Typography might sound like a topic for graphic designers, but it directly affects whether visitors stay on your website or hit the back button. The fonts you choose, the sizes you set, and the spacing between lines all determine how easy your content is to read — and how professional your business looks online.

For Irish businesses, where trust and credibility matter enormously in a relatively small market, getting typography right can be the difference between a website that converts and one that gets ignored. This guide covers everything you need to know about choosing and using fonts on your business website.

Why Typography Matters More Than You Think

Studies consistently show that visitors form an opinion about a website within 50 milliseconds. Typography plays a massive role in that snap judgement. Cheap-looking fonts signal a cheap business. Hard-to-read text drives people away before they even process your message.

Good typography does three things for your website. It makes content easy to read, which keeps people on the page longer. It creates visual hierarchy, guiding the eye to the most important information first. And it reinforces your brand identity — a solicitor's website should feel different from a surf school's, and font choice is a big part of that.

Serif vs Sans-Serif: Which Should You Use?

Serif fonts (like Times New Roman or Georgia) have small decorative strokes at the ends of letters. They tend to feel traditional, authoritative, and established. Sans-serif fonts (like Arial, Helvetica, or Open Sans) are cleaner and more modern. Neither is inherently better — the right choice depends on your business and audience.

For most Irish business websites, sans-serif fonts work well for body text because they're easier to read on screens at various sizes. Serif fonts can work beautifully for headings, adding a touch of sophistication. Many of the best business websites use a combination — serif headings with sans-serif body text.

Industries and Font Personality

Professional services like solicitors, accountants, and financial advisors often benefit from serif or clean sans-serif fonts that convey trust and authority. Creative businesses, tech companies, and lifestyle brands can push toward more contemporary typefaces. The key is that your fonts should match what your customers expect from your industry.

Choosing the Right Fonts: A Practical Approach

You don't need to be a typographer to choose good fonts. Start with these practical guidelines that work for any Irish business website.

Stick to Two or Three Fonts Maximum

One of the most common mistakes is using too many different fonts on a single website. This creates visual chaos and makes your site look unprofessional. The sweet spot is two fonts — one for headings and one for body text. If you need a third, use it sparingly for specific elements like navigation or callout boxes.

Use Google Fonts for Free, High-Quality Options

Google Fonts offers hundreds of free, web-optimised typefaces that load quickly and display consistently across devices. Some of the most popular and reliable choices include Inter, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Playfair Display, and Merriweather. These fonts have been tested extensively across browsers and devices, so you know they'll work.

Font Pairing: Combinations That Work

Pairing fonts well is about creating contrast while maintaining harmony. The heading font should be noticeably different from the body font, but they shouldn't clash. Here are some tried-and-tested combinations that work well for business websites.

The general rule is to pair fonts from different categories — a serif heading with a sans-serif body, or vice versa. Two sans-serif fonts can work together if they have clearly different weights and personalities, but two serif fonts side by side rarely looks good.

Font Size and Readability

Even the best font choice falls flat if the text is too small or too tightly packed. Readability is the foundation of good web typography, and Ireland's ageing population means you need to consider older eyes as part of your audience.

Body Text Size

The minimum recommended body text size for websites is 16 pixels, but 18 pixels is increasingly becoming the standard, particularly for content-heavy pages. If your audience skews older — think estate agents or healthcare providers — consider going to 18 or even 20 pixels for maximum readability.

Line Height and Spacing

Line height (the space between lines of text) should be between 1.5 and 1.75 times the font size for body text. So if your body text is 16px, your line height should be 24-28px. Too tight and text becomes a wall; too loose and the eye loses its place jumping between lines.

Paragraph spacing matters too. Leave enough space between paragraphs (typically 1em to 1.5em) so readers can easily see where one thought ends and the next begins. This is especially important on mobile devices where screen space is limited.

Line Length

The ideal line length for reading is between 50 and 75 characters per line. If lines are too wide, the eye struggles to track back to the start of the next line. Too narrow and the text feels choppy. On a mobile-first design, this usually takes care of itself, but on desktop it means your content area shouldn't stretch the full width of a widescreen monitor.

Creating Visual Hierarchy with Type

Visual hierarchy tells visitors what to read first, second, and third. On a well-designed page, the eye naturally flows from the largest, boldest text to the smallest. This is where your wireframing and planning pays off.

A typical hierarchy for a business web page might work like this. The H1 heading is the largest and most prominent — there should only be one per page. H2 headings break the page into major sections. H3 headings divide those sections into sub-topics. Body text sits below all of these. Captions, labels, and metadata are the smallest.

You create hierarchy through a combination of size, weight (bold vs regular), colour, and spacing. A common approach is to make your H1 roughly 2.5 to 3 times the size of your body text, your H2 about 1.75 to 2 times, and your H3 about 1.25 to 1.5 times. This creates a clear visual ladder.

