A bad font choice can send wrong messages, strain the eyes, and affect your blog engagement. We listed 10 of the best blog fonts to enhance your blog readability.
When it comes to setting up blogs, font choice is something many blog owners refuse to give the time of day. This negligence is especially dangerous in today's age when readers are primarily visual.
Blogging is my favorite side hustle, and I've spoken about it at length in my free increasing your income course.
The truth is, even if you have premium content, choosing the right font spells the difference between good reader retention and soaring bounce rates.
What you say is just as important as how you say it, and choosing the right font matters if you're aiming for good traffic.
Let's find out more about the importance of fonts in blogging.
Table of Contents
What is the difference between font and typeface?
Before diving into the best blog fonts, you must understand the difference between fonts and typefaces. Most people use the words “font” and “typeface” interchangeably, but they are not the same.
Typefaces are a group of letters, characters, and numbers that share the same design. Examples of these are Arial, Helvetica, and Comic Sans.
Contrary to popular opinion, these are not fonts. So what exactly is a font?
Fonts are made up of a typeface, including its size, weight, and width chosen for that particular typeface. If Arial is a typeface, then “10-point Arial Italic” or “12-point Arial Bold” would be its fonts.
An easy way to set the two apart is to consider typefaces to be a creative design group of characters while “font” is its mechanism of delivery.
Both fonts and typefaces are an elemental part of what we call “typography” – the art of arranging type to make written language readable, appealing, and legible when displayed.
Other typography elements include negative space, color contrast, hierarchy, kerning, and more.
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Now let’s find out why fonts matter in blogging.
How a font can improve readability
The world's leading publications choose their font designs carefully and deliberately, which isn't surprising.
Today's discerning readers can easily determine a professional website from an amateur blog just by the smallest detail – and your font choice is one of the most obvious criteria.
Here are two reasons why choosing the best font for a blog is important for readability.
1. Different font styles convey different personalities.
Different fonts convey different feelings. While serif fonts convey tradition, respect, and reliability, sans serif fonts may convey stability and objectivity. You may opt for serif fonts if you're building a legal business.
If you're managing a wedding photography blog, script fonts or sans serif fonts are a better choice. The wrong font can spell disaster for a business.
Can you imagine a law firm using Comic Sans as its main blog font?
2. Your font affects your reader’s ability to read your blog better.
Who's your blog's target market? Font size for blog matters for a variety of reasons.
A blog with older readers benefits from having larger fonts and basic typefaces to help seniors better decipher your text.
Is your headline font different from the font of your body text?
Choosing different fonts for your blog's various sections may help your readers better understand the hierarchy and organization of your content.
3. It expresses professionalism.
The correct use of typography in your blog reflects your professionalism. The right use of text size and font spells the difference between gaining the trust of your customers or driving them away to blogs with more readable content.
When did you last leave a website just because it looks bad? The chances are quite a lot.
Small design choices like these are incredibly important if you're serious about your blog. If your website is based on business, choosing the right font improves your product's marketing.
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4. It helps you become easily recognizable.
Using the same set of fonts and presenting them in a harmonious way enhances brand recall, as readers are likely to remember the font you use in presenting your visuals.
The best blog fonts can specialize your company and help viewers better identify your website.
Finally, if your readability improves, users will stay on your site longer. If you run an ad network on your blog, your revenue will increase as people spend more quality time on your site.
What are the main classifications of typefaces?
There are generally five main categories of typefaces:
- Serif: Serifs have small lines or flourishes at the end of each letter stroke. That gives them a more traditional or classic look. Some of the best examples of serif typefaces include Times New Roman, Georgia, and Garamond.
- Sans-serif: Sans-serifs do not have small lines or flourishes like the Serif fonts. They often have a more modern or clean look. Perfect examples of sans-serif typefaces include Arial, Helvetica, and Open Sans.
- Script: These are designed to look like handwriting or calligraphy. They can have a more elegant or artistic feel. Examples of script typefaces include Brush Script, Lucida Handwriting, and Zapfino.
- Display: These are designed to be used in larger sizes, such as for headlines or titles. They can be more decorative or unique in style and often have a strong visual impact. Ideal examples of display typefaces include Impact, Cooper Black, and Lobster.
- Monospaced: Monospaced has letters and characters that are all the same width. That can make them useful for certain applications such as coding or typewriter-style designs. Some excellent examples of monospaced typefaces include Courier New, Lucida Console, and Consolas.
What are the different types of fonts you need for a blog post?
For a blog post, there are three main categories of fonts that you should consider:
- Headline fonts: These are used for your blog post titles and headings. They should be attention-grabbing and easy to read, even at a larger size. Serif fonts like Georgia or Playfair Display can work well for headlines, as can sans-serif fonts like Open Sans or Roboto.
- Body fonts: Body fonts used for the body text of your blog posts. They should be easy to read and comfortable on the eyes, even for longer articles. Popular body fonts include serif fonts like Georgia, PT Serif, or Merriweather, and sans-serif fonts like Arial, Open Sans, or Lato.
