Which Font Should You Use?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

What kind of font should you use for your blog or website? That’s a question that pops up from time to time. I’ve got to say that I don’t give it a whole lot of thought. That’s primarily because I stick to conservative fonts – ones that have been used over and over again – and don’t really experiment much. But if you’re the experimenting kind, be careful. It could be dangerous to experiment too much with fonts.

I’m not just being melodramatic. Some fonts just plain turn people off. They’ll leave your blog or website and not do business with you. It will be business lost forever. They may never come back. That’s a pretty costly mistake so you want to be sure to use the right font.

I recommend a sans serif font. Those are the fonts that don’t have the little lines protruding from the t’s, p’s, a r’s. They are sans (without) the serif.

Fonts That Are Easy To Read

Why do these fonts do better online? Well, because they’re easier to read. Much cleaner. You certainly don’t want to use a font that is too fance – like Boulevard – which looks more like handwriting. Those types of fonts are too “creative,” and difficult to read. The fonts without the serifs are best and here’s a short list for you to try. Use these for both body copy and headlines, as well as subheads:

• Verdana
• Arial
• Helvetica
• Geneva
• Georgia
• Univers
• Futura
• Franklin Gothic
• Optima
• Avant Garde

Fonts Not So Easy To Read

Fonts I do not recommend for online reading, because they are serif fonts, include:

• Times Roman
• Palatino
• Courier
• New Century Schoolbook

OK, you get the idea. Do your research on fonts and choose one that is easy to read.