and phrases are simple, and the information is easy to understand.
Very trivially, fonts are the tool by which we are able to read text online (but also on old paper pages!). Managing this element falls under typography (typography), which we can define as the art of arranging letters and text in a way that makes the text readable, clear, and visually appealing to the reader.
Typography involves the style, appearance, and structure of the font, which aim to elicit certain emotions and convey specific messages, and thus “is what brings the text to life,” as Jaye Hannah puts it. By attending to these details, we can work on the visual representation of our brand and communicate in more direct and quicker ways than words alone. Indeed, the fonts used on the site can amplify the brand’s voice, but first and foremost they should make what appears on the screen crisp.
In fact, the first criterion to be met when choosing a font for a site is to make sure that the text on the various pages is clean and readable, conforming to the parameters of accessibility and usability, and then to evaluate the so to speak aesthetic aspects, which concern originality, the visual pleasantness of the fonts, and the need to present oneself in a professional or possibly less formal manner.
Different types of fonts can in fact to add style to a Web page or document, and different fonts are often used simultaneously on the Web to set or match the “tone” of the text according to the content, without forgetting that, as studies confirm, specific fonts affect readability depending on the medium.
Fonts and SEO: why font can affect positioning
What is written also contributes indirectly to the SEO of pages. We should not think of a direct link between fonts and SEO (of the series, “if I use this typeface rather than another I can get a boost in Google ranking!”), but rather a series of benefits on the user experience that can help Google evaluate our site positively compared to that in competitors, particularly in reader satisfaction.
Expanding on this, choosing a font that is readable, easy to scan, and light to load can serve to engage the user more and, potentially, increase their stay on the page and, possibly, encourage their interaction with the site and other pages, consequently reducing the bounce rate.
If, as we often repeat, the basic rule of SEO is that content should not be written just for search