- Call-to-action fonts: These fonts are used for your call-to-action links and buttons. They should be eye-catching and attention-grabbing, making them stand out from the surrounding text. The CTA font should be easy to read and clearly communicate the desired action, often using action-oriented words like “buy now” or “subscribe.” Commonly used fonts for CTAs include sans-serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or Open Sans, which have a clean and modern look. The bold or italicized versions of the main font can be used in the design to create contrast and emphasis.
The 13 Best Google Fonts for Blogs
While more than 200,000 fonts are available, I'll focus on the best Google fonts for blogs for various reasons.
Apart from being free for commercial use, users will not have any trouble with licensing. These fonts are also very easy to implement on websites, so you'll have no problems with font embedding.
Using Google fonts also enhances your page loading speed. You may opt to combine your Google font choice with a web host that uses Cloudflare CDN, like Bluehost, for even faster loading times.
Feel free to grab any of the fonts suggested below on the Google Fonts website.
1. Roboto
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Roboto Slab, Lato, Open Sans, Montserrat, Oswald, and Futura PT
Roboto is the font used in Google searches, making it one of the most popular blog fonts. Featuring a mechanical skeleton with geometric forms and friendly curves, this font designed by Christian Robertson is one of the best blog fonts. It's so popular that it's the most used Google Font, according to Google Analytics. With letters settling into their natural widths, Roboto allows a more natural reading rhythm.
The font was first released in 2011 for use in Android 4.0, and up to today is the default font used in Google and Android services.
This font, which can be used alongside the Roboto Slab and the Roboto Condensed family, is also the font of choice for Illustrator, Photoshop, and Sketch software.
2. Open Sans
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Alegreya, Montserrat, and PT Sans
Created by typeface designer Steve Matteson, Open Sans was originally designed for mobile, print, and web use, making it one of the best blog fonts.
It features great legibility, and as such, it is used by various popular design-centric blogs, such as Creativebloq, a popular art and design blog. Open Sans shares similarities with Source Sans and Nunito Sans and is used regularly in combination with pitch-black backgrounds.
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3. Lato
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Shares similarities with Today Sans and Freight Sans. Use together with Cardo, Merriweather, Yellowtail, and Firra Sans.
Named after the Polish word for “summer”, Lato is a sans-serif typeface created by Lukasz Dziedzic. Released in 2015, more than 9.6 million websites have used the font since 2018, making it the third most used font on Google Fonts. With an average of over one billion views daily, it is widely considered one of the best blog fonts.
Lato was originally created for a Polish bank in 2010 and was later added to Google Fonts, where it became massively popular. Lato features semi-rounded letters that evoke a feeling of warmth, while its strong structure expresses seriousness and stability.
Lukasz describes Lato as “Male and female, serious but friendly. With the feeling of the Summer.”
It shares similarities with Today Sans and Freight Sans, and is often used together with Cardo, Merriweather, Yellowtail, and Firra Sans.
Websites like Convince and Convert, as well as Goodreads, use Lato on their websites.
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4. Playfair Display
This is a serif font created by Claus Eggers Sørensen and released in 2011. Its name is derived from William Playfair, a friend and business partner of John Baskerville, a British architect and type designer.
The font features a sophisticated and classic style with a contemporary twist. That makes it popular among luxury brands, editorial design and high-end fashion.
Playfair Display comes in various styles and weights, including bold, regular, italic, and bold italic. This font is known for its elegant, flowing curves and high contrast between thick and thin strokes. Additionally, its large x-height ensures legibility even at small sizes.
The font is free to use and available on Google Fonts. It is often used for headings, branding, and logos in both digital and print designs. Its timeless appeal and versatility have made it a favorite among designers and creatives.
5. Oswald
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Roboto, Arial, Manus, Garamond Premier, Quicksand, and Merriweather
Launched in 2011 by lifelong artist Vernon Adams, Oswald was inspired by the Alternate Gothic sans serif typefaces. It was re-drawn to align with the pixel grid of common digital screens. This font was specially created to be used freely on web browsers on laptops, desktops, and mobile devices.
Since its launch, the font was continuously improved by Adams until 2014. He added support for various Latin languages, the addition of Bold and Light weights, improvements in kerning and spacing, and a variety of glyph refinements based on feedback.
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6. Montserrat
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Source Sans Pro, Open Sans, Georgia, PT Serif, Lato, Esteban, and Lora
To create Montserrat, graphic designer Julieta Ulanovsky took inspiration from the old signs and posters of Buenos Aires' traditional neighborhood, Montserrat.
Imbued with urban appeal due to its great simplicity and geometry, Montserrat was updated in 2017 and redrawn by Jacques Le Bailly, who adjusted the full set of weights and made the Regular version lighter and better optimized for longer texts.
Montserrat is a normal family with two sister families: Subrayada and Alternates. The font comes in 36 styles and is the closest completely free alternative to the Proxima Nova and Gotham fonts.
7. Source Sans Pro
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Open Sans, Work Sans, Industry, Novecento, Wolpe Pegasys, and Courier New
Designer Paul D. Hunt, with the help of Robert Slimbach, developed Source Sans Pro to be Adobe's first open-source typeface family specially created for user interfaces. The legibility and clarity of 20th-century American gothic typeface designs inspired the font's design.
Hunt took a rational design approach in creating Source Sans Pro, making glyph shapes simpler by removing excesses and highlighting their essential form while including various details to differentiate similar letter shapes.
Source Sans Pro comes in six different weights with versions of regular and italic: Book, Light, Normal, Bold, Semi-Bold, and Ultra-Bold.
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8. Poppins
Created in 2014, Poppins is a sans-serif typeface designed by Indian-type designer Jonny Pinhorn. Poppins was released as open-source and is freely available on the Google Fonts Library. Sofia Pro is the brand of Poppins font.
Poppins' modern and striking design makes it an excellent choice for website creation, advertising campaigns and branding projects. The font's geometric style exudes a stylish and chic aesthetic.
Poppins creates a friendly and inviting atmosphere with its minimalistic rounded design. It also features widths ranging from thin to extra-bold and italic and regular variants for each weight. That makes it exceptionally flexible for a wide range of applications.
Poppins is a versatile, aesthetically pleasing and functional font, making it a popular choice among designers and creatives.
9. Raleway
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Barlow, Open Sans, Cabin, Avenir, Droid Serif, Calibri, and Playfair Display
American designer Matt McInerney, the same person behind the styling of the popular font, Orbitron, created Raleway. It's functional, sharp, and shares appearances with other Grotesque-style fonts.
The name “Raleway” was selected to highlight the font's most unique and characteristic letters, including an “e” with an overbite and numerals bouncing below and above the baseline without losing their aesthetic.
Raleway was first designed as a single thin weight and later blossomed into a 9-weight family when it was extended by designer Pablo Impallari and Rodrigo Fuenzalida in 2012.
This elegant sans-serif looks great when used as a heading or for other large-size purposes.
10. PT Sans
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: PT Serif, Crimson, Trend Sans One, Lucida Grande, Poppins, Droid Sans, Paytone One, and Open Sans.
PT Sans was designed by Olga Umpeleva, Alexandra Korolkova, and Vladimir Yefimov and launched by ParaType. This company distributes and develops a plethora of multilingual typefaces in various scripts.
Among ParaType's most popular projects include PT Serif, Circe, and Pragmatica.
The font was developed for ParaType's project named “Public Types of Russian Federation”. The project's main aim is to allow Russian people to read and write using their native languages.
Featuring contemporary humanistic designs, PT Sans has 8 styles: 2 small-size caption styles, 4 basic styles, and 2 narrow styles.
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11. Merriweather
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Futura PT, Proxima Nova, Unit, Roboto, Replica, DIN, LL Replica Mono, and Open Sans
The design of Merriweather is led by Eben Sorkin of type design foundry Sorkin Type. Created especially for easy on-screen reading, the font features a tall x-height and heavy serifs, giving it great legibility.
In a blog post by Sorkin, he described wanting to create something pleasant and easy to read. That meant adapting Merriweather's design elements to screens and as many operating systems and web browsers as possible.
Merriweather draws inspiration from 16th-century French types such as Jannon, Garamond, and Elzevir, as well as the Aldine 15th-century Italian type.
As it needed to work at small sizes on screen, Sorkin adopted a few structural features of modern and screen types as well.
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12. Ubuntu
BEST WHEN PAIRED WITH: Lato, Journal, and Merriweather.
Developed during 2010-2011, the Ubuntu font was designed by Dalton Maag, an international font foundry that specializes in digital font and type design production. Canonical Ltd funded its development.
The Ubuntu Font Family's final font OpenType/Truetype files and design files are distributed under an open license. This means that everyone is encouraged to modify, experiment, improve, or share it. With a sans-serif typeface and OpenType features, the font offers clarity on mobile and desktop computing screens.
Ubuntu's philosophy expresses that all users should be able to use the software using their own languages. As such, the Ubuntu Font Family includes all of the languages used by Ubuntu users worldwide.
13. Lora
Designed by Alexei Vanyashin and Olga Karpushina, Lora is a font that exudes timeless elegance with its well-proportioned letterforms and moderate contrast. This duo is behind Cyreal-fonts, a collaborative platform that creates quality open-source fonts.
Released in 2011, Lora has a touch of calligraphic influence that gives it personality and warmth while still maintaining its legibility on both print and screens. This makes it a versatile option for a variety of design projects. You can use it with your Adobe Fonts Account and Library for free.
With its four harmonious styles, including regular, bold, italic, and bold italic, Lora is an excellent choice for creating eye-catching logos and branding materials. It is equally effective for both print and digital publications. The versatility of Lora helps you make a lasting impression with your design projects.
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What do you think are the best blog fonts?