Typography and Accessibility

Good typography is accessible typography. With the European Accessibility Act coming into effect, Irish businesses need to ensure their websites are readable for everyone, including people with visual impairments and dyslexia.

• Ensure sufficient contrast between text colour and background — WCAG AA requires a ratio of at least 4.5:1 for body text
• Avoid light grey text on white backgrounds, which is a common design trend that sacrifices readability for aesthetics
• Don't rely solely on colour to convey meaning — use bold, size, or icons alongside colour changes
• Allow text to be resized up to 200% without breaking the layout
• Avoid all-caps for long passages — it's harder to read and feels like shouting
• Use left-aligned text for body content (centred text is harder to read in blocks)

Fonts designed with accessibility in mind include Atkinson Hyperlegible (designed specifically for low-vision readers), Inter, and Lexend. If your audience includes a significant number of older users, these fonts are worth considering.

Typography on Mobile Devices

With over 60% of web traffic in Ireland coming from mobile devices, your typography needs to work on small screens. This means using responsive font sizing that adjusts to screen width, ensuring tap targets are large enough (at least 44x44 pixels), and keeping line lengths comfortable on narrow screens.

Headings that look great at 48 pixels on desktop can overwhelm a mobile screen. Use CSS clamp or responsive units to scale headings down gracefully. And always test your typography on actual mobile devices — the simulator in your browser doesn't always tell the full story.

Web Font Performance

Every font you add to your website adds to the page load time. Custom fonts need to be downloaded before they display, which can cause a flash of unstyled text (FOUT) or flash of invisible text (FOIT) where visitors see nothing while fonts load.

To keep things fast, limit yourself to two font families and only load the weights you actually use. If you only need regular and bold, don't load light, medium, semibold, and extra-bold as well. Use font-display: swap in your CSS so text shows immediately in a fallback font and then switches when the custom font loads. Consider self-hosting fonts rather than loading from Google's CDN for better GDPR compliance and sometimes faster loading.

Common Typography Mistakes on Irish Business Websites

After reviewing hundreds of Irish business websites, certain typography mistakes crop up repeatedly. Text that's too small — anything below 14px for body text is uncomfortable to read. Using decorative or script fonts for body text instead of just headings or accents. Insufficient contrast, especially light grey text on white. Too many font weights and styles creating visual noise. And ignoring mobile typography entirely, leaving desktop-sized text to wrap awkwardly on phones.

Another common issue is inconsistency — using different fonts or sizes on different pages because there's no design system in place. This is something a cohesive design approach helps prevent.

Getting Started: A Typography Checklist

If you're building or redesigning a website, run through this checklist to make sure your typography is working hard for your business. Choose two fonts maximum — one for headings, one for body text. Set body text to at least 16px, ideally 18px. Use a line height of 1.5 to 1.75 for body text. Keep line lengths between 50-75 characters. Create a clear size hierarchy from H1 down to body text. Check contrast ratios meet WCAG AA standards. Test on mobile devices, not just desktop. Load only the font weights you actually use.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many fonts should I use on my website?

Two is the sweet spot for most business websites — one for headings and one for body text. Three can work if used sparingly (perhaps for navigation or special elements), but more than three almost always creates visual clutter. Consistency is more important than variety.

Are Google Fonts free to use commercially?

Yes, all Google Fonts are free to use on commercial websites. However, be aware of GDPR implications — loading fonts directly from Google's servers means visitor IP addresses are sent to Google. Self-hosting the fonts avoids this issue and can improve loading times for Irish visitors.

What font size should I use for body text?

At minimum 16px, though 18px is increasingly recommended as the standard for readability across all devices. If your target audience includes older users, go larger. The days of 12px body text are long gone — screens have got bigger and expectations for readability have increased.

Do fonts affect my website's SEO?

Indirectly, yes. Google's Core Web Vitals include metrics like Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which can be affected by fonts loading and causing text to reflow. Slow-loading fonts can also hurt your page speed scores. More importantly, poor typography increases bounce rates because visitors leave if content is hard to read — and bounce rate signals to Google that your page isn't meeting user needs.

Can I use the same fonts my logo uses on my website?

It depends on the font licence. Many logo fonts are desktop licences that don't cover web use. Check the licence terms before using them on your website. If the font isn't available for web use, ask your designer to suggest a similar web-safe alternative that maintains brand consistency.

Next Steps

Typography is one piece of the design puzzle. Pair it with thoughtful colour choices, solid UX design principles, and a mobile-first approach to create a website that genuinely works for your business.

If you'd like help choosing the right typography and design for your website, get in touch for a free consultation.