In recent years the emergence of web fonts has transformed the capabilities of typography on the web. With the ever-growing libraries of web-friendly fonts available today, brands are now able to seamlessly align their on and offline communications with consistent typography & messaging. Whereas the use of exciting typography was once restricted to embedded imagery, it is now possible, common and fast-becoming industry-standard to have the text in every instance of your website be live. There are a number of reasons why doing this is a smart choice both for your users and your business.
Web fonts in use on The Universal Typeface
As well as good looks and legibility, web fonts offer a number of benefits that contribute to a smooth user experience, amped up site performance, and better SEO results. Are you taking full advantage of their potential? If not, you could be missing out on:
- Better SEO
- An inclusive experience for users with disabilities
- Better site performance
- Enabled engagement
- Responsive and mobile friendly content
- Fast updates & maintenance
- Brand consistency
Intrigued? Let’s take a closer look.
1. Boost your SEO
Unlike text embedded in images, live text is readable by search engines. So make sure you’re not just using it for body text – use as an overlay on top of graphics, banners, buttons and even logos to get the biggest bang for your buck. Using web fonts – everywhere – is crucial for SEO.
2. Enable better performance
If you are using images to display text, your page is loading more slowly than it needs to. By ditching image-based text for live text you are building for speed and creating an all-round better site performance.
3. Be accessible
Live text isn’t just readable by search engines – it’s also readable by assistant devices for users with disabilities. By using more live text, you create a more accessible and inclusive user experience for everyone. Live text can also be automatically translated into different languages by browsers like Chrome, so users all over the world can access your content.
4. Promote engagement
Using live text in all areas of your web content means your content is clickable, selectable and easy for users to engage with.
5. Support responsive content
Ensuring your content is mobile-friendly is a crucial part of creating a solid user experience. Using live text on your site allows you to create a responsive site, where the on-screen text adjusts and scales automatically to fit any screen size your users are employing.
6. Make updates in a flash
Using web fonts allows you to update and maintain much of a site’s content directly in the code (without needing to open photoshop!). This requires fewer design resources, is quick, efficient and economical.
7. Build brand consistency
A successful brand’s voice should be consistent and recognizable across all of their communications both in print and on-screen, providing a trusted experience for their customers. Using web fonts means your on and offline communications can look consistent and coherent. And the most well-designed web fonts are tested across multiple devices and browsers to ensure they render as-intended, and look as crisp, clear and legible on any device.
The bottom line:
With font libraries making live web fonts so standard and accessible, there’s no reason not to take advantage of them.