Users may enjoy your website better by choosing the appropriate font size. Google’s Material Design style guide establishes the default font size. What font size works best? To ensure your website is mobile-friendly, you must use a font size of at least 16 pixels.

Typography is a crucial design component that enhances the material you provide. The designer must decide which fonts to use (or avoid using) while selecting the finest fonts for websites out of the countless options that are readily available online. It may make or break your website design. 

Choosing the appropriate font sizes and the ideal fonts for your website is crucial. The size of your font can assist people in focusing on your main message by creating contrast.

One size does not, however, fit all. Your websites are accessed on various devices, including computers, tablets, TVs, smartphones, and perhaps even smartwatches, using a variety of various browsers and viewport widths. The following should be kept in mind when carefully assessing your font size.

Is SEO affected by font size?

Your SEO is affected, yes. In reality, a small change to your theme’s settings page or stylesheet has the ability to significantly enhance your website’s SEO, RPM, and user experience. 

Additionally, adjusting the text size is simple and quick. You won’t have trouble changing the font size if you are familiar with word processors or the print industry.

Online font dimensions

In many respects, the internet is distinct from the world of print and word processors, which is also true of fonts. For this reason, it is crucial to describe the font size in words appropriate to the web.

Measurement unit

On the internet and elsewhere, font size is measured differently. A font’s size is frequently expressed in pt (points) and px (pixels). The following techniques can be used to gauge font sizes:

  • em
  • rem
  • Percentages

Although pixels and points are the most often used units of measurement, they are not equivalent. Hence conversion is required when moving between them. Basically, on most devices, 12 pt is equivalent to 16 px.

It’s possible that your theme or design employs percentages, em, or rem as these are relative font sizes (relative to the base font: 12 pt or 16 px) and the recommended way in responsive web development. Theoretically, choosing 12 pt or 16 px for most devices is equivalent to setting 100%, 1rem, or 1em.

When using these three font sizes, it is simpler to establish lists, headings, and other components of the body of your text. For example, you may make your headers 50% larger by setting them to 1.5 em or 150%.

By changing the font size on the root or body, you may expand the size of your entire website, and everything else will also be expanded.

What font sizes will have the biggest impact on RPM and SEO?

font size

Increasing font size benefits both readers and SEO

Leaving one out of the equation is not advised because the font size benefits readers and SEO. Therefore, bear that in mind while you select the appropriate font sizes for your website.

Additionally, given that Google now prioritizes mobile devices when indexing online material, you should ensure your text is easy to read on mobile devices. 

Your readers will have to pinch and zoom in to read if your text is too small. They’ll have to scroll a lot to finish reading if it’s too big. For the optimal user experience across all devices, it is wise to keep to the recommended font sizes.

When determining your SEO score, Google’s Lighthouse tool may assist you in assessing the mobile-friendliness of your website’s typefaces. Currently, this tool advises using a base font size of 16 pixels for websites. This signifies that the minimum font size for the main content should be 16 pixels or 12 points.

That is also the point at which Google’s Material Design style manual establishes the default font size for its typography. To be deemed mobile-friendly for SEO purposes, your site must have a minimum font size of 16 pixels by 12 points, which is essential for the mobile-first index.

Can you make that bigger still?

You can, indeed. Large-font websites have been proven to perform incredibly effectively. The biggest advantages of using bigger fonts are their attractive appearance and improved user experience.

At various sizes, every theme and typeface will appear differently. If you’re unsure what font size is appropriate, explore away, but keep in mind that Google is content with 16px.

Holy Trinity of typography

A font’s quality depends on how it’s being used. The nicest fonts imaginable for your site or app design may still be insufficient if done improperly or with an incorrect setting. 

When arranging your text, the most crucial elements of typography are font size, line height (or leading), and line length (or measure). These three factors, closely tied to one another, determine how easily your content can be read. 

As a result, other parameters may also be changed while changing the type size.

Optimal desktop font sizes

There are certain generally advisable principles to keep in mind while designing desktops. However, there are no precise guidelines regarding font sizing:

  • Body text: For readability, body content should use font sizes between 16 and 18 points (or 1.6rem to 1.8rem using our sizing rules mentioned above). Even 21px may be enjoyable to read if you have the financial means to go a little larger.
  • Headings: To provide enough contrast, your headings should be around 1.96 times larger than your body content. This would imply that headers should be about 35px in size if the body font size is 18px.
  • Subheadings: These should be lighter in weight and somewhat smaller than headers to create contrast between the two. For instance, if we used 35px for the header, the subheading should be about 30px.
  • Input fields: The rules of the input fields should closely mirror those of the body text.

Optimal mobile font sizes

The optimal font size for mobiles is approximately 21px. 

  • Subheadings: Normally, these would be scaled down from the heading size; however, in this case, there may be a slight issue where the subheading may resemble the body font size too closely. You have less space to display your material on a mobile device. In addition, people hold mobile devices closer to their eyes than they would a laptop or desktop screen. Therefore typeface size may and should be smaller:
  • Body text: Font sizes for body text should be at least 16 pixels. In some circumstances, you might be allowed to go smaller, with 14px being the minimum you should go. For instance, if a typeface has exceptionally large characters, you use uppercase letters. For comparison, Apple’s specifications call for a secondary font size of 15px, while Google’s Material Design recommends a minimum of 14px.
  • Headings: Headings should be around 1.3 times larger than your body content to generate a proper contrast. If you choose a body font size of 16px, the subheading will seem aesthetically different due to its weight, formatting, such as italics, and letter spacing. If we selected a header size of 21px, we might use a subheading size of 18px or 16px, but with a lighter weight than the heading or body text.
  • Input fields: The rules of the input fields should closely mirror those of the body text.

Where do you apply these modifications?

There are several approaches to this:

  • Use the customization tools your theme provides to change the size of your fonts.
  • If it doesn’t, email the theme’s developer, and they will give you instructions on how to change the font size.
  • You may change the font sizes by making changes to your CSS file. See the illustration below:
body {
font-size : 18px;
}
h1 {
font-size : 24px;
}

Since many factors affect the theme in addition to font sizes, such as character kerning, line heights, and typefaces, we advise you to seek the advice of a professional if you are having some issues.

Final thoughts

There is more to the website’s font than how it looks. It can boost readability, reader experience, and SEO. Therefore, choosing the most optimal font for your site is only right. Use the information discussed above to help you.