Choosing the best font for your small business website
Choosing the font for your website can be a tricky topic. A good web designer knows that different industries tend to use certain types of fonts. For example, banks and financial consultants tend to use a serif font, which give feelings of trust to the reader - super important since they’re dealing with your money.
Artistic websites such as art museums or a custom wedding dress e-commerce site may use a very thin font that suggests elegance and professionalism. They may even use a curvy cursive as long as it’s easy to read.
A fun and offbeat website will go for something a little different such as a vintage or retro font. A video game website may use a pixelated font. And a company selling just one awesome product may use a big and bold font to shout out that you really need this in your shopping cart.
Without even looking at what this store sells, you might guess you’ll find some vintage cowboy related items here. What impression do you get?
Typography vs. font
In the web designer world, all of this is called typography - a fancy name for what the average person calls “font”. If you decide to hire a web designer, they might throw this term around to see if you’ve though about the type of font you want on your website. If not, they’ll use one that suits your industry and subliminally talks to your target audience to convey a deeper meaning.
Whether you decide to choose your own font and have your web designer decide on it, the most important thing you have to keep in mind is readability. It makes zero sense to have a gorgeous font that makes people leave your website instead. If you find yourself in the situation where you have to choose between several similar fonts, always choose the easier one to read. There might be meaning attached to your typography, but at the end of the day the messaging is going to be way more important than how aesthetically beautiful your font is.
Handwritten fonts are great for casual or neighborhood businesses like a local pizza restaurant. Order, pick-up, deliver. It’s a familiar tradition that everyone who eats pizza understands no matter where they are.
Types of fonts for different industries
Financial and health websites: Absolutely go with a serif font. It invokes professionalism and honesty, which is important since they’re dealing with money and health.
Artistic, relaxation, elegant websites: You can go with a cursive font, but as a web designer I tend to avoid cursive since it’s so difficult to read. Instead, go for a very thin font such as Raleway.
Big and bold companies: Go with a big and bold font. This is perfect for small businesses selling just one item. You’re going to have a small website with few words and fewer pictures, so you need to make an impact right off the bat.
Consultants, coaches, and instructors: You want to be taken seriously but not have the same serif font as a big institution. Go for a bold sans serif (without serif) font and an easy to read lighter font (a popular one is montserrat).
Google fonts vs. custom fonts
In most cases, I would recommend that small businesses choose a Google font. They’re free and readily available with your website’s platform. Very rarely would I recommend a custom font as I believe any business can do just as well with a “normal” font.
The reason why I don’t suggest a custom font is that there are usually some “extra” things you have to do with a custom font such as installation in the back end and setting it up so that it actually works. And for a small business owner who is only concerned about having a website that they can easily manage, custom fonts aren’t the way to go.
They do look pretty though! So if you’re a business that is extremely creative and unique, it might be something to consider if you’re going for that extra “WOW” factor.
How big (or small) should your font be?
Big is usually better when it comes to font sizes in your web design, but you also have to consider screen size in this modern age of tablets and smartphones. You want your message to fit on the screen and not be cut off or look strange on any device your audience happens to be using. Generally, this isn’t too big of a deal since you can adjust the size and positioning of your content for different screen sizes these days. But it’s good to keep in mind.
A good font size to stick with is 16. Use this size for your paragraph and adjust your header font visually from there. Be careful since some fonts are naturally smaller than the common fonts such as Open Sans, Roboto, and Montserrat.
If you have older clientele (40 and up), consider a font even larger than 16 especially if you’re using a naturally smaller font. One of the biggest complaints for most websites in general is that the letters are too small. That’s a huge mistake if it’s turning away your older clientele because they typically have deeper wallets.
Big font is usually easier to read. It also takes up more space.
Tips and things to remember about website fonts
Your font has to be readable. That’s always #1. It just doesn’t make sense to have an unreadable font that turns potential customers off. The most dangerous is “falling in love” with an unsuitable font. Be flexible with your fonts - you can always change it later on.
If you don’t know which font to choose, I suggest going with Open Sans, Roboto, or Montserrat. They’re all easy to read and familiar to everyone who uses the internet.
Keep your paragraph font at 16. If your target audience is older, consider even 18 or above depending on your font’s design and natural size.
I’m always pointing my clients to this google font pairing blog post on Reliable - an outsourcing development company (which is probably too expensive for most small business owners out there). But it’s a very well done visual example of all the different google fonts there are and how they look when paired